ON the morning of the final, Duncan Shearer, Steve White and myself took ourselves off for a walk around Hyde Park.

I remember seeing Speaker’s Corner for the first time and it helped to ease the nerves seeing all those people spout off – it was quite funny.

You always have a few nerves before a game – you need to, I don’t think it’s normal not too. But we always had our family and friends coming to the game and you obviously also want to do well for the football club – you don’t want to disappoint them or the fans.

Having the nerves before the game gives you that edge and once you step on to the pitch you don’t want to let the occasion get to you.

Ossie (Ardiles) was just like he normally was before the match, his pre-match talk was just ‘play, play, play’.

He never worried about the opposition. Nowadays you’ve got scouts out watching every set piece, not Ossie, his attitude was to always focus on ourselves and not the opposition.

Had we won the game 5 or 6-0 I don’t think anyone would have been able to complain. I think they only had one shot, Gabbiadini scuffed one across the face of the goal.

But we also needed our strikers (Shearer and White) who had scored so many in the season to score, but they missed two or three between.

I had a shot and I thought that it was in, but Tony Norman managed to sneak a leg out to keep it from going in.

When the final whistle went we were all elated, Ossie came on the pitch and hugged us all – that is when you realise what you have just done.

I’m hopefully going to be there on Sunday, if I’m not then I’ll be watching on the TV and rooting for Swindon and hopefully they can get back to where they belong.