Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon, July 1969.
People start to pull down the Berlin wall, November 1989.
One Tuesday morning in New York, September 2001.
All momentous events that often have the question "What were you doing when...?" applied to them.
Ask the same of the Mossley vs. Salford City game in October 2006 and almost to a man, or woman, those who were at Seel Park will answer, "Wishing I was somewhere else!"
If last Saturday's game was the Lord Mayor's Parade, this was the equivalent of watching the man sweeping the street afterwards. It's not that it was a bad game it was just, well... dull; unbelievably so at times. Not that that should come as a surprise for a game played under the banner of the county FA's least important senior knockout competition. To misquote a famous line from the movie industry's Holy Trilogy - "Excitement, drama, incident. The Manchester Premier Cup craves not these things."
Now if you're one of those people fortunate enough to have an excuse for doing something better last night (e.g. being on holiday, working late, suffering from the effects of chronic diarrhoea, etc) and are currently thinking that things surely weren't that bad and that I'm exaggerating, here are the highlights of the first 77 minutes of the game:
Hmm, the grass is looking... er... green!
After studying it closely for an hour, I can safely say this paint's definitely dry.
Look! I think it's grown... a bit.
And that's about as good as it got.
There's no denying that both sides were putting the effort in but much like the time an unemployed eunuch completely misread the 'people wanted for jobs' sign at the College for Fellatic Arts, there was a lot of puffing and blowing but nothing to show for it.
With the prospect of extra-time and penalties about as welcome as a letter containing a positive result from the clap clinic on the morning of your wedding, things finally took a turn for the better following the introduction of Peter Wright to proceedings. His first touch of the game was to whizz the ball just over the crossbar from an incredibly narrow angle but his second touch was better. In a carbon copy of Chris Ward's first goal against Lincoln, the ex-Chorley man looped Nicky Thompson's downfield ball over a stranded Salford keeper and shepherded it into an open net.
Suddenly, as if defib paddles had been applied, the game burst into a modicum of life. Melford Knight and Chris Ward went close to extending Mossley's lead (the former with a blistering 30 yard effort which skimmed the post) whilst at the other end Christan Cooke cleared a Salford corner off the goal line. All too quickly though the effect wore off and after another five minutes of flatlining the referee called time.
All credit to Salford though, not once did they look like a team currently plying their trade two divisions below us. However, if you're a pessimist you could also view it this way: a virtually full strength Mossley side struggled at home to beat a chopped and changed NWCL team.
However a win's a win and that's more important than performances in cup matches. Plus we avoided becoming another victim on a night of long knives in the competition for Unibond teams; Ashton United and Radcliffe both coming croppers at the hands of sides lower than Salford in the NWCL pecking order.
They say that when you're about to die, for a split second life flashes before your eyes. If I didn't fear death before, the thought of having to watch this game again whilst I meet the Reaper chills me to the bone. On the plus side though it will make that last second seem like a lifetime...
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