During the 90-91 season I was living in Paris, and hurried out of the office around 10 o'clock every Monday morning to buy a Daily Telegraph which not only gave goalscorers etc on Conference matches, but also had a couple of paragraphs on the league games that Saturday.
Since Christmas our unbeaten run had changed from being something of statistical interest, to my dawning realisation in the shadow of the Arc de Triopmhe that we had a real chance of winning the league. It was a 4 horse race between Kettering (who were miles clear top at one point), Barnet, Colchester United (relegated from Division 4 the season before) and ourselves.
A 2-2 home draw with Colchester in January, with a last minute equaliser was followed at the end of that month by McKennas famous last minute Moss Lane winner against Kettering and the Easter weekend at the end of March saw a brilliant 4-1 trouncing of Barnet followed by Easter Monday's 1-1 draw at Kettering.
3 weeks later came the last big hurdle - the visit to Layer Road. I still remember my nervousness in picking up the paper that Monday morning and opening it to discover we had got a point with a 1-1 draw with Nicky Daws scoring for Alty. And there was a quarter page match report, including a photo of celebrating Kingy and players. The whole tone of the report was 10 years of injustice seems to have been laid to rest as it now looked certain that Alty would be taking their well deserved place in the football league.
And the smile on my face that Monday morning reflected that. Little did I know - little did any of us know - that the draw at Colchester represented the High Water Mark of our progress and that for many years the tide would be heading in the opposite direction.
We are on our way back - but in the intervening 25 years the world has changed.
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First visit to Colchester
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