When Chesterfield came within a whisker of an FA Cup final 25 years ago

It wasn’t until Jon Howard bumped into Martin Tyler after the match that he realised what had happened. The Chesterfield forward had come within one wave of the linesman’s flag from entering English football folklore. But instead of scoring the goal that would send a third-tier side to the FA Cup final for the first time in the modern era, Howard was consigned to being a nearly man in the ultimate “what if” story.

The Spireites had been on the verge of beating Premier League side Middlesbrough in the 1997 FA Cup semi-final, two goals and a man up after Vladimir Kinder had been dismissed for picking up two bookings. Boro had pulled one back through Fabrizio Ravanelli, but Howard looked to have restored the two-goal cushion when his close-range shot smashed the underside of the crossbar and appeared to bounce over the line, only for referee David Elleray not to award the goal.

To the watching TV audience at home, the replays suggested Howard and his Chesterfield teammates had suffered an injustice, just as history beckoned. Not that the striker was aware at the time. “I didn’t realise it had crossed the line until someone came into the dressing room after the game and said it looked over,” the 50-year-old recalls. “Then outside the dressing room, I saw Martin Tyler who was there commentating for Sky and he said, ‘your shot went over the line, you know?’ and then there’s that ‘oh wow, that’s unbelievable’ feeling.”

Twenty-five years on, in an era of goal-line technology and almost-instant video replays beamed on to stadium screens, it’s hard to believe it took so long for the players to realise what had happened. Although looking back at YouTube clips of the incident now, it’s easy to see why there was some uncertainty.

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