‘All I remember is a silence’ – Drew Talbot recalls his Sheffield Wednesday play-off final goal

That game, unlike this one, was played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but for many supporters it doesn’t matter where it was played. What mattered was the result.

It was Wednesday’s first venture into the play-offs, doing so after a strong season under Paul Sturrock, and they needed extra time to make it past Hartlepool United and book their spot in the Championship for 2005/06.

Talbot – just 18 at the time – was brought on as part of a now famous triple substitution in the 77^th minute as they chased the game… Within five minutes he won a penalty for Steve MacLean to level it up, and then early into extra time Glenn Whelan made it 3-2.

Nails were being bitten, breath was being held, and then they saw young Talbot bearing down on Dimitrios Konstantopoulos…

“A lot of it is a big blur,” Talbot told The Star in 2020. “It didn’t really sink in for a long time... People even asked why I chased my own flick on, and to be honest, I don’t know!

“I was just trying to get as far up the pitch as possible, and I genuinely don’t remember going around the goalkeeper. All I remember is a silence, and thinking, ‘Please don’t miss it now’.

“As soon as I hit it, and if you watch the video you’ll see I turned away before the ball’s even hit the net, I knew I’d struck it well. I just remember being hit by noise, and the elation was just indescribable.

“As a young kid that, 18 months earlier, wasn’t even playing football, it was a special day.

“I’ve got a little boy now, and he’s obsessed with football - which is a problem for me because I can hardly move anymore! - and he watches it and says, ‘You know what, that was pretty good that, Dad’. And it’s nice to hear that.”