RUFC - It's the 14th of April

Rotherham United fans will have woken this morning happy and hoping that the one-nil win over Northampton last night was the first of many to get them out of League Two.

I woke to a text from fellow Vitalite, Zipadeedoodah, saying 'Happy 14th Anniversary'.

Mind blank, puzzled look then the fog slowly cleared and in my best Millers voice did a rendition of 'We're the greatest Rotherham United and we won at Wemberlee, Wemberlee, Wemberlee' - the neighbours and milkman are still getting over the singing by the way!

14th April 1996 The Auto Windscreen Trophy Final - Rotherham v Shrewsbury.


Millers fans set off down south for, what is probably for most of us, the best ever day out with Rotherham United (yet!) It started a bit strangely for me, because, as a family we'd left it to my niece to organise our transport - and she'd managed to book us all on a coach, run by the local police! We were a happy lot going down and put pictures of the Millers from newspapers all over the windows. (Though the driver refused point blank to let us put one where he sat). We stopped at motorway services going down and the place was swamped with people wearing red and white all greeting each other like lost friends.

Getting to Wembley we walked round outside and had photo's taken and then it was time to go in. I actually remember holding my breath going in and thinking 'is this real?' There was a charity game on before the proper match and Chris Evans played in it and came waving to us all - we won that as well, I seem to recall.

Then the teams came out with the Millers being led by Archie Gemmill and John McGovern. And from that time until the final whistle the Millers fans never stopped singing. The Millers won two-one with Nigel Jemson getting both goals and, at the final whistle, people who'd never met before were dancing and kissing each other, laughing and crying all at the same time. It was truly a wonderful day.

Photo's the next day in the newspapers were of Nigel Jemson holding the Auto Windscreen Trophy but the photo for me has to be Ian Breckin wearing a silly red and white hat and looking amazed!

What are your memories of that day?

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