The entire team mobbed Alex as they celebrated the David Ball penalty that tied up the game, many of whom he has known for nearly a decade.
Alex says, “It’s been 10 years of hard work here, a fantastic time. We’ve had some of these lads since they were nine and the imports have been superb as well, it was a wonderful night.”
The young Blues were behind after just six minutes after Ryan McGivern’s unlucky own goal, which Alex admits forced a rethink of the team’s tactics.
“We had worked on staying tight and narrow, on closing the game down and hitting on the counter, but that didn’t quite work. We changed to 4-3-3 after 20 minutes, and it worked well.
“The lads played so well, and some of them were on their knees by the end of the game. It wasn’t a case of who to bring off, more which one of several.
“We just had to weather the storm, it was one of those kind of nights. Someone once said that the opposition will always dominate at some point in a match, and I thought we coped with that very well in both ties.”
The noise generated by the nearly 20,000 strong crowd also played its part, and Alex is hopeful that the lads can now go on to secure the national league title, which first will see a play-off against Sunderland.
“The fans were fantastic and we’re delighted that we’ve brought some silverware, because the Club really needed it.
“I hope we can win the league title, we gave the lads Thursday off because they were in college then we’ll be back in on Friday and start working towards that.”
Highlights and reaction from the win are now available on MCFCTV.com.
