By Brian Bennett | Photo: Ian Brodie
Cam Gascoigne’s long range winner five minutes from the end of extra time – and after another pulsating encounter against Bishop Auckland – sent Ashington through to the next round of the Emirates FA Cup on Tuesday night.
And the 22 year old midfielder revealed afterwards that he ran straight to Andy Coyles to celebrate after he had scored – following an earlier exchange of messages between the pair earlier in the day!
“Andy sent me a similar type of goal scored by Frank Lampard for England in the Euros from a few years back and said: ‘I want you to score one like this tonight’ so when I did I thought ‘he’s called it!” It was a good strike and I was proud of it. After I scored I can’t remember what was going through my head. I didn’t know what to do so I just turned and headed for the bench! It’s definitely one of the best goals of my career what with the occasion and coming so late in extra time and after a tough first game on Saturday. We were away from home and desperate to get through into the next round but yes, it’s definitely up there as being one of my best!”
Gateshead-born Gascoigne continued: “I had had a few efforts in the game which didn’t quite come off so i thought for this one, concentrate and pick my spot and just try and get as good a connection as possible. I saw a gap on the left side and I’ve hit the ball with my right foot towards that direction and it went in.”
He went on: “To be honest, I thought we were heading towards penalties. The lads have grafted non stop for the last eight days after three very tough games – Bishop Auckland are a very good side and know how to play the game well – and we’ve had to work very, very hard for everything we got. But I must say aside from the goal, during the last five minutes we had Jon Shaw and Si Jakab winning every header and those are things which go unnoticed but win you games and I thought every single player on our team was outstanding tonight.
Ashington are away to Congleton in the FA Trophy on Saturday and Gascoigne says he will be back down to earth from cloud nine: “We move onto our next game because we want to get through in the FA Trophy and it’s the old cliche of taking one game at a time,” he added, “After that, we have a quick turnover with a league game against Dunston on Bank Holiday Monday. We’ll savour tonight then it’s back to training on Thursday.”