Former Blues midfielder Cole Skuse’s Bury Town secured promotion from the Isthmian League North Division via a dramatic 93rd-minute goal from another ex-Portman Road man, Ed Upson, as they beat Brightlingsea Regent 1-0 in the play-off final yesterday afternoon.
The game looked set to go to an additional half-hour when 35-year-old Upson, who while still a schoolboy famously scored an extra-time winner for Town’s U18s against Southampton to claim the 2005 FA Youth Cup, curled a left-footed strike into the top corner of the net.
Skuse, who as a player won promotion from League One with his local side Bristol City, says the feeling as a manager isn’t quite the same.
"It's so different,” he told Suffolk News. "The feeling is so, so different. Even the preparation, it's so different. Because you're overseeing a group of men, you're overseeing a a group of players, you feel that extra sense of responsibility.
"But in terms of achievements, look, I was very, very fortunate I was one of a small percentage within the football world to get promotion with my boyhood club, Bristol City.
"That feeling would be incredibly tough [to beat] because it's my boyhood club. I’d gone through the youth team ranks throughout.
"But, this is so surreal. It’s so pleasing because you're overseeing so many moving parts in the group.
"You know what the group have sacrificed and I know what I’ve sacrificed so it’s up there in what I’ve done in football.”
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Skuse says with Bury-born Upson, whose career after a handful of senior appearances for Town took him to Yeovil, Millwall, MK Dons, Bristol Rovers, Newport and Stevenage, a late winner was always on the cards.
"You can never [think it’s going to go to extra-time] as long as you got people on the pitch like that, like Ed, and they've [Brightlingsea] got it within their group as well,” he added.
"You knew it was going to take a moment of magic because of how tight the game was. I thought they were slightly the better side if I'm being honest, but it always felt we were going to be split by a moment of brilliance, a moment of genius.
"And for all of the people within our group, and this is no disrespect to anyone else, but the certain individual you want at that moment in the game would be Ed. Wow. He shows composure beyond belief. And to finish the way he finished there, it's a stroke of genius almost.
"I was almost prepping myself and thinking about substitutes for extra-time and who to bring on and off, but then Ed does that. It’s a great goal.”
Among those in the Brightlingsea line-up was Walker Shabazz-Edwards, the young centre-half who signed for Town from Regent in March following a trial and was then loaned back to the Essex side.
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