How my Tamworth teammates and I were able to go toe-to-toe with Spurs – explained with science

It’s honest to say me and my team-mates on the non-league soccer membership Tamworth FC had been fairly keyed up as we ready for our FA Cup third-round match towards Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur on January 12. We’re 96 locations under them within the soccer pecking order and all of us have day jobs (in my case as a sports activities psychology lecturer at Nottingham Trent College).

Unusually for us, we met at Drayton Manor Resort for “pre-match”, the place we might eat and chill out previous to the sport. Normally, particularly if it’s a Tuesday night time sport, it’s a manic rush to eat, put together and get your self from work to the sport. So beneath regular circumstances it’s onerous to ascertain a set pre-performance routine to concentrate on regulating arousal and nervousness ranges and construct confidence. However as somebody who teaches this type of factor for a dwelling, I’m at all times telling college students how vital it’s to arrange correctly.

On this event, although, we had been taking part in one the essentially the most well-known sides in England, if not the world, and a crew famend for being profitable in cup competitions. So the preparation was notably vital once you’re so extremely motivated and attempting to regulate your nerves and pleasure.

To the match itself. Spurs performed a robust aspect, together with England worldwide James Maddison amongst others. By all accounts, we matched Tottenham for 90 minutes, holding them to 0-0, and even having possibilities to nick the tie late on – by which case, we might have etched ourselves into FA Cup folklore.

For additional time, Spurs turned to the cavalry. They introduced on membership captain Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski – the very last thing I personally needed to see when cramp had began to set in. Spurs’ health, and the introduction of these top-quality gamers, finally noticed them break our resistance. They ended up strolling to a considerably flattering 3-0 win. It had virtually been one of many unlikeliest shocks in fashionable FA Cup historical past, however wasn’t fairly to be.

Making a match for Spurs

So why had been a component time crew, who prepare twice every week, with most gamers working full-time, capable of match worldwide footballers for 90 minutes? Undoubtedly, an vital issue was the sport being performed at Tamworth’s residence floor. A lot was product of the actual fact Tottenham’s gamers, who’re used to world class services and luxurious, needed to get modified in portacabin altering rooms.

However maybe the most important leveller of all was our synthetic 3G pitch. Most groups, even at our degree, discover it troublesome to play on in the event that they don’t use one recurrently – not to mention Spurs’ gamers, who’re used to taking part in on surfaces like grass carpets akin to a billiards desk or bowling inexperienced.

Earlier analysis has outlined residence area benefit as “the constant discovering that residence groups in sports activities competitions win over 50% of the video games performed beneath a balanced residence and away schedule”. It discovered that soccer groups whose residence video games are performed on synthetic pitches have a definite benefit.

Then there was the added motivation of it being the sport of our lives. All of us love an underdog proper? For David v Goliath, learn Tamworth v Spurs. Analysis means that when you’re labelled because the underdog it could serve to extend the emotional psyching up for the occasion and inspire the underdog to exert an excellent larger effort to attain victory.

Greater than excited about successful the tie, earlier than the match we instructed ourselves we simply needed to do our crew and our followers justice and on the very least make it aggressive. This helped us to greater than match Spurs over the course of the sport – and, for a couple of minutes no less than, consider essentially the most unlikely of wins was potential.

Again all the way down to the bottom

So, what’s subsequent for us? As I mentioned in an interview with ITV straight after the match, for me and the remainder of the gamers, it was again to the truth of labor on Monday morning. To say that was fairly a comedown is an understatement. I used to be requested by a colleague, “How are you feeling?” and I discovered myself struggling to reply, as I couldn’t actually make sense of that myself.

You usually hear the time period “post-Olympic blues” from Olympians who’ve achieved a lifetime ambition by successful a gold medal and marvel what’s subsequent – or how anything of their life will evaluate to that one momentous second.

Taking part in an FA Cup sport towards Tottenham shouldn’t be fairly in the identical stratosphere as competing on the Olympics. However I used to be requested in an interview on Monday morning if it could be the spotlight of my profession, and it was robust to course of that. For many of us within the crew, that’s prone to be the most important and greatest sport we ever play in.

The UK Sports activities Institute, which gives psychological assist to Olympic athletes, has coined the phrase “efficiency decompression” for the method of “embracing and making sense of what you’ve gone by way of at an vital competitors, after which shifting on” after an Olympic video games. Or post-Spurs, in my case.

As part-time gamers, we don’t have that likelihood to decompress. As a substitute we come crashing again all the way down to Earth with the Monday morning alarm clock. But it surely’s beginning to sink in what an achievement it was for a non-league crew like ours to not solely get to the third spherical of an FA Cup, however to greater than match Spurs for 100 minutes or so.

A surreal day, superb expertise, and one which I’m so proud to have been a part of. Recollections to final a lifetime.