Teale savours Villa Park return – and prays for penalty
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Your support makes all the difference."I know the hairs will be standing up on the back of my neck. I don't think it will hit me until I walk out on to the pitch and hear the crowd. It's going to bring back so many memories."
Those are the words of Shaun Teale, who, when he left Southport last May to become player-manager of the Lancashire village club Burscough, surely never dreamed that he would end the season at the grand old stadium where he spent the best days of his playing career.
Villa Park is the venue for today's FA Trophy final between Burscough and another team from outside the non-League top flight, Tamworth. Teale, now 39, is winding down his playing career at the club where it began.
The rugged centre-half spent six years earning bumps and bruises at the heart of Aston Villa's defence but has spent more time out of the limelight with less fashionable clubs. He started out playing for Burscough at the age of 17 and has also served Northwich, Weymouth, Bournemouth (who sold him to Villa for £300,00 in 1989), Tranmere Rovers (who spent £200,000 more than that to take him from the Birmingham side in 1995), Preston, Motherwell, Carlisle and Southport, plus Hong Kong's Happy Valley.
One highlight of Teale's playing career was being part of the Villa side who beat Manchester United 3-1 in the 1994 Coca-Cola Cup final at Wembley. In the semi-final victory over Tranmere that year, Teale had successfully converted a penalty – a feat he repeated at the last-four stage of the Trophy this year.
In the last minute of the second leg of Burscough's semi-final against Aylesbury, with the aggregate score level at one goal each, the Ryman League team conceded a spot-kick. Teale picked up the ball and waited calmly for the opposition protests to cease.
"I knew it was all over because, when we get a penalty, I never miss," Teale declared. He was not proved wrong against Aylesbury, as his spot-kick, driven straight and high into the net, took Burscough through to Villa Park. "If someone had said to me at the start of the season that we would get to the Trophy final, I would have fallen down laughing," he said.
Success at this level is an unexpected boost for Burscough, who since their formation soon after the Second World War have progressed from the Liverpool Combination to the UniBond League, which they reached in 1998.
Although Burscough beat the Trophy holders, Yeovil, 2-0 in Somerset in the quarter-finals, Tamworth will start as favourites today, having won the Dr Martens League title and promotion to the Conference. But their opponents are as tough as teak – and Teale.
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