News was circulating aroudn Millmoor that Colchester had just taken the lead against the Millers promotion rivals Reading, then after being behind in the game, Kevin Watson passed to Alan Lee who turned and sent a low shot into the Brentford goal.
A goal which would send little Rotherham United into the 'Championship' with clubs like West Ham, Manchester City and our rivals from Sheffield.. A moment that all Millers fans there will keep with them for ever.
Meanwhile, on Radio Sheffield, Gerry Somerton and Brian Chapple were making one of the Radio commentarys which will get played over and over thousands of times.
Brian who is now one of the clubs directors looked back and told todays 'Tiser; "It was one of the totally memorable moments in my life, People still talk to me about it, even though I went to the rugby club for a number of years and I didn’t go to Rotherham United games because of my commitments. They still laugh about the Alan Lee moment."
“A lot of the fans loved it and I still get messages and the radio commentary at the end has even had 34,000 hits on Youtube, I didn’t even know it was on there! I find that remarkable."
“I remember it was a game we had to win and that a lot of other things had to go right for us before we could be promoted. Reading were at Colchester and they were losing and then everything dropped perfectly into place. It was a scriptwriter’s dream."
“Luke Wileman came from Radio Sheffield that day and I was going to do half the commentary and he was planning to do the other half with Gerry the summariser. Usually, the full-time staff usually get the second half of each half, when there’s most excitement and tension in a game. I couldn’t object because I was only freelance and did as I was told."
"But Luke said that it was a potentially significant game and he wanted me to do the endings of each half. Normally I wouldn’t have had that chance. Luke would have done it really well and professionally. I think I did it from a fan’s view."
“One of the comments I had afterwards was that the commentary and the noise when that goal went in was exactly how the fans felt. It was a tense game. Stuart Talbot scored but Lloyd Owusu equalised and became really nervy, especially as we became aware that Reading were losing. Then of course Alan Lee scored and I think it was Gerry who started it. He went absolutely ape****. He was shouting while I was trying to talk and eventually I got out what I had to say."
“The scenes afterwards were amazing. I went down to the pitch to find Ronnie and he’d lost his phone in the chaos. I went in the changing rooms and they threw water over me even though I had all the electric equipment."
“At the end of the season, Adrian Chiles, who has obviously gone on to bigger and better things, used to do a Saturday sports programme on the BBC and they had a commentary of the season competition—and even though there were entries from all over the world we ended up winning the thing! I think it was just because it was different."
“I get excited now just thinking about it...it really was something very special.”