Battling Well Proved That Life Must Go On After Phil

Jan 13 2008 Gordon Waddell

A LINE had to be drawn. The game had to become a game again. Not a haven for sorrow.

And if this tie was the 90 minutes needed to end the grieving and signal the start to life after Phil O'Donnell, he would have loved every minute. It began and finished with poignancy and poise - and in between gave us a hell-for-leather hour-and-a-half that renewed your faith in football as the great healer.

From the moment Well fans unfurled their own tribute before kick-off to the man they lost only two weeks ago, to the sight of his nephew David Clarkson, scarf aloft, thanking all 3,200 of them after one of the gutsiest fightbacks in memory, you could feel the emotion grabbing at your insides.

It must have carried them back. Now they have to find the mental strength to go one better in the Fir Park replay. And if their fans do the same job they did here, they'll have a chance.

At five to three the supporters unveiled a 40-foot high Well strip, O'Donnell along the top, the No.10 pride of place in the centre - and the words 'Brave as a Lion' inscribed along the bottom.

Watch the 1991 Scottish Cup Final if you want to know what those words mean. It was Ally McCoist who said it.

One each, O'Donnell's grafting, grafting, grafting his way through to a ball that was never his, gets there against the odds and it's 2-1. The Steelmen never went behind again.

The man in the commentary box knew what it meant - and he knew what it had taken to get there. That's why the words mean so much.

The Well fans will have heard it a lot in the past couple of weeks. Tragedy does that to you. Sends you to the refuge of your memory.

And there's no single greater memory in theminds of theWell fans than watching THAT final and THAT moment against Dundee United.

What they needed to know was whether a team without Uncle Phil had it in them to repeat it.

It was always the big question, wasn't it? A team who have thrilled all season, whose stability in their starting 11 has been their strength.

Would Phil's death galvanise them, give them the extra yard to turn a good season into a great one?

Or would it knock them for six, leave a hole just too big to fill? One game will never tell us that - especially when it is the hardest game most of these guys will ever play.

The tone for their return was spot on. Once again Mark McGhee has to take a huge amount of credit for that.

All week they have agonising over what they should do when the team huddled up before the game. They talked about a dignified silence.

But the Motherwell manager knew the score. He knew this was Scottish Cup Saturday, a day for mayhem.

There were enough reminders of Phil's presence there.

No-one was forgetting. From the autograph embroidered across every Well player's chest to the fitting and heart-tugging image on the cover of every programme.

Everyone knew the ultimate show of respect would be to treat the tie the way it should be treated.

McGhee said on Friday night he wanted nothing less than both sets of fans roaring their teams on from the moment they set foot on the pitch.

His little speech hit the spot - another tick in the right boxes he has been filling for a fortnight.

And that's exactly the way it went. The Well huddle was poignant, perfect. Even the subs were part of it.

The Hearts players formed a respectful guard of honour at the centre circle. And the fans gave it up, big time.

It was exactly what everyone needed. Still special - the ethereal mist clouding the lights, the dusting of frost coating the pitch.

But more than that, after the two weeks just gone by yesterday's game FELT like a cup match. It was played like a cup game as well. No quarter asked, even less given.

The thing is, hard as it was for Well to be back in the game, it wouldn't have been easy for the Jambos either - but this is football.

No-one gets the high ground of a win for nothing. It has to be earned.

And both sides earned another 90 minutes. Hearts were better for an hour, no question. But from somewhere deep down - maybe even on high - Well found the fortitude.

And no-one would grudge Chris Porter his double or Well another crack at the Jambos. And the great thing?

The replay will be another 90 minutes of the same.

Which is perfect. Because aswe found out yesterday, life goes on - and football goes on.