It’s difficult to know where to start with this; just how do you sum up one of the greatest days in your football club’s history?

As the final whistle blew on Sunday I couldn’t help but to allow the tears run down my face. I had been dreaming of this moment for as long as I could remember. I had always fanaticised about winning the FA Cup when I was younger and now that dream was one step closer.

The first FA Cup fixture I can recall was the 1-0 win against West Bromwich Albion back in 2003, it was my first real taste of a giant killing. The big boys of the Premier League rocking up at Vicarage Road, just to be stunned by a Heidar Helguson winner. That game of course was the second on our run to the semi-finals that year. I can recall Tommy Smith’s retaken penalty up at Sunderland and Stephen Glass’ famous free-kick against Burnley in front of the Rookery End to seal our quarter-final victory.

The match against Southampton at Villa Park was my first semi-final, again I don’t remember too much, I was only 10 at the time, but there are still little snippets of the day that I can recall such as the teams walking out the tunnel and Marcus Gayle’s consolation goal at the end.

As I look back over my time as a Watford fan it seems odd that I can remember snapshots of our semi-final 16 years ago, but not to certain games say maybe two or three seasons ago. I guess that’s likely down to the occasion, for an FA Cup semi-final is a little bit more high profile than a regular league fixture against say Barnsley (sorry, Tykes!). It was a one-off game and whilst we went on to lose I was perhaps a little too young to appreciate how big a game it was in our history, to a 10-year-old I would have thought reaching cup semi-finals and finals would be the norm. Oh how foolish I was.

As time went on semi-finals came and went. I remember the 2007 semi-final purely because I wasn’t there and instead at my Grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, of course I wore my Watford shirt to the dinner party. And then of course there was the damp squib of the semi-final against Crystal Palace in 2016, the less said about that one the better.

The semi-final this season however felt a little bit different. It’s very hard to describe, but football fans will know what I mean when I say I woke up on match day with that feeling you get where you just know it’s going to be your day. You can’t explain it; you just, know.

Watford weren’t experiencing their second-half-of-thes-season downturn in form like they have done since promotion to the Premier League and the whole togetherness surrounding not just the players and management but the club as a whole, meant we were coming into this game with a real sense of optimism despite the inevitable nerves.

You all know the story; 2-0 down with 12 minutes to go and then Deulofeu produced *that* bit of magic before Deeney did what Deeney does best. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in the group of Watford fans who had given up all hope when Wolves scored their second.

As Deulofeu netted his second and Watford’s third in extra-time it was almost impossible to believe the turnaround we had just witnessed. I felt physically sick as the full-time whistle approached. I had a headache, I could hardly speak, my heart was almost pounding out of my chest, but we had done it.

As the referee ended the game, I was completely shell-shocked. I had imagined watching Watford reaching an FA Cup final when I was younger but had never envisaged feeling the way I did at the end. There were tears everywhere you looked, shocked faces, hugs between strangers, it was an incredible feeling.

Only now that the dust has settled and I’ve been able to watch the highlights for the 100th time over has it truly sunk in what we’ve achieved. As I made my way into work earlier this week it occurred to me what this all meant.

I wasn’t around in 1984, in fact I was barely even a concept. My parents had just got engaged (I’ll spare them the embarrassment of uploading their engagement photo) and so having their second child was a good eight years away. I’ll often scroll through the Watford archives, a treasure trove of wonders, sometimes to find a memorable ‘On This Day’ snippet, perhaps to look up previous results against our next opponents or sometimes even just to pass the time. I always say that if I could go back in time to any decade it would be the 80’s, not only to witness GT’s Watford side reach the First Division, play in Europe and make their first FA Cup Final, but the music scene wasn’t too bad either. And this past week I wondered what it must have felt like for those fans at Villa Park in 1984, after we had just beaten Plymouth Argyle in the semi-final to reach our first ever FA Cup final. I wondered if they felt the exact same as I did at Wembley on Sunday.

Whenever I see someone upload a photo from that day on social media, or comment on a video or simply even talk about it in the stands; there’s never any bitterness. We all know Andy Gray’s goal should have been disallowed, but 35 years on that day is always looked back on with such immense pride at what we achieved.

And what struck me when I thought of this in that in 35 years’ time, if I’m lucky enough to still be around, I’ll be sharing these stories with the future Watford generations who aren’t fortunate enough to witness it.

It’s not just going to be the upcoming FA Cup Final though. The against-all-odds promotion in 2006, how we came so close to administration in 2009 and pulled ourselves out of danger to this club who played the most incredible football under Zola, scored one of the craziest goals in history against Leicester, the automatic promotion on the south coast in 2015 now Javi Gracia’s Hornets doing something only the Great Man has ever done before.

That FA Cup comeback will be spoken about not just by Watford fans, but by football fans for years. It has gone down in history and rightly so; Watford were dead and buried. There is no way we should have been allowed to come back from that. The feeling after the game was arguably the greatest I’ve ever had as a Watford fan and I can’t wait to share that rollercoaster, that emotion with the future Watford generations and see their eyes light up.

If you’re lucky enough to be heading down Wembley Way on May 18 just remember, it could be another 35 years before we’re in this position again and there will be a younger generation of fans wishing they were alive in this day and age to have witnessed this bit of history, just like I wish I was around for 1984.

This is a truly wonderful time to be a Watford fan. Embrace it, savour it and pass on the story of how Javi Gracia’s ‘Orns defied the odds to take their place in history.

You ‘Orns!

@HornetsNestWFC