An impromptu game of dodgeball in the kitchen proved costly on Thursday. As I watched my son’s red and white Ajax sponge ball hit the full pint of water, time slowed down. As if poured by an invisible hand, the glass emptied its entire contents over my laptop, before rolling off the table to produce a mighty crack and shower of glass everywhere. That’s why on Saturday I was watching the Watford game on the home PC in our little office room, rather than wired up to the telly. It turned out to be quite an exciting little bunker on the final day of our fabulous season.

The nearest footballing team of any significance in my locality is Derby County. On Saturday, it was a must win game for the Rams and their manager, Wayne Rooney, to stay in our division. Being in that position on the final day, as we well know from last year’s trip to Arsenal, is a vomit-inducing prospect. I was keen to keep an eye on things happening at the bottom of the table as much as I wanted to cheer the golden boys on to potentially 59 home points, and a 22^nd clean sheet of the season.

So, Hive Live set up on the home PC, final score on the phone, hidden away from marauding kids and ready for some lunchtime drama – the good kind, where nothing very bad can happen to your own team.  I felt very good about our chances today even though we hadn’t managed to win a game on the final day for about a decade. A Swansea win would complete the only double against us all season, but their recent form didn’t make them good candidates to steal all six points. After the poor showing at Brentford, I expected some statement of intent from the home side. Watch our Premier League – here we come…

The team sheet rather took the wind from my sails. It included plenty of squad players whose performances this year I have been quite unkind about. The likes of Navarro and Lazaar in our full-back positions. Success and Gray leading the line. Suddenly our chances of keeping a clean sheet to equal the Championship all-time record low of 30 goals conceded (set by Reading in the 2005/06 campaign) looked far-fetched. Even the change in goal, with super Ben coming in, and the centre-half pairing of Cathcart and Kabasele, looked vulnerable, if for no other reason than they were simply not the very consistently dependable trio of Bachmann, Sierralta and Troost-Ekong. Still, at least we didn’t need to win to stay up.

There were fireworks and flame-throwers before the kick-off. Streamers too, that rose and rippled in the air, eventually tangling up in the roof of the stands. Elton John was in attendance with David Furnish and their sons, who looked very up for their visit to the Vic – a couple of die-hard hornets fans in the making by the looks of it. But for all the flames and stardust, what this game needed was a bunch of 22,000 jolly, jumping, singing, barmy, bouncing, singing, flag-waving supporters to cheer the team’s success. This would have been a day to relax, enjoy the beer and camaraderie, and not worry too much about our brittle full-backs.

The very opposite feelings would have been resonating around a full Pride Park. A sick feeling in the pit of the stomach. The utter helplessness. The praying for some luck, or some guts on show, or some miraculous reversal of fortunes to stave off the drop. Tears on the menu – of joy, or despair – get the hankies ready. Derby’s opponents Sheffield Wednesday could only escape the drop with a win. A draw would only be good enough for Derby if Rotherham failed to beat Cardiff away. Wycombe, victims of an inferior goal difference, would need to score about a hundred goals away at Middlesboro to be in the mix. The end of the season came a week early for them – despite a tremendous 0-3 victory away on Teeside, which lifted them off the bottom of the table, the miracle did not happen.

Back to the sunny Vic, with nothing much to play for except equalling league records, pride, and beating our tally of points last time we were promoted (89 points, one behind Bournemouth). We fashioned a great early chance in the 4^th minute after Kabasele had brought the ball out of defence on a long, unchallenged stroll. He found Gosling, who set the scurrying mister Sema down the left wing to produce a great cross, steered just wide of the near post by Zinckernagel. Encouraging stuff.

Swansea took a little longer to thaw, but with Ayew on the pitch, always looking to create shooting opportunities, it didn’t take them long to register an effort on target. It was indeed the Swansea number 10 who forced Ben into a near-post block to concede a 7^th minute corner, from which our ex-England keeper clawed away a wicked Hourihane delivery.

The last time Foster’s go-pro camera was positioned in our net was in the reverse fixture, when Jamal Lowe took pleasure in addressing it directly having stuck a winner past The Cycling Goalkeeper. Lowe has since looked much less of a proposition in the league, but I did hope the re-emergence of the in-goal camera would not trigger him back into form. I needn’t have worried.

The 11^th minute found Sema unmarked in the Swans’ box but his shot was deflected. The Swede recycled the ball and fed the galloping Gosling who couldn’t connect as he sped into the area. Navarro could, a little further out, but lashed his drive into a host of white bodies. Gosling, typically, was winning possession back off Ayew in his own penalty area a minute later, which set the team forward-looking again. This time Sanchez provided for Lazaar who skillfully chested down the ball and – instead of blazing wastefully over, or bringing his man down – cut back and played a considered square ball across the six yard area, blocked for a corner. It was not to be the last bit of good play from Lazaar, who seemed to have his head switched on to compliment his evident technical and physical merits. Who else but Gosling dashed in to attack the corner, even if his effort was skied harmlessly over.

Swansea’s brand of possession-based football, hitherto under wraps, began to emerge. Hourihane, an excellent January loan signing from Villa, shot consummately after some neat, quick passing. Foster dived alertly to his left to keep it out. Swansea took questionable advantage from a re-start, following a hand injury to Success, and had it not been for some last-ditch defending in our six-yard box, might have scored. Watford players were not happy, but Swansea pressed on sensing our heads were turned, and Cullen headed narrowly wide from a Bidwell cross moments later.

From a Watford perspective, the well ran a bit dry as the half progressed, with the final ball never reaching its intended target, which for the most part was a very frustrated Andre Gray. Andre was making the runs time and time again, only for Gosling to play the ball against his heels in the 24^th minute, and Zinckernagel to play one behind him in the 27^th. Zinckernagel’s neat turn produced a very wayward shot in the 39^th minute, trumped by Sema’s right-footed effort that ended up further away from the goal on the opposite touchline.

Back in Derby, the Rams were losing 1-0, and Rotherham winning 1-0, which would see Rotherham safe, and both the teams battling at Pride Park down. It looked curtains for Wayne’s team. It sounded like they were playing well and throwing everything at Wednesday, but when things aren’t going your way…

How often does the start of a book, or film, promise little, but then gradually sink its hooks into you? Well, the second half in both games delivered plenty of hooks. At the Vic, it was to be a tale of vindication, a battle through adversity to success – we could call it Striker’s Redemption. A story of missed chances and efforts unrewarded until hard work, and longevity, pay off.

Andre Gray persisted with his forward runs, even if he must have despaired three minutes after the re-start when Isaac played a through ball with such a heavy touch it could have come from Nigel Planer’s Neil in The Young Ones. Success overhit another one to Gray on a counter-attack in the 53^rd minute, and even I winced at that one.

A minute later Lazaar, playing more like Lazarus (where had these new-found skills come from?)  –  intercepted a Swansea attack in his own box and marauded forward, looking for his redemptive moment too. He laid the ball off to Isaac and Andre, who both went, and checked, and eventually stopped in their tracks, as the ball rolled away apologetically. This is the pivotal scene where all hope seems lost. The main characters are overcome with despair, regret and a good deal of hatred towards those who have thwarted them. If this is an art-house movie, we end here. If it is Hollywood, we demand fairy-tales.

It’s the 56^th minute and Andre is on another run, having re-doubled his efforts to win back possession near the half-way line, busting a gut to be in there again, to be hurt again – no, why is he doing this to himself? Sema, who had just one minute before cut a brilliant ball back into an unoccupied  Swansea area, went again. This time his cross would not be unmet. This time Andre’s run would not be in vain. The ball cannoned off our front man’s chest, maybe shoulder, and rippled the Rookery End’s netting. Gray had more than earned that piece of good fortune. American audiences would be whooping in the cinema, us Brits perhaps clutching a loved one’s arm and sniffing into the pop-corn. And then a small child turns to its mother and asks poignantly – but what’s going to happen to poor Isaac?

And what was going to happen to poor Derby. Boy, had they been poor this season for a team always expected to challenge for at least a play-off berth. Well, shortly after Ben Foster had spread himself excellently to deny Ayew, and Lazaar had produced a Zidane-like tackle and charging forward run, evading three or four challenges on his way down the pitch, Derby were in front. Their go-to man Martin Waghorn had turned the game on its head and Wednesday looked sunk. Rotherham were still one nil up at Cardiff, but it no longer mattered. Rooney’s boys were in the box seat.

The Watford game was unplugged as a contest in the 65^th minute with a raft of substitutions. Swansea had been brave, or perhaps foolish, to play such a strong eleven considering the upcoming play-offs, but now Cooper decided to let one strong hand go of the balloon. He took off Grimes, Lowe, Cullen and Ayew, for Routledge, Smith, Cooper and Dhanda. We hiked Zinckernagel and Sanchez, for Pedro and fresh from the barber’s chair Hughes. Jan Dhanda clearly had something to prove, causing plenty of mischief for Navarro to deal with. In the 68^th minute he crossed teasingly for a Cooper chance, then forced Foster into a save cutting in on his right foot.

Now there’s a late introduction from an Oscar-winner, to a standing ovation and whoops from that US cinema crowd. It could be Tom Hanks, or Morgan Freeman. In the UK, perhaps Dame Helen Mirren might inspire some fervent sighing, Sir Ian McKellan might rouse the half-asleep to shuffle upright and look appreciatively at their neighbour. Troy Deeney, box office dynamite, steps back on the pitch for 16 minutes of good old-fashioned feel-good closure. But mummy, what about poor Isaac?

Back in Derbyshire, the Rams faithful are now understanding why this game had been given an 18 certificate. It was in fact a horror movie. Sheffield Wednesday, 1-0 up and 2-1 down, had found their own brand of final day death-defying arousal. Like zombies from the churchyard, they had stumbled their way through a brittle Derby rear-guard, not once, but twice, to lead 3-2. You could hear the screams from every living room and outside bar space in the vicinity. Young children were ushered away from screens and radio commentary, to limit the psychological scarring.

Back in laid-back Hertfordshire, the hornets were doing enough to preserve their clean sheet. Lazaar continued to tackle like Moore, Sema put crosses in, and Deeney soaked in attention. Dhanda continued to pester late on, smashing a shot into his colleague Cooper’s face. Routledge chanced one that deflected off a close-in-attendance Kabasele. Swansea were racking up the corners, but Hughes, like a new battery in an old toy, began tackling for fun and kicking some ass.

In the 84^th minute, the game’s left-back sub-plot almost delivered a perfect conclusion. Masina came on with Wilmot, Gosling and Sema making way, pushing Lazaar forward into midfield. After a neat interchange between Pedro and Deeney, Achraf nearly got the goal his performance deserved with a Mark Hughes strength strike that stung the palms of Woodman as he tipped it over. But mummy – sssh I said!!

Meanwhile, back at the horror show, Martin Waghorn, appraising a Martin Freeman kind of average-man-hero role, had levelled things up at 3-3 with a bravely taken penalty into the top left corner. With 12 minutes to go, and Rotherham still winning, both sides were set to perish with a stalemate result. Both teams needed the win to give them any hope, although all hopes appeared lost. Desperate, bloodied, and with limbs hanging off, could either team escape the reaper?

With two minutes to play, Navarro plays a long ball down the right channel over Bidwell’s head. Success is still on the pitch, even though Gray has been subbed, his plotline neatly squared off. Isaac watches the ball come over his shoulder. Spielberg wants this in ultra slow-mo, from fifty angles, single blades of grass pirouetting in the air, a sense of time caught in a vacuum of possibility. And, action!

Isaac watches the ball bounce and reaches it perfectly in his stride. There is no Andre to over-hit a pass to. He will have to grab destiny by the throat and smash it. His first-time hit of the gently descending ball roars  across Woodman whose fingers make contact but can’t prevent a sumptuous goal in the far top corner. The large Cokes are flying, lids off, strangers are hugging and children are feeling emotions they didn’t know existed. Elton’s youngsters are bouncing off the chairs and punching the air.

At Pride Park, there seems no way out for either team. Until, in the 88^th minute, from Cardiff, an equaliser against Rotherham. Ah the cruelty of football – the beauty! Now, with Rotherham sunk, Derby are going to stay up, unless Wednesday can steal a winner which would see them safe instead. Rooney brings the unfit but immensely experienced Curtis Davies into the Derby defence to resist the final Sheffield push, and after 7 minutes of extra time it is enough. Derby stay up. Wednesday live to rue their 6 point deduction. Rotherham, minutes from staying in the division, have fallen down the trapdoor. Wycombe, so strong in the end, finish third bottom and a single point off Derby.

Things perish, like my laptop. Like Rotherham and Wednesday’s hopes. Things come back when all seems lost: Derby County, Achraf Lazaar, and Isaac Success to name but a few. Things show immense power just to be there at all- Sol Bamba taking the field late-on in Cardiff having recovered from a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Deeney in a yellow shirt again. Things get better. Premier League football will return to Vicarage Road, and soon Boris will allow us to hug again.

This blog post, like a film that has gone on far too long, has no doubt lost a good portion of its audience along the way. For those that stayed for the final credits, thank you for watching.