Jumping James Says He Was Told: ‘Get Off Free-Kicks!’

The striker’s brilliant goal, one of two he scored on Saturday, saw to Ebbsfleet in the National League play-off semi-final.

They now face Boreham Wood - and hope to go one better than they did against Forest Green last season.

Norwood, though, came clean and said maybe he shouldn’t have been standing over the ball after all!

“Our assistant manager said ‘get in the box’ when we won the free-kick so I had a little chuckle to myself when it went in!” Norwood told BT Sport.

“Ebbsfleet made it tough for us, we shot ourselves in the foot for the two goals and we did it the hard way but these games are all about taking your chances.

“But we had enough quality to kick on and go on and get two goals. It turned out well in the end.

“We knew they had a tough game on Wednesday night, going all the way to penalties so we thought we would have an advantage if we kept at them and we did that.

“It feels no better being back at Wembley yet - if we go there and don’t turn up then we’re back to square one but we have a lot of confidence.”

Micky Mellon was also very quick to play down the importance of Saturday’s 4-2 win.

He said: “It’s great but it’s only the first step. There’s an awful lot of work to do, we’re not going to get carried away.

“Credit to Ebbsfleet, but credit to our team too. We came from behind twice. It shows guts and it shows the character we’ve got.

“It was a great advert for the division and now we have to make sure we do when we need to do over the next seven days.”