They hadn't played competitive league football since November, their home gate is no more than 400 and they were representatives of a tier that had not appeared in this final for 40 years. At the end of football's longest winter, Hornchurch, the dream-makers, delivered something to make your heart soar.
There are too many individual stories to relate them all. Rickie Hayles, the centre half: a plasterer who kept remembering with disbelief in recent weeks that he would be in a Wembley final. Liam Nash, the striker: a builder whose previous club had been expelled from the Gibraltar league. This team came from behind in seven of the rounds to lift the trophy.