Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images “It was like a balloon got punctured,” says Kevin Smith. “It was all suddenly very subdued.” Last weekend he was sitting in the stands watching his beloved York City when bad news filtered through from 200 miles away in Essex. Rochdale had scored a 99th-minute winner at Braintree Town, putting York’s promotion hopes on ice.  That late, devastating goal has set up something remarkable this Saturday lunchtime (25 April): a winner-takes-all clash between the two best teams in English non-league football. By a quirk of the fixture list, York travel to Rochdale in what is being billed as the biggest game in the history of the National League, the fifth tier of English football. The game is attracting media interest all over the world, not just because of the stakes of the match itself, but because football in England at every level is in remarkable health, a counter-weight to a national mood of doom and gloom.…