The football season grinds on and to
keep people's interest, last night Swindon Town and Sheffield United
shared a 5-5 draw, with an eventual win overall for the Robins, 7-6
in their two leg play-off, the highest aggregate since play offs
began in 1987.
It is worth catching the goals on TV if
you haven't seen it. Nigel Clough and Chris Morgan look shattered.
During the first play offs in 1987 and
1988 the teams involved were made up from the three clubs in the
lower division not qualifying directly for promotion and the one club
above the automatic relegation places in the division above.
It took the league two seasons to
reduce the number of teams in the top tier from 22 to 20, with three
divisions of 24 below. In 1987, Charlton Athletic won their
“relegation play off” and stayed up.
Naturally the play-offs are do or die
and so there have been some big scores in these games.
In a 2000 semi-final Ipswich beat
Bolton 5-3, having drawn 2-2 in the first leg. Total goals 12.
In the 2003 League 2 play off
semi-final, Lincoln City beat Scunthorpe 5-3 at home and 1-0 away.
and in 2007 Lincoln lost 3-5 to Bristol
Rovers and 4-7 overall in the League 2 semi-final. Ricky Lambert
scored for Rovers after 11 minutes.
In 1998 Charlton and Sunderland shared
8 goals in their play off final with Charlton winning 7-6 on
penalties and getting promoted to the Premier League. This was
arguably one of the most exciting games in the play off history.
Crewe Alexandra beat Walsall 9-3 in
their two legs in 1993, playing for promotion from the Third
Division. They met York City, who came 4th in the league
who had to go through the “play-offs drama”. In the final at
Wembley, Alexandra lost on pens after a relatively drab 1-1 draw.
York quite rightly were promoted, but did get to play in front of over
22,000 at the national stadium.
In 1987, Gillingham and Sunderland
ended up 6-6 over two legs in the Division 2 semi-final sent the
Black Cats to Division Three; hard to imagine!
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