REWIND: Championship Play-Off Finals
Leeds play Southampton at Wembley on Sunday, and we're rewinding DVDs and VHS alike to look back at special episodes of Championship Play-Off Finals.
Championship Play-Off Finals greet you like a friend travelling back from Australia for their annual catch-up in the UK. In the 12 preceding months, you see them only fleetingly in dribs and drabs on social media – all sunshine and barbecues. Then, all of a sudden, they’re back. In London. For one day only. And as you board trains or planes, tubes or taxis, those memories can’t help but find their way in.
So let’s rewind. Think back. Luxuriate. Good times and bad. Classics and not-so-classics. Broken curses. EFL legends. Sun. Songs. And, naturally, some gut-wrenching defeats. As farce, tragedy and melodrama, here are some episodes from the back catalogue of Championship Play-Off Finals.
The One Where I Discovered The Play-Offs
Charlton Athletic 4-4 (7-6p) Sunderland, 1998
Matt Watts
They say you never forget your first — and my first play-off final was a genuine hall-of-famer.
It was spring 1998. I was six years old and falling in love with football. I spent much of my free time kicking a ball about with either my friends or my dad. I had my first shirt, I’d been to a couple of games, I’d completed my first Merlin sticker album and I’d got a France ’98 game on my PS1. Football had eclipsed trains and Power Rangers, but I didn’t have any concept of what these 22 people were actually playing for — not until I watched Charlton v Sunderland in the Nationwide Division One Play-Off Final.
Sitting in the lounge on the most ’90s sofa imaginable, my tiny mind was about to be blown.
My first observation was that the match was played in front of a lot of people (almost 78,000) on an immaculate playing surface, at the old Wembley. The pitch was like a bowling green; much flatter than my bumpy Subbuteo mat.
Sunderland fan Clive Mendonca opened the scoring for Charlton midway through the first half, before Niall Quinn equalised early in the second. Kevin Phillips scored his 35th goal of the season to put the Mackems ahead, but Mendonca doubled his tally with less than 20 minutes remaining. Quinn restored Sunderland’s lead two minutes later, before Richard Rufus’ header made it 3-3, sending the game into extra time. (Speaking of time, Richard is currently serving seven and a half years of it for defrauding friends and family members.)
With just under 100 minutes on the clock, Nicky Summerbee gave Sunderland the lead for the third time, only for Mendonca to become the first player to complete a hat-trick in a play-off final. After a riveting 120 minutes of action, the game ended 4-4, so it went to a penalty shootout.
Now, I was an old hand when it came to penalties. After all, I’d taken plenty of them in the park and in the back garden. But I’d never seen an actual shootout. Quite incredibly, both teams scored their first five spot-kicks before the shootout moved to ‘sudden death’. Death? That seems a tad extreme! Unfortunately, someone had to miss, and Michael Gray’s incredibly tentative penalty was saved by Saša Ilić. Charlton had won 7-6 on penalties and would be playing ‘Premiership’ football next season.
Of course, nobody died. In fact, Sunderland amassed 105 points in the following season and were promoted as champions. Gray went on to have a very good career, including a handful of caps for England. However, on that particular afternoon, he looked like a broken man. I had witnessed the agony and the ecstasy of both football and the Play-Offs. For the first time, I realised that what happens out on that pitch really matters, to players and supporters alike.
From that moment on, I was hooked.
The One Where The Curse Struck… Again
Burnley 1-0 Sheffield United, 2009
Sam Parry
I was burnt in 2009 during a 1-0 defeat to Burnley. I had been burnt before and I would be burnt again.
The sun always shines on the loser at Wembley. The winners, too, but I wouldn’t know about that, being a Blade and all. No, my flinching reaction to that massive arch is a response of disappointment, dehydration and a desperate need for Factor 50.
Championship play-off finals are always cagey…
And it was. The Blades relied on defensive solidity after the goals dried up in January when top scorer James Beattie was sold. His replacement, Craig Beattie (I can see what we tried there), provided only three goals after that. So, it was back-foot last for Sheffield United.
Burnley were free-scoring and happy-go-lucky. Only title-winning Wolves had scored more goals. Only six teams had conceded more. They possessed a couple of all-time EFL greats in Robbie Blake and Graham Alexander, who was making one of his 833 appearances in English football. But stalwarts and mercurial talents notwithstanding, The Richest Match In Football sprayed an ugly eau de toilette across the brilliant green grass of the beautiful game.
Surely styles make fights?
No, no. There were some shots from range and one broke the deadlock in the 13th minute. A sliding tackle on the edge of the box popped up; Wade Elliott rifled home.
We’re done here, I thought. The sun was fierce. The fans struggled to conjure a tune. The beers, which once had flowed like, well… beer, now began to repeat in a diuretic rhythm: ‘scuse me mate, sorry, ‘scuse me. Out of the sun, down the stairs, a splash of the face, stand up, sit down, and we’ll all be merry and bright. NO CHANCE.
But it’s a lottery – you still had a chance…
Yes, and like the lottery I bought the damn ticket and watched on as substitute Jamie Ward picked up a yellow card for a deliberate handball, another for a deliberate handball, and a red. Lotteries are about chances. And we had none. We never do.
So you’re saying you believe in play-off curses?
Yes! Don’t tell me the best team usually wins. Don’t talk to me about form. I saw the cagey middle and the desperate end. I watched Arturo Lupoli come on and do nothing, I saw Lee Hendrie get sent off after the final whistle, and I spotted the sharks circling the fag-end of Kyle Walker and Kyle Naughton’s nascent Sheffield United careers. I saw the club that beat us, just as I have seen every club we’ve faced at Wembley beat us.
Some clubs are cursed. You can try to break hoodoos with your lucky pants, the first song on the car radio, the last prayer at night before bed; you can tell yourself, if I bet on us to lose then we’re guaranteed to win. Nah. Doesn’t work like that. Breaking the jinx takes something magical. I’ve never seen it.
There are no guarantees in football…
Wrong. There are three guaranteed outcomes: sun, defeat and a lack of goals. Well, except for all of the anomalies. And I won’t pretend they don’t happen – they do. Just not for Sheffield United or any other cursed team.
Although, if you’re a Leeds fan, and somehow your curse is broken, then it’s going to be some evening. There are clouds in the usually sunny forecast. Maybe this time’s the one?
The One We Can’t (Afford To) Forget
Blackpool 3-2 Cardiff City, 2010
Huw Davies
Turn on Sky Sports Football, now. Are they showing the 2010 Championship Play-off Final between Blackpool and Cardiff? No? You must’ve just missed it. Don’t worry, it’s on tomorrow and again on Saturday.
There’s a reason this classic is so often repeated, though, with its tangerine filter and rippling goal nets. It is the definitive Championship Play-off Final, certainly in this century.
At least, it’s definitive in our mind’s eye. As Sam outlined above, somewhere in the middle of his breakdown, what actually defines the annual £250m bunfight is a nervy, cagey waiting game. That’s just a phase, we tell ourselves. We hold on to the 2010 final because we need it as a totem; as reassurance that this is what it’s really like. The next final arrives like petrol-station flowers, and we return to those sun-bleached highlights from 14 years ago as if they’re slides from a long-faded honeymoon.
But enough melancholic navel-gazing. Cardiff City 2-3 Blackpool was not a nervy, cagey waiting game. Nobody was in the mood to wait for anything.
In snarling heat, both sides attacked as if the loser would be denied a mid-half water break. Peter Whittingham set up two slick goals (Joe Ledley’s, exquisitely created and taken) either side of Charlie Adam’s unbelievable free-kick, but Blackpool took advantage of Cardiff’s defensive frailties twice in quick succession. In the 13 Championship play-off finals since, only 2011’s has featured five or more goals; this had five before half-time. There was even time for a sixth to be disallowed. Mayhem.
The second half passed in a heat haze. Michael Chopra hit the woodwork for a second time, but Blackpool held on easily enough for an improbable, incredible promotion – so improbable, so incredible, the club weren’t prepared for it. Three days before their Premier League campaign began, they had 15 players and were still rebuilding a stand. Meanwhile, Bluebirds fans might say this was the Cardiff side that was meant to go up, not the less vibrant one that was promoted three years later. Blackpool’s victory was a reminder that chaos lies at the heart of play-offs’ beauty.
Not that I felt that way. Being Cardiff-adjacent and close to many Bluebirds, I ensured that I watched the final while visiting a non-footballing friend in Portsmouth that weekend. This was life: we were young, ish, and I’d just started a dream job while she’d had her car unexpectedly returned to her by the police after it had been stolen. We chose not to watch the match in Sky 3D, as was the style at the time, though in the end I’d hardly believe what I was seeing anyway. When Blackpool’s third goal went in, giving them the lead for the first time, it felt like only a temporary setback. It wasn’t.
Cardiff lost. I was dejected. My mate’s then-boyfriend, also not into football, said he was glad Blackpool had gone up because their manager seemed like a laugh.
On the way home, we walked past the communal garage for my friend’s flat. Her car had been nicked again.
The One That’s An Under-The-Radar ’90s Classic
Swindon Town 4-3 Leicester City, 1993
Ali Maxwell
I want to talk about the 1993 Play-Off Final because I think it is underrated as a Play-Off Classic – but also because I’m a thoughtful guy, and I think Swindon Town fans could do with a smile right now.
They’ve just experienced their lowest league finish since the introduction of the four-tier system in 1958/59. They have never won fewer or lost more games in the fourth division. And they’ve just watched rivals Oxford United win promotion to the second tier. The last time that happened, Swindon were promoted as champions above them.
Three years previously, they played for a place in the newfangled Premiership, taking on Leicester. At this point in time, winning ‘the richest game in football’ was estimated to be worth around £5 million.
Swindon’s starting XI included some fantastic names who were yet to reach their top level: Nicky Summerbee, Colin Calderwood, John Moncur... Martin Ling won Man of the Match!
But the biggest name by far was player-manager Glenn Hoddle, who had jetted in from Monaco two years previously to replace outgoing manager Ossie Ardiles — a sequence of words that seemed hard to believe at the time. Mike Baker, writing for The Guardian, described it as “like signing a unicorn; one with a magical left hoof.”
Swindon played brilliantly and were 3-0 up after 53 minutes. Watching the highlights of the game, the first thing you notice is how deep Leicester’s defensive line is. Compact defending was years away. Let the opposition cross and let’s see who wins a game of penalty-box pinball!
Hoddle stroked in a cracking opener after a clever backheel from Craig Maskell, who then finished brilliantly after great work from John Moncur. Maskell seems like the sort of player I’d have absolutely fawned over on the pod. Champagne football and champagne on ice after some laughable set-piece defending saw Shaun Taylor make it three-zip.
Game over… OR WAS IT?!
In this era of football, you would occasionally get a player who played either at centre-back OR as a striker. You don’t get that anymore, because of woke headers not being quite as important. But headers were important in 1993. And that’s why you see Steve Walsh, Leicester’s #5, playing up top – because Steve Walsh is good at headers.
One big Walsh header off the post, and the rebound is fired in by 18 year-old Julian Joachim. 1-3. Another big Walsh header finds the net. 2-3. A minute later… it’s 3-3. It’s absolute scenes. Far be it from me to suggest Swindon had completely shit the bed, but to go from this shoddy attempt at a press, led by #4 Glenn Hoddle…
…to this situation, in the space of 12 seconds…
…well, it ain’t ideal. A great run from Mike Whitlow, a great finish from Steve Thompson, and the scores are level.
Glenn Hoddle provided the leadership, reportedly cheerily telling his rattled teammates: “Heads up, it’s still only nil-nil.” Hoddle also provided the quality, decisive moment, with a beautiful lofted ball over the top. A desperately onrushing goalkeeper, late to the ball and fouling Steve White; a penalty, scored by Paul Bodin.
After the sort of breathless play-off final the neutrals dream of, Swindon had reached the top flight of English football for the first time in the club’s 73-year League history.
How did it go in the Prem? Do you have to ask? Well, Glenn Hoddle left for Chelsea a few days later. Three years after that, he was managing England. And in the Premier League, Swindon finished bottom, conceding 100 goals – the most in a single season until Sheffield United came along in 2023/24.
For Leicester, this was their second straight play-off final defeat, losing to a penalty both times. Teeth gritted, they exorcised their demons the following season, beating Derby 2-1 with big, iconic Steve Walsh, this time wearing #9, scoring twice to get them there.
As for Swindon Town penalty hero Paul Bodin, his son, Billy, just won promotion with Oxford United. Oh for fu—