The Highs and Lows of the Play-offs - Bolton Style

Article by e-Bolton Wanderers Correspondent Alan Houghton

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It was the Play-off Finals weekend, the most dramatic weekend of football outside of the Premier League. Love them or hate them, nothing can match the emotions generated by these matches. QPR, Rotherham United and Fleetwood Town fans are in ecstasy after being promoted while Derby County, Leyton Orient and Burton Albion fans are in despair, after missing out.

The Play-offs started in 1987 and Bolton Wanderers’ involvement started with them. For the first two years, the three teams next in line for promotion and the team in the higher division next in line to be relegated were involved. As we had finished a miserable 21stin the old Third division, we were pitted against Aldershot in the semi-final. We lost the first leg away 0-1 and I missed the second leg at home as I was on honeymoon in Mallorca. This was traumatic enough after being detained at the airport for three hours for no apparent reason and then arriving at the hotel to discover that they had lost the booking and could only give us a twin room instead of a double. After three days of fighting ‘Spanish tummy’, my new aftershave impressed a passing swarm of mosquitoes instead of the new missus and I was put on antibiotics and told to avoid alcohol and the sun, neither very easy to do in Mallorca. Hiring a car led to a day at the local police station after it was broken into. In Spain if you are English, then you must be guilty. On the next morning I managed to buy an English newspaper and find out that Bolton Wanderers had drawn the second leg 2-2, after extra time and we were relegated to the old fourth division for the first and only time in our history. It was at the point my beautiful new bride asked me ‘are you happy?’

We got promoted from the fourth division at the first attempt and we were back in the Play-offs in 1990, this time challenging for promotion from the Third division, after finishing sixth. We were matched against Notts County in the semi-finals, who had finished fifth and sadly the tie went to form after we drew the home leg 1-1 and lost the away leg 0-2.

More heartbreak followed the year after in 1991, when we narrowly missed automatic promotion on goal average to Grimsby Town and finished fourth. We squeezed past local rivals Bury 2-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals, which was an achievement in itself as results against Bury are rarely good. But then in our first Play-off final, played at Wembley, we lost 0-1 after extra time against Tranmere Rovers, who have become a bit of a bogey team for us over the years. They even knocked us out of last season’s Capita One cup.

We had to wait another four years for our next Play-off involvement. This time it was the old first division Play-offs in 1995 with promotion to the Premiership the prize. In the semi-finals, we were drawn against our old arch rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers. We lost the away leg 1-2 but in the return leg, superbly led by Wolves’ nemesis, Super John McGinlay, we won 2-0 to set up a final at Wembley against Reading, who had actually finished second but not gone up automatically as it was the year when they were reducing the Premiership from 22 to 20 teams. The match was to turn out to be our finest hour. It didn’t start like that as we were two down within 12 minutes and after 34 minutes Reading were awarded a penalty. Keith Brannagan saved that penalty and we achieved one of the most dramatic comebacks of all time. As he saved the penalty I had the feeling that we wouldn’t lose that day but didn’t we do things the hard way! Owen Coyle pulled one back in the 75th minute and then with only four minutes to go, Fabian de Freitas got the equaliser. In extra time, Mixu Paatalainen and Fabian de Freitas scored before Reading pulled one back with a minute left. As I arrived back at Barking station with my friend, we just went straight into the nearest pub, postponing his wife picking us up for a good few hours.

In 1999, we were back in the Play-offs after finishing 6th in the first division. We came up against Ipswich Town in the semi-final and beat them 1-0 at home in the first leg. In a dramatic second leg at Portman Road, we lost 3-4 after extra time but progressed to the final at Wembley on away goals. In the final at Wembley against Graham Taylor’s Watford, we simply didn’t turn up and we were well beaten, losing 2-0.

The next year we were back in the Play-offs again after finishing sixth. We even got Ipswich Town in the semi-final again. However there was to be a different outcome. David Sheepshanks, the Ipswich Town chairman had got the football league to do away with away goals counting double after his team had lost in 1997 and 1999 (to us) by the away goals rule. We drew the first leg at home 2-2 and went to Portman Road with all to play for. We lost 3-5 after extra time in what was the worst exhibition of refereeing in Bolton Wanderer’s history. Barry Knight will live forever in the bad books of Wanderers’ fans. He booked nine Bolton players, sent two Bolton players off, gave Ipswich Town three penalties and not one Ipswich Town player received a caution. As Big Sam Allardyce said after the match, that referee should never be allowed to referee another match.

The next season in 2001, we made no mistakes as we finished third and met West Bromwich Albion in the semi-final of the Play-offs. After a 2-2 draw at the Hawthorns, we hammered them 3-0 at the Reebok in the second leg. The final was the first Play-off final to be played at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff while Wembley was being rebuilt. It turned out to be a comfortable 3-0 win over Preston North End and we were back in the Premiership for our longest run until relegation in 2012.

The Play-offs have undoubtedly achieved what they set out to do, that is to prolong the season for the majority of teams and provide unparallelled drama at the end of it. Defeat is hard to take especially if your team was the next in line to be promoted but the Play-offs were introduced to give an extra promotion place. The Play-offs rarely go to form and fans come away with the opposite extremes of feelings as it really is a ‘winner takes all’scenario.

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