Play Off Watch?

[WestYorksRoyal]

I think we can do it, we're in good form, yesterday we looked great without Selles. Lincoln and Mansfield are losing form, so I can totally see 4 points from those 2 and break clear of the mid table pack.

Can only imagine how nuts promotion would look. The day itself would be one of our greatest given the backdrop of our off the pitch situation. We'd probably be solvent given the cuts to wages and support staff in recent years, but we'd have to be so disciplined with wages when strengthening the squad without an owner to invest. Staying up would take a bigger effort than winning promotion. We'd be favourites for an immediate return.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

I think we can do it, we're in good form, yesterday we looked great without Selles. Lincoln and Mansfield are losing form, so I can totally see 4 points from those 2 and break clear of the mid table pack.

Can only imagine how nuts promotion would look. The day itself would be one of our greatest given the backdrop of our off the pitch situation. We'd probably be solvent given the cuts to wages and support staff in recent years, but we'd have to be so disciplined with wages when strengthening the squad without an owner to invest. Staying up would take a bigger effort than winning promotion. We'd be favourites for an immediate return.

Agree - if we did somehow made it, staying up would be a monumental task under the current ownership. A category one academy has proved very useful in league 1 but I don't think many, if any, are ready for that step up.

[Snowflake Royal]

My ideal is a pleasant but unsuccessful PO campaign, with a takeovr completed so we can make some decent free signings in the summer. Seriously motivating the players to go one step further next season, and then autos or PO Final win, by which time we can actually pay transfer fees, which will be needed to bolster the squad for the Championship. And by which time the young players are nicely experienced, but still improving

[SCIAG]

pleasant but unsuccessful PO campaign

Oxymoron.

Seventh place would be preferable than another unsuccessful playoff campaign imo.

[Snowflake Royal]

pleasant but unsuccessful PO campaign

Oxymoron.

Seventh place would be preferable than another unsuccessful playoff campaign imo.

Go in without high expectations, put in creditable performances. Excellent experience.

[katweslowski]

pleasant but unsuccessful PO campaign

Oxymoron.

Seventh place would be preferable than another unsuccessful playoff campaign imo.

Agree. I refuse to go to wembley again unless someone can guarantee I won't have another miserable loss, and travelling back home listening to 40,000 other fans celebrating in the ground.

Can't take another loss there

[LUX]

+1

Scarred for life

[Snowflake Royal]

You know the one you don't go to is the one we win though

[stealthpapes]

Losing play offs can’t get any worse. Plus the journey there is gr8.

3 games in rapid succession, big day out, last one was great fun, stood outside the Bree after the game and then a full sprint to catch the last train north. Home in time to catch the highlights.

[Sutekh]

Losing play offs can’t get any worse. Plus the journey there is gr8.

3 games in rapid succession, big day out, last one was great fun, stood outside the Bree after the game and then a full sprint to catch the last train north. Home in time to catch the highlights.

There was a highlight in the last one

[WestYorksRoyal]

You know the one you don't go to is the one we win though

If we make it that far, I have to go a wedding on PO final day, so I'm starting to think it could be written in the stars. I've been to all the Wembley/Cardiff losses except Bolton where I'd have only been 5.

[Snowflake Royal]

The Play Offs and Wembley really haven't been that upsetting for me.

Bolton - my first ever game, had no concept of the stakes or rareity. Stonking match and I left just thinking we'd just try again the next season. Only in retrospect when.we spent years fighting relegation before succumbing did I realise how bad it was. But it made me a lifelong fan.

Walsall - now this one hurt. We were a big L1 club, we completely outnumbered them and we were the best team. We were in our way back, bigger and better in a tier 2 stadium with a bright future. But, we got autos the next year and then stayed up so quickly forgotten.

Wolves (semi) - this hurt a lot, being McGhee's ex-club, and back then we hated each other. But it was first season back in tier two, and no one really expected us to be there. A fear we'd missed our chance of the top flight again.

Burnley - we'd been threatening top 2 only to collapse at the end of the season and went into the POs in poor form. Madness from Bikey. This was painful, but in hindsight, maybe not so unexpected.

Swansea - went in fully expecting to lose. They'd been the better team all season. We ran them close though, and this time we really were a top end Champ side knocking at the door regularly.

Arsenal (FAC semi) - I think I'm right in saying we've never beaten Arsenal. We ran them far closer than I think anyone could reasonably expect. Only bad thing was their utterly classless fans.

Huddersfield - dire game in every way. Similarly to Swansea Huddersfield had seemed better than us the whole way. And we'd been struggling for a while other than this season.

So Walsall, Wolves and Burnley are really the only particularly painful ones for me. With Bolton in hindsight.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Nah, they're all painful. Being able to celebrate a win at Wembley is one of the pinnacles for a club like us, and every time you have to trudge out whilst watching the other guys have their moment is a gut punch.

[Sutekh]

Huddersfield for me, for just the way the incompetent we had for manager seemed to set up to match the Huddersfield “don’t lose at any cost” approach. Utterly dire game devoid of any note or any attempt to try and win which I think we could have done. But then it was Reading, desperate to find every conceivable way of losing in the play offs.

[stealthpapes]

Bolton - we were in France, listened to it on the radio. Had our car graffitied by Bolton fans so it read Bolton 4 Reading 3 Better Luck Next Year in the back window for the rest of the holiday.

Walsall - Don Goodman's a local character in the JQ and he doesn't remember a minute of this game. Daft own goal. Daft no-golden-goal exemption. As Ian says, we went up next season (with a wobble) and it doesn't matter. Remember the small army of Reading fans that day, first time in an age I thought we could be bigger. Watching the twenty odd Walsall fans celebrate was .

Wolves - yeah, pffffft, did let a golden chance go through our fingers in the first leg. Seem to remember some formation shenanigans - Henderson out on left wing? Watched second leg back at Uni and just felt like it wasn't going to happen.

Burnley - Watched in Lass O'Gowrie (twice). Archie's Penalty called a Burnley fan a fascist. Bikey went mental. Clearly something not right in the second leg. Coppell left.

Swansea - suckered myself into believing, went to both Cardiff games (based in Manchester at the time) and nearly failed a teaching assessment as I cadged a lift back to Crewe, then caught an absolute rattler back to Manc. Cardiff games were great. Went to Wembley from Ilkley, turned out to be the last time I saw my grandfather. Game was good fun, to be fair, felt like a no-loss.

Huddersfield - Anyone remember the big board with the heart rates linked up? And the Reading fan basically comatose throughout. I enjoyed this mostly for the pre- and post-game sesh. I'd just come back from Ghana, so the rhythm and tempo coefficient was high. There was a load of us in the Bree after the game, really nice to meet a bunch of people IRL F2F. Didn't care about result, not really, liked Stam's style of play and thought he'd build on the success.

Oh.

[stealthpapes]

Could be worse.

Lincoln (0-7) appeared in five successive play-offs in the fourth tier between 2003 and 2007, twice making the final, only to fail to go up every time. The following season, they saved themselves the heartache by finishing 15th.

[tidus_mi2]

Could be worse.

Lincoln (0-7) appeared in five successive play-offs in the fourth tier between 2003 and 2007, twice making the final, only to fail to go up every time. The following season, they saved themselves the heartache by finishing 15th.

Jesus Christ that's terrible.

[Snowflake Royal]

Nah, they're all painful. Being able to celebrate a win at Wembley is one of the pinnacles for a club like us, and every time you have to trudge out whilst watching the other guys have their moment is a gut punch.

Just my experience. Doesn't have to be anyone elses.

[leon]

Losing play offs can’t get any worse. Plus the journey there is gr8.

3 games in rapid succession, big day out, last one was great fun, stood outside the Bree after the game and then a full sprint to catch the last train north. Home in time to catch the highlights.

RIP Bree Louise

[Mid Sussex Royal]

Past play offs -

Bolton worst by a country mile and I'm sure it was for most fans brought up on the 4th division mediocrity of the 1970's - it felt like we'd never get another chance particularly as we were still at Elm Park. We went into the play offs as the form team and demolished Tranmere away in the first leg of the semi (still ranks as our best ever away performance I've seen) and the manner of defeat was just gutting.

The other finals - Walsall - done by a freak own goal but we all knew we'd be back and promotion a year later erased the memory pretty quickly.

Swansea - expected to lose and beaten by a better side.

Hudds - probably next to Bolton in terms of disappointment as was a game we could have won.

Don't think semi defeats are ever as bad....