blades blog So here we go again. The play-offs

Posted: May 7th 2009
Click here to feedback

The only problem is – we’re not very good at this. Forever pressing our noses against the sweetie shop window, only to see the fatboys tucking in to the grub. Scruffy urchins from once proud families who’ve squandered their wealth, trying to sneak in to the promised land via a small back door fraught with hidden and suspended buckets of questionable liquids.

Play-off finals in 2003 (emphatic defeat at the hands of Wolves) and 1997 (last-minute Palace killer goal) and a play-off semi-final defeat in 1998 (to Sunderland) suggest that we’re not clinical enough at the cut-throat end of the season.

But maybe this is different? Maybe, via the laws of perverseness which say that we should have won through in 97 and 2003 because we were good enough, will declare that we go up this time because we’re not currently the real McCoy.

Sticking to my time-honoured scratched record of an argument this season I will reiterate the fact that Wolves danced to the tune of the Premiership pied piper for much of the season but ourselves, Brum and Reading clearly did not. Doggedly solid yes, powerfully stable yes, workmanlike and hard-to-break-down oh yes – the euphemisms are endless but they all say the same thing; lacking flare, creativity and, at the moment, GOALS.

I want us to win, I believe we can win and nothing would please me more than to play as we have done this season and end up being promoted. But in this lottery of a play-off, who would safely pick one of the four as a favourite? Typical of a mundane bunch of also-rans (harsh but true) our records are much of a muchness, except perhaps the fact that our away record was amongst the best in the league whilst Preston’s was among the worst.

This season we took four points off Preston, three off Reading and nowt off Burnley so on the one hand you could say PNE were the best draw. But on the other, Preston have the momentum, the late run and, perhaps more significantly, the goals on their side in the last few matches. They are Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine and we are The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb, stalling at the finish line of the Championship Wacky races.

So here we go again. Off to watch the first leg on the big screen at Bramall Lane and then back to the Lane to see the finale. I’m brimming with excitement and laden with doom. Shall I let myself get obsessively involved or will football dash my hopes again. Will I keep the faith and plan for success or will I feel embarrassed and childish for having hoped so earnestly for the right result and stare foolishly at the ugly face of defeat.

Oh bugger it – let’s give it a go.

Come on you red and white wizzaaaaaaaaards!