A look back at our previous playoff campaigns

[Tickhill Blade]

Yep

View attachment 209396

Ian Hamilton and Bobby Ford in the same midfield, bloody hell

 

[Selly]

Ian Hamilton and Bobby Ford in the same midfield, bloody hell

And Graham Stuart on the bench!

That line up shows how much turmoil there was that season. our Line up on the Opening day was

Tracey
Vas - absent for unknown reasons
Holdsworth
McGrath - retired
Tiler - sold to Everton
Quinn
Marker
Patterson - sold to Bury
Whitehouse - Ainsworth
Deane - sold to Benfica
Fjortoft - sold to barnsley

Only 4 survivors from that starting 11 against Sunderland

 

[Eyeball]

.

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

 

[Nesh Blade]

Just watched triple assault season review video and got well up for it after the Forest home leg, then back down to earth with this thread

 

[RammyBlade]

Beans and Roygbiv as you are going to research previous playoff campaigns for your next pod, this thread is a decent starting point. All the misery in one place.

BTW, tangentially, I see people saying that Wilder is untainted by our previous playoff failure. Not so. He played in our first playoff game, the 1-0 defeat at Bristol City in 1987-8. He did not play in the second leg but I think he might have been an unused sub.

The up-to-date record: more than 5 playoff campaigns, never won:

9 - Sheffield United
7 - Lincoln
6 - Bury (RIP), Reading, Leeds United, MK Dons

MK Dons have never even reached a final, losing all 6 semi final ties.

Bury on the way back not RIP - went to their last match on saturday where they clinched the title with a 4-0 win with 109 points, scoring 131 goals and nearly 9000 attendance which is a record attendance for the North West Counties league (9th tier of English Football) .
I Read their programme and they refer to their play off disappointments ! which is clearly not as dismal as ours !!

 

[Revolution]

Reached 5 or more playoff finals:

8: Blackpool (won 6, lost 2)
6: Huddersfield (won 4, lost 2)
5 Crystal Palace (won 4, lost 1), Bolton (won 2, lost 3), Sheffield United (won 0, lost 4, 1 TBD)

There will be at least one more team on 5 finals after the SF are over: Sunderland, Wycombe, Stockport and Leyton Orient have all reached 4 finals.

Huddersfield went from the 4th tier to the Premier League by winning 3 finals on penalties after 0-0 draws.

 

[1973Blade]

Hopefully this is the year that we finally do it!!

 

[Jan Age]

Did we not lose to forest in semis under hecky?

 

[Revolution]

Did we not lose to forest in semis under hecky?

We’ve lost 5 times in semi finals and won 5 times.

Our semi final record is in chronological order is LWLWWWLLLW

 

[Gimli]

Can we add ‘record margin of victory in a play off semi final’ to our… ahem… ‘glittering’ play off record?

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Can we add ‘record margin of victory in a play off semi final’ to our… ahem… ‘glittering’ play off record?

No ones ever done 6 without reply

 

[Revolution]

Can we add ‘record margin of victory in a play off semi final’ to our… ahem… ‘glittering’ play off record?

It is a record in the playoffs to get in the top division.

It is not a record for EFL playoffs overall. Crawley beat MK Dons 8-1 on aggregate in the league 2 playoffs last season to set the current record.

 

[Gimli]

It is a record in the playoffs to get in the top division.

It is not a record for EFL playoffs overall. Crawley beat MK Dons 8-1 on aggregate in the league 2 playoffs last season to set the current record.

Ah! I didn’t realise that.

Still, funny that it’s MK Dons setting more unwanted history

 

[Revolution]

Our home leg playoff SF attendances:

1988 - 19,056 (Bristol City) 2nd leg
1997 - 22,312 (Ipswich) 1st leg
1998 - 23,800 (Sunderland) 1st leg
2003 - 30,212 (Forest) 2nd leg
2009 - 26,354 (Preston) 2nd leg
2012 - 21,182 (Stevenage) 2nd leg
2013 - 15,262 (Yeovil) 1st leg
2015 - 20,890 (Swindon) 1st leg
2022 - 30,225 (Forest) 1st leg
2025 - 26,543 (Bristol City) 2nd leg

So only Forest - twice - have seen a 30,000 plus attendance.

 

[Selly]

LWLWWWLLLW

Went there on holiday once. Nice place. Locals prefer rugby though...

 

[Revolution]

Sunderland have won the playoffs once in 8 previous attempts, many of which have been memorable for one reason or another. They have reached 5 finals (including this season) and been promoted once by winning the final and once despite losing the final. Their record:

1986-7: lost in Division 2/3 Semi Final to Gillingham on away goals after 6-6 draw on aggregate (2-3 A, 4-3 H), thus being relegated to division 3.

1989-90: beat Newcastle in Division 2 Semi Final (0-0 H, 2-0 A), lost final 0-1 to Swindon but promoted anyway as Swindon were denied promotion due to breaches of FA rules re payments to players.

1997-8: Beat Sheffield United in Division 1 Semi Final (1-2 A, 2-0 H); lost in final to Charlton 6-7 on pens after 4-4 draw

2003-4: lost to Crystal Palace 4-5 on pens after 4-4 aggregate draw in Division 1 Semi Final (2-3 A, 2-1 H)

2018-9: beat Portsmouth in League One SF (1-0 H, 0-0 A); lost in final 1-2 to Charlton

2020-1: lost to Lincoln City in League One SF 2-3 on aggregate (0-2 A, 2-1 H)

2021-2 beat Wednesday in League One SF (1-0 H, 1-1 A); beat Wycombe 2-0 in final

2022-3: lost to Luton in Championship SF 2-3 on aggregate (2-1 H, 0-2 A)

 

[Pollingtonblade]

2025 – Lost in Final to Sunderland

Manager: Chris Wilder

Should we have done better? Of course we should but catastrophically bottled it

Did failure hurt us long term? Probably consigned us to be the next PNe as parachute brass gone

Highlight: The goal

Lowlight: take your pick moore being a twat for setting them up or wilder for not having a clue and getting schooled, Cooper for his pathetic attempt to save or Brooks for missing a sitter at 1 nil

Blades Playoff anti-hero: wilder - his ego is to big now. Time to go

Most vivid personal memory: taking the kids to Wemble and the goal