There’s been plenty of talk about the tight & topsy-turvy nature of the ‘second division’ this season, and for sure there will be plenty more twists & turns.
It’s brought to mind the remarkable relegation dogfight we had in 1978; those of us who were present that night in May at a tense Brisbane Road will no doubt hope we spared any drama like that this time round – not sure my heart’s as robust, 35 years on…if you thought this season was close, read on...
Anyone can beat anyone? We had a spell where we saw off allcomers at home, including heavyweights like Spurs, Bolton – but we mustered just a draw against the division whipping-boys Mansfield (yes, Mansfield). As for away, well, remember Luton…(7-1)
Then take a look at the goals for & against for these 2 teams at the end of the season:
Blackpool: F-59 A-60
Blackburn: F-56 A-60
Pretty close, right? But Blackpool were relegated, whereas Blackburn, scoring 3 goals less, finished 5th!
What played out was a game of relegation pass-the-parcel, with poor old Blackpool left holding the time-bomb as the music stopped. The big lessons learned: it ain’t over till it’s over, ‘mathematically safe’ really means something…oh and don’t loan out your best players (pretty sure SCP won’t be doing that).
We had hopes of a promotion push – based on 7th place finish the previous season, with Flanno stepping up to fill the gap left by Killer’s departure. We lacked a 2nd forward, but started decently enough with an away draw at Fulham and a 3-1 success at home to Blackpool. For the first half of the season we were mustard at home – 8 wins and that Mansfield draw before Christmas, but kept falling short away, quite a few times being pegged back to 1-1 after being on top (sound familiar?)
So, at Christmas, we were in contention, especially if we could sort out our away form: (2 pts for a win – look who was above us)
Five straight defeats later and our mindset had changed. We didn’t win again until March 24th, and by then we were looking down rather than up. Still, we had a decent points cushion, and in any case had a mini-revival in early Spring (familiar again?), so by the time of our penultimate home game (vs struggling Hull) we looked OK – 9 points clear of relegation, loads of teams below us:
But we’d stupidly loaned out Flanagan & Paddy Powell to the Americans by then, and lost 4 of the next 5, including that home game against the eventual bottom club, Hull (so, ready for Brizzle?!). Meanwhile, everyone else was picking up points, especially Millwall, grinding out a series of 1-0 wins, I seem to recall. Now it was panic time, but not just for us – Blackpool had also slumped. But they went into their last match in 14th place, 37 points (over 46 games would be worth 54 today) – surely OK…
Nope. They lost the last game, then sat back as everyone else played re-arranged games from previous postponements.
All the other teams somehow scraped points, Millwall winning their last two games. But we, Orient and Cardiff surely couldn’t all escape, as we still had to play each other.
Cue the trip to Brisbane Road, where the losers would go down. I dragged various uni mates down the M11 for moral support and watched Jeff Wood repel some decent efforts – just as well, because our depleted attack was fairly toothless (though my memory is vague, i think we hit the bar at some point). Cardiff beat Notts County, and in turn duly let the Os win the final game of the season at Ninian Park. When it was all over, SEVEN teams had escaped relegation by a single point, and Stoke in 7th were only 5 points clear:
Blackpool must have been shellshocked…relegated to D3 for the first time, they stayed down for 29 years. On more than one occasion since, I reflected that this could have been us, had Jeff Wood not made those saves…
Now, who thinks we're safe?
Comments
As I said on another thread, I ran a scenario through the BBC results predictor that had 16th to 22nd places all finishing on 55 points meaning 6 teams would survive on goal difference alone (imagine that!), Huddersfield being the unlucky 7th side who would take the 3rd relegation spot. It's an entirely hypothetical situation and unlikely to come to pass, but that fact it is even possible shows just how bloody tight it is this year.
Incidentally, my crystal ball gazing has Boro finishing 21st when they are currently 9th - echoes of Blackpool circa 78?
Basically we have a 0.5% probability of relegation (~200/1) and a 0.1% probability of promotion (~1000/1).
Interestingly if we won all five remaining games, we would have a 36% chance of making the play offs.
Was sure glad when that whistle went at the re-arranged match.
Phew !
I remember Blackpool getting relegated from being top half most of the season & I rememeber our games v Orient.
I don't remember the league being as tight as that.
I didn't even remotely like football until 98/99, so this sort of history lesson is very interesting to me.
I remember that final game against Orient. I was there with my late brother and it was truly horrible to watch - along the lines of Leeds and Chelsea years later.
I can recall Jeff Wood diving full stretch to make a save right at the end. Those sort of games really test the nerve of players & fans alike!
Fortunately, down the years we have been decent at getting out of trouble when it comes down to a make or break final game - the three mentioned above being prime examples.
IMO, relegation deciders like these will always be more tense than potential promotion deciders, but I hope to watch more of the latter in future years!
One difference though in 77/78 wasn't it only 2 points for a win? so the value of a win and by definition a five point gap was less.
And, for example, Brighton would have been promoted instead of Spurs, and Orient and Notts County would have been in serious trouble
7 teams avoided relegation by 1 point.
Can you imagine how Jeff Stelling & co would be going on that final day ??
I don't think there was any collusion, though you can forgive Blackpool fans for suspecting it.
@ 3pts for a win then Orient would have been relegayed, but of course all those games near the end would have had a different flavour - Os would have been throwing the kitchen sink at us at the end, whereas at the time they knew a draw still gave them a 2nd chance. The Cardiff/Notts game would have also had a different scenario, as @3pts Notts would not have been safe themselves...