h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Championship Play-Off Final, Cardiff, 21st May, 2006:

Watford 3-0 Leeds


Poor old Leeds, they face a third season in the second tier of English football. They still don't own their own ground, nor anything else it seems to me, after having to hock the lot when their dash for growth went phut two years ago.

In fact it's going to be worse for them next season, as their two years of parachute payments - worth £7.5million per season - have come to an end.

As for Watford: that's great, they are in the Premiership alongside Sheffield United. This means that I will be able to combine an away match with a visit to my Uncle Dennis and Auntie Helene who live about 4 or 5 miles from Watford's ground.

Result

The swear filter won't let me reply. Needless to say having been up since 4, watched that shower and come home to this damn gloating I'm not too happy.

I'll see the funny side in the morning though...

Yeah, well, of course I was going to gloat about the result. Leeds these last two years have been one of the more unpopular teams in the Championship (plus of course I'm Sheffield, which adds extra spice) so you were always going to get it if the wheels fell off.

On the plus side for your team, you've done a lot better than we all expected. Kevin has managed to steer a course through the car-crash that was your club of two years ago to put you into the play-off final. That's something that 20 other clubs in this league haven't achieved this year. So well done on that.

As for you personally: I truly feel for you We were there three years ago, and we can still feel the hurt. Even our success in getting automatic promotion this season haven't fully healed the wounds. All through since 2003 the feeling amongst our support has been that if we can't finish 1st or 2nd then we want to finish 7th or lower, because we *don't* want to go through that emotional wringer again.

(And I will admit that we did have a nervous six or seven weeks through February and March until we beat Southampton (again) to put the ship back on an even keel.)

I suppose it's probably right that Watford went up anyway, they did finish 3rd after all.

Which is *exactly* where we finished in 2002/03.

At least you had only 7 or 8 minutes of knowing that it was all over. In our visit to the Millennium Stadium we went 3-0 down in the first half, so we had to sit through 45 minutes of football *and* the sodding half time entertainment knowing that it was all over

from someone whose hopes were dashed on 88 minutes and were obliterated at 90+3, i can assure you that's no fun either...