Who will be next year’s April Fools?

If you want an early punt on who will be bottom of the Premiership in a year’s time, look no further than the winners of the Championship Play-Off Final on Saturday 24^th May at Wembley.

In the Premiership, Derby’s failure to beat Fulham coupled with Birmingham’s win meant the Rams become the first team to be relegated from the Premiership before April Fool’s Day and they look likely to record the worst points total ever. Meanwhile, in the Championship, five teams are vying for the two guaranteed promotion places with the potential misery of the play-offs for those who don’t go up automatically.

It may be heartbreaking to see dreams of promotion dashed in the play-offs, but for the play-off winners, it looks increasingly like the trophy won at the single most lucrative game in world football is no more than a chalice coated with a slow-working poison (it took ten months for its effects to ‘kill’ Derby’s dreams though some bookies were paying out on them for relegation in September last year, a mere four months after promotion).

Four of the last five play-off winners went straight back down (in reverse order: Derby (2008), Watford (2007), Crystal Palace (2005), Wolverhampton Wanderers (2004)) and for Wolves and Palace (it’s too early to call on the others) neither parachute payments nor the experience of playing in the Premier League were sufficient to facilitate a second, more successful promotion.

Who are in the running to be next year’s Derby? Three of the following five teams will almost certainly be in the play-offs with the other two going straight up: West Bromwich Albion, Bristol City, Stoke, Hull and Watford. The other play-off place will probably go to either Wolves or Ipswich.

Before I go any further I should emphasise the unpredictable nature of the league: no one team is dominating it and bottom has beaten top on more than one occasion in 2007/8. However, since November the Baggies, the best footballing team in the Championship, have looked most deserving to top the division and their goal difference makes this outcome even more likely. Indeed, West Brom, three points off first place with a game in hand on the other teams, and despite having four of their remaining six games away, including a tricky visit to the Molineux in two weeks’ time, should finish champions.

As things stand, Bristol City are in line to be the other automatically promoted team, a fantastic feat for the club promoted from League One at the end of last season. Nevertheless, whether through the play-offs or not, survival in the Premiership will be too much too soon for Gary Johnson’s side and immediate relegation beckons should they hold their nerve in a run up which includes a visit to second-placed Stoke and a home game with Wolves.

Stoke City won five games in a row in February, storming to the top of the division, but have only won once in seven matches since and seem to have peaked too soon for automatic promotion. They have arguably the easiest run-in of the top seven, with only one match against any of their immediate rivals and that at home, but they do not have the momentum to stay in the top two.

In stark contrast, Hull City are the Championship’s form team, with wins at Plymouth and West Brom in February and five victories in March, including a convincing 3-0 defeat of promotion rivals Watford at the KC Stadium. With the second best goal difference in the league, the Tigers should feel confident that if the teams above them slip up, they have what it takes to win automatic promotion.

Watford make up the fifth team in the running. Very briefly twelve points clear in November, the Hornets play four of their remaining six games at Vicarage Road. Their home record, however, is so poor that even twenty-first placed Barnsley have more home points. Despite all of the early running, the Hornets, who seem unable to score from open play since talisman Marlon King left, look doomed to the play-offs.

Ipswich have the best home record in the league, which has kept them just off the top pack, while Wolves’ late push for the play-offs is partly due to the inability of other teams to string wins together. Perhaps the meeting between the two will decide who has the extra games at the end of the season.

In summary, though, it is the unpredictability of the league that makes it so exciting and will keep fans on the edge of their seats till the final day. Judging by the season as a whole, it is not only the matches between the top teams that will matter. Cardiff, Coventry or Crystal Palace, each of whom plays three of these top teams, could yet decide who makes the top two.

Would you want to be next year’s Derby? Most fans would still rather have a year in the top league than failure at the last hurdle and the Championship for another year. I am with the Derby fans: there were more than thirty three thousand people at Pride Park watching two likely-relegated teams play. Loyalty may not be reciprocated by results but that is football.

Bristol City, Stoke City, Hull City and Watford are middling clubs who are punching slightly above their weight. Real fans will be happy about that even if they may also want more...What fan doesn't want more? More goals, more points, more clean sheets, more passing, more inspired substitutions, more tackles, more great signings…Hope is the fans’ life. However, if their team goes up, hope may be their only lifeline.

Oh what an atmosphere

Watford v Wolverhampton Wanderers

Saturday 2^nd February

I met Jo at Euston about 1:45 and we had the first pint in the Britannia overlooking the concourse and the dirt and dust of the kiosk roofs waiting for Ali. It was to be Jo’s first ever game and Ali’s first in England: they were excited. I was just hoping for better than last week. They marvelled over the speed of the journey (a first on Silverlink, I’m sure) and we were supping in Watford’s Moon Under Water by three. A drink in the Three Bells and then past St Mary’s to the Oddfellows. I was giving a running commentary all the while (I used to live there, this is new, used to work here) and they listened with good grace.

I chatted with some no-colours Wolves fan in the second pub and later we were surrounded by them in the place I used to be a pot-boy. Ali told me there’d been something in the newspaper about Maradonna retracting something to do with “the hand of God” and admitting that it was his hand. Sitting next to a table of Wolves fans I had to tell the story of the cheating Argie (I managed to get in a good bit about John Barnes’ crosses, for good measure) to someone who’d never heard it before.

Joss went in before us but after we had taken some pics outside the ground we joined him and then went to sit with a better view where the girls had tickets. There was bugger all atmosphere around though, despite Steve Kabba getting his first Watford goal within a minute. The woman next to me complained when Jo leant back to say something and so we returned to the “front row” at half-time (after a beer).

That turned out to be the best move of the day. It was a party down the front and I led my fair share of chants, the newbies joining in too. There seems to be a new bunch down there (we’ve been elsewhere for three games and the father of the father-and-son behind us that I half-chat to had mentioned they thought we’d given up) but there were some of the usual faces too.

Second half saw two Tommy Smith goals in two minutes, though I thought until Sunday that Nathan Ellington had scored the first, and we spent the rest of the game on our feet as I became ever more hoarse. Favourite new song was for Kabba: "He used to be shite, but now he's all right..."

We walked Joss down to meet Kerry and Phil and then headed back to pubs in town, managing a crawl down to the pond end. Last was O’Neils, where some guy tried I talked to tried to make a racist joke at Malky Mckay’s expense, clearly unaware that he was white. After that, it was non-stop Watford cleavage all night. Jo and Ali attempted to make football conversation but were non-plussed that nobody except us cared. After hanging around to see whether the local constabulary had much to do, we caught a late train back, and I was at home about one, whispering.

Crashing out

Watford v Wolverhampton Wanderers (FA Cup 4^th Round)

Saturday 26^th January

Row R of the Rookery in our third match away from our normal seats provided another better view from which to see Watford concede a goal after just four minutes, Richard Lee stuck in the mud as a lob went over him. I’d already had occasion to glance at the guy next to me and share a couple of disconsolate nods so even after less than 300 seconds this was not a complete surprise.

The rest of the first half was less than enthralling and our less-than-full-strength eleven only had one shot on target, when a Nathan Ellington free-kick was tipped round by their keeper. Marlon King has finally left, joining Wigan rather than Fulham, and we had Tamas Priskin and “The Duke” up front, with ten starts and two league goals between them for the season. Priskin was right off his game and, despite a couple of good touches, Ellington generally still looked less than up-for-it.

Steve Kabba was played on the right, new signing from Birmingham Matt Sadler started at left-back, Al Bangura began for the first time since the Carling Cup games and Malky Mckay was drafted in from semi-retirement. What happened to Douglas Rinaldi, Matt Jackson and Lionel Ainsworth? Surely they are the second string and need the games?

We were sliced apart twice more in the first half of the second period and an exodus of fans left to taunts of “loyal supporter” from the back row boys behind us. Even before they’d got out of the stand, they would have heard the cheer greeting John Joe O’Toole’s goal and I joined in “We’re gonna win 4-3” chants that looked possible for another couple of minutes but it was actually the visitors who had the last laugh, with their centre forward bagging his second in the last minute.

All the “que sera” songs were theirs and Bristol City won in the league to put us third again. If the rested players don’t pull something out of the bag at Brammall Lane on Tuesday, I won’t be the only one wondering whether it was all worth it (even at £10 a ticket for me and £1 for Joss).

Joy in repetiton

Wolverhampton Wanderers v Watford

11^th August 2007

My brother Trevor and his girlfriend Sarah brought my niece Kasey over last night and we stayed in, chatted and played Risk. After a walk along the canal and through Regents Park this afternoon, we had a pizza at a chain restaurant near Euston and ended up resurrecting last year’s argument about the amount of money Watford earned from TV by being promoted. This time, Trevor claimed my position had been his, which I guess is a form of admission that I was right…

Anyway, afterwards I headed over to the Greenwich Pensioner, a pub in Poplar that I’d rung in the week and whose landlady had agreed to show the match live. I chose the pub for its location close to the O2 Centre (Millennium Dome), where I was heading for my second concert of three in a month. I turned up ten minutes into the game and felt the eyes of the locals on me. The game was goalless and Wolves slowly seemed to be having more of it, with a great chance being put high over by Olofinjana.

Just before halftime though, the Wolves midfielder made amends by lobbing Mart Poom after being put clear through with only our keeper to beat. The second half started with them threatening to increase the lead and narrowly missing twice. Jobi McAnuff had a chance too but fired straight at the keeper. The landlord, who I’d chatted football with, came and sat with me and I told him (a United fan) about Joss’ conversion (“Nah, that’s out of order as it happens”). In the meantime two other locals rehashed an argument they’d obviously run through before (Arsenal a foreign team) and one that I’d used on Trevor when he was being racist about Watford players.

Rod and Air turned up with about 30 mins to go and Rod proved to be a lucky charm again. The two live matches he’s been to have resulted in Watford wins and with three minutes left on the clock Watford won a free kick just outside the box that Jordan Stewart took. He’s got a mean shot on him but the deflection was probably what took this one in for his first Watford goal. Earlier today I’d read that the latest goal scored in the Premiership last season was by Bolton against Watford in the 96th minute. So it was that balance was achieved with the foul on Steve Kabba leading to a penalty at a similar time of the game.

Marlon King strode up to take it and blasted high into the net and I was up on my feet in the pub. One of the older locals smiled at me. I shook the landlord’s hand as I left a few minutes later. Football’s great.

Rod dropped me off at Canary Wharf station where I met Faisel and we caught the tube one stop to North Greenwich. I gave him the Prince ticket I bought on ebay and we went in to see the man, who opened with Purple Rain and played many of his hits but not all of them all the way through. His show is flawless but leaves you wanting more when once he delivered it all.