Ups and Downs

[kieran_vale]

Evening chaps. Heart rate just about settled back down to normal…

Here a year later than I thought we might be but we are here

Must be a nice feeling knowing you can put your feet up during the playoffs now and let the others fight over it. Cracking goal by Hoskins.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Cobblers v Rovers might have a bit of spice next season.
Northampton normally go straight down though.

With them and Oxford in L1, that's 12 points for us next season. Just need to work out where the other 38 is coming from

 

[EricSabin]

Must be a nice feeling knowing you can put your feet up during the playoffs now and let the others fight over it. Cracking goal by Hoskins.

Absolutely mate so glad I’m not trying to figure out travel to the 1st leg

 

[EricSabin]

With them and Oxford in L1, that's 12 points for us next season. Just need to work out where the other 38 is coming from

There’ll be a bit of spice next year for sure but definitely won’t be a ‘rivalry’ of any sort. Looking forward to it.

 

[E10rifle]

With them and Oxford in L1, that's 12 points for us next season. Just need to work out where the other 38 is coming from

Sure we’ll split it 3 points each like usual. Nice to have our most-played fixture back.

 

[Strawberry_Jam]

I think we can all agree it's nice to get away from the wrexham love-in, for a year at least.

 

[Luke Imp]

Congratulations to Northampton, there seems to be a decent clutch of clubs around that area - Northampton, Cambridge, Stevenage, Oxford, Posh if they stay down.

 

[Gassy]

There’ll be a bit of spice next year for sure but definitely won’t be a ‘rivalry’ of any sort. Looking forward to it.

Congrats on your promotion mate! Felt bad for you last year, that was a horrible way to miss out.

See you next season

 

[Valeite]

Reading would be interesting, we’ve not played them for a couple of decades.

You`ve obviously never been there.

 

[EricSabin]

Congrats on your promotion mate! Felt bad for you last year, that was a horrible way to miss out.

See you next season

Cheers fella, yeah it definitely dominated everyone’s thoughts in this last couple of weeks! Thankfully Brady got us over the line.

 

[Si Robin]

Welcome Cobblers - I think you guys are up there with the team we've played most since our first promotion to the League in 1999, so it'll be great to play you again.

 

[Davidimp]

Went to watch Lincoln play at Reading in 1998, pre poured flat beer with a cover on it

 

[Laker]

I can imagine Blackpool being strong next season but it looks to me like Reading and Wigan are a hell of a lot weaker than Plymouth, Ipswich and any of the play off sides.

The three sides promoted are larger than those going down and I guess would have better budgets but nothing that will blow any of us towards the bottom away.

It should theoretically be a little more of a level playing field next season I’d have thought.

 

[Bartonyellow]

I couldn’t give a shit about next year.
This one has just finished and 2 months off from football is a great thing in my opinion.
Looking forward to watching the play offs however which are usually a great spectacle but not if it’s your club involved. We lost at Wembley in the final and it was horrible.
Good luck to all those involved.

 

[Si Robin]

I used to love the playoffs when we won our first two, but we've failed in our last 3 attempts and now I hate them.

Weird.

 

[Valeite]

We lost to West Brom at Wembley, in front of about 45,000 of the yamm yams, I could here boing boing baggies in my head for about 3 days, horrible journey back with that lot celebrating all the way.

 

[kieran_vale]

We lost to West Brom at Wembley, in front of about 45,000 of the yamm yams, I could here boing boing baggies in my head for about 3 days, horrible journey back with that lot celebrating all the way.

Aye fucking Bob Taylor. Probably felt worse after losing that game than I have any of the relegations have witnessed.

As for the L2 playoffs I’m pretty much ABS (anyone but Salford). Carlisle would be good just to see how long from the final whistle of the final it takes HG to create the Carlisle relegation thread in this section. If tipping anyone will say Bradford, the rule of thumb says we rarely go more than a year without sharing the same league as them.

 

[Bartonyellow]

I’ve just got this horrible feeling Salford will make it up. Hope I’m wrong.
Cue a documentary of the great season on Netflix.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Aye fucking Bob Taylor. Probably felt worse after losing that game than I have any of the relegations have witnessed.

As for the L2 playoffs I’m pretty much ABS (anyone but Salford). Carlisle would be good just to see how long from the final whistle of the final it takes HG to create the Carlisle relegation thread in this section. If tipping anyone will say Bradford, the rule of thumb says we rarely go more than a year without sharing the same league as them.

Haha we say the same about Robbie fucking Earle. That was in the days of 2 legged play off finals.

 

[kieran_vale]

Haha we say the same about Robbie fucking Earle. That was in the days of 2 legged play off finals.

Fair shout on that. Was just slightly before my time but it’d either be Earle or Ron Futcher who committed a blatant assault on one of your players in the game at Twerton Park if watch it back on YouTube now. Got away with just a yellow too.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Fair shout on that. Was just slightly before my time but it’d either be Earle or Ron Futcher who committed a blatant assault on one of your players in the game at Twerton Park if watch it back on YouTube now. Got away with just a yellow too.

Yeah I was at that game (and the 2nd leg unfortunately). Futcher probably would have been arrested these days, but to be fair you did finish higher and it set up a magical following season where we pipped Bristol City to the title beating them in the process.

 

[bigfatron]

These playoffs are very simple IMHO:
- League One, anyone but Borough
- League Two, anyone but Salford

 

[valefan16]

Yeah I was at that game (and the 2nd leg unfortunately). Futcher probably would have been arrested these days, but to be fair you did finish higher and it set up a magical following season where we pipped Bristol City to the title beating them in the process.

We had that when we lost the 1993 final, was a stat that only a couple of teams have finished with more points and not gone up but then we won Auto in 1994 (ironically with less points!)

Took 29 years for us to make another Play Off Final and that West Brom game was replicated with us winning 3-0 against a side with a man sent off last season.

The 89 final is the one with the famous (amongst Valiants) Robbie Earle image slumped in the tunnel isn't it?

Some nuts tackles happened in those days, pretty such there was a horror one in a Potteries Derby on Aspin which the lardie lad got away with, proper leg breaker, would be a long ban these days!

 

[BRFC_Gas]

We had that when we lost the 1993 final, was a stat that only a couple of teams have finished with more points and not gone up but then we won Auto in 1994 (ironically with less points!)

Took 29 years for us to make another Play Off Final and that West Brom game was replicated with us winning 3-0 against a side with a man sent off last season.

The 89 final is the one with the famous (amongst Valiants) Robbie Earle image slumped in the tunnel isn't it?

Some nuts tackles happened in those days, pretty such there was a horror one in a Potteries Derby on Aspin which the lardie lad got away with, proper leg breaker, would be a long ban these days!

Yeah thats the one. My first experience of play off defeat so it hurt like hell. Earle scored in all 4 games against us too the barsteward. Quality player for that league and the ones above!!

 

[BRFC_Gas]

I'd take any of the league 2 play off lot at the moment they all look poor. Ive seen lots of L2 games this season and the top sides do seem worse than last season

 

[valefan16]

I'd take any of the league 2 play off lot at the moment they all look poor. Ive seen lots of L2 games this season and the top sides do seem worse than last season

Yeah all four would need a fair bit of work I think.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

Yeah all four would need a fair bit of work I think.

Im guessing Carlisle would have less scope to improve their team so logically we should want them up.....but what a trek that is (probably on a Tuesday night)

 

[LordJord]

I'd take any of the league 2 play off lot at the moment they all look poor. Ive seen lots of L2 games this season and the top sides do seem worse than last season

I would agree with this in general. Cant see any of the promoted sides threatening the top half IMO, ourselves included.

 

[BRFC_Gas]

I would agree with this in general. Cant see any of the promoted sides threatening the top half IMO, ourselves included.

I think the top of L1 has improved since we were last here but the bottom of L1 has got worse (even though we easily finished bottom of it before).

Your lot should do alright as you are decent at both ends of the pitch. You might find out one or two players who did well in L2 dont step up very well though

 

[kieran_vale]

Consolidation will always be the name of the game. There’s just too big a gap to make up to realistically be thinking of the top ten or anything like that in the first season but the rest of the league you can compete with for sure. Key for any of the promoted sides is not to get raided for your best players which with Northampton I guess starts with Hoskins. That’s why FGR struggled like they did. Exeter I don’t think added more than a couple last summer from memory and did pretty well. Ourselves and Rovers it doesn’t look as good in the overall standings but neither ever looked in any huge danger.