With the Football League playoff semi-finals having proved themselves – yet again – over the past few weeks to be just about the best set of fixtures in the entire football calendar, the finals were somewhat more jittery, stodgy affairs over the bank holiday weekend.
Four goals were spread across the first 362 minutes of showpiece action at Wembley, with two 1-1 draws going all the way to penalties … then Josh Windass popped up with one of the more dramatic winners you’ll ever see in the 363rd, sending Sheffield Wednesday up to the Championship at the expense of South Yorkshire neighbours Barnsley. “That was probably the worst standard of game you’ll ever watch,” said Windass in the immediate aftermath, not entirely capturing the mood of the 40-odd thousand in blue and white going spare behind him at Wembley. “The standard from both teams was shocking, to be honest.
There was no real quality on show but luckily we got the winning goal.” There was nothing lucky about his header – a bullet from 12 yards – 15 years on from his dad, Dean, scoring his own playoff final Wembley winner for Hull.
Windass Sr was rather pleased for his lad.So, Wednesday head up with Plymouth and Ipswich, and with Leeds, Leicester and Southampton joining them there are plenty of what people like to call Big Clubs knocking around in the division next year.