Nottingham Forest, Huddersfield and ‘the most lucrative fixture in football’

We’re going to have to preview Big Cup on Friday, aren’t we? That means we won’t be able to talk about the other big game taking place this weekend. Yes, it’s the Oscar Wilde Final on Sunday afternoon, the match everyone’s seemingly contractually obliged to refer to as the most lucrative fixture in football, albeit only by people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Yes, approximately £170m blah future revenues for the winners drone next three years chunter waffle blah, but the occasion itself should be loved on its own terms, right? That’s right!

Admittedly, there hasn’t been a properly exhilarating Championship play-off final since Reading nearly came back from three goals down against Swansea in 2011, although West Ham and Blackpool were reasonably engaging a year later, and we hear physicists became fascinated by Aston Villa and Derby in 2019, specifically the strange, frenzied molecular oscillations occurring in Frank Lampard’s bottom lip. But the overall point stands – there were three 4-3s and a 4-4 back in the day – and we’re due a good one, right? Yes, that’s right!

Whether or not Nottingham Forest and Huddersfield Town are best equipped to deliver this belated classic is a moot point. Huddersfield have played at Wembley on two occasions since the turn of the millennium. They’ve prevailed on both occasions, but only on penalties, failing to score a single goal in normal or extra time. Forest meanwhile have contributed – ZDS final aside – one goal on their last two visits to the national stadium, way back in their early-90s League Cup pomp, and that against a knackered Oldham Athletic playing their 643rd match of the season. Though to be fair to Steve Cooper’s 2022 vintage, they made a