The Championship play-offs are among the most lucrative and exciting games in English football, with a coveted place in the Premier League at stake. Taking place after the league phase has concluded, the mini-tournament makes for a compelling end to the season, with only one team going up, while the remaining sides face another year in the second tier.
Goal brings you everything you need to know about the competition phase, when the games are, what TV channels they are available to watch on and more. The Championship play-offs in England are knock-out games which occur after the regular Championship season with the aim of deciding which team takes the final promotion spot to the Premier League. Two teams - first place and second place - earn automatic promotion, but the teams which finish third, fourth, fifth and sixth enter a play-off series.
A merit system is in place to pair the teams for the semi-finals. Third place plays sixth place in one semi-final and fourth place plays fifth place in the other semi-final. The Championship semi-finals are traditionally two-legged affairs, but the away goals rule does not apply. By the end of November, Brentford had lost just two of their 19 league games and they ended the season with just two defeats in 18, but thanks to a dreadful Christmas period and start to , the fate of their season came down to the final day.
With second-placed Reading visiting Griffin Park just a point ahead, a win would have seen the Bees promoted as runners-up to champions Brighton, but a late equaliser from Jamie Cureton salvaged a draw for the Royals and set up another play-off showdown with Huddersfield.
Martin Allen had saved Brentford from almost-certain relegation to League Two a year earlier and now set to work assembling a promotion-chasing squad for a cost of next to nothing in the hopes of following up 'The Great Escape' with promotion to the Championship at the first attempt. Though it had been the case with cup runs in previous years, a lucrative run to the FA Cup fifth round didn't slow the Bees' momentum, though three straight defeats in the last two weeks of April put paid to any lingering hopes of reaching the top two.
In the play-offs, an early goal from Jon-Paul McGovern gave Sheffield Wednesday the advantage in the first leg of the tie, before goals from Lee Peacock and Chris Brunt put the Owls up on aggregate. Left-back Andy Frampton pulled one back with three minutes to play, but it was too little too late. Despite the disappointment of the previous season and the club's financial troubles, Allen stayed at the helm and his side repaid him with just one defeat in an impressive two-month run from the end of September to Boxing Day If promotion had looked likely beforehand, the outlook changed completely once he joined Birmingham on January 31 Not straight away, mind you; Allen's men bulldozed Walsall and followed that up with wins over Bristol City and Southend but won just four of the last 15 games, missing out on a top-two finish by just three points.
Jay Tabb helped the Bees - who had goalkeeper Stuart Nelson sent off by referee Keith Stroud - earn a draw in the first leg at the Liberty Stadium, before a quickfire Leon Knight double back in west London compounded Brentford's misery.
Allen soon departed, too. Denied automatic promotion on the final day of the season after Marcello Trotta's infamous missed penalty against Doncaster, Brentford were forced to regroup quickly ahead of a trip to Swindon - who they'd already beaten twice over the course of the season - eight days later. A cagey first leg encounter at the County Ground ended level as Kevin O'Connor dispatched a late penalty to cancel out Massimo Luongo's opener 20 minutes earlier.
Back at Griffin Park, Uwe Rosler's men were up on the night and coasting shortly after the break, but Joe Devera and Aden Flint pulled two goals back to send the tie to extra time.
In the end penalties were required, with Miles Storey's missed spot-kick allowing Adam Forshaw to seal a dramatic victory and spark a pitch invasion. Just under two weeks later, though, the red end of Wembley was left in silence, as Yeovil held on for a win, with a Harlee Dean goal unable to spark a comeback.
News of Warburton's pending summer exit rumbled in the background, but proved to be no distraction on the pitch, as victories over Reading and Wigan in the season's final two fixtures helped them from seventh to fifth, where they were paired with Middlesbrough. Fernando Amorebieta's 90th-minute winner saw Boro leave the capital with a victory in the first leg, but the Teessiders produced a thoroughly professional performance on home turf, running out deserved winners to avoid an unlikely upset.
Having missed two late opportunities to usurp West Brom in the Championship automatic promotion places, Thomas Frank became the next man to try his hand at banishing the play-off curse that has hung over Brentford for so many years. An entertaining first leg against Swansea at the Liberty Stadium ended in the Welsh side's favour, when Andre Ayew hammered a late volley past David Raya after referee Stroud had shown a controversial red card to Rico Henry that was later overturned.
However, the Champions League final will now be held in Porto, meaning the play-off schedule will run as planned with the Championship final taking place first, followed by League One and then League Two. Sky Sports have exclusive TV coverage for all three games which will also be able to be streamed on Now TV online and via the app. On that occasion, the Bees beat the Welsh outfit, only to lose at Wembley. Swansea, meanwhile, want to join Norwich and Watford in returning to the Premier League after a relatively short hiatus.
Nobody would have anticipated Lincoln being in this position at the start of the season. They narrowly missed out on the automatic spots by a single point, but they remain on course to put that right after beating Tranmere — who surprisingly sacked their manager Keith Hill just before the play-offs — in the semi-finals.
Morecambe face Newport County, the Welsh side having come out on top in a thriller after extra time against Forest Green. Log In. Contact us Sign up for newsletters.
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