League Two Play-Off Betting: Players must blot out ghostly Wembley backdrop

English Football League / Frank Gregan / 24 May 2008 / 1 Comments

Former non-League manager Frank Gregan looks at the finale to the season - Rochdale v Stockport County

The decision to shuffle the order of the play-off games has introduced a feeling of slow death to the end of season's finale. Instead of building to a crescendo with a gripping dual for a place in the Premier League in front of a full house at Wembley Stadium on Bank Holiday Monday we are left with a battle between two teams whose average attendances are just 5,500 and 3,050 respectively.

Stockport County Versus Rochdale brings down the curtain on what has been a glorious season of league football. Apologies to the 8,000 or so that follow both teams regularly but I think that a more attractive game should be our last memory of the domestic campaign and that is why I think the order should be switched back again.

It will be interesting to see what the attendance will be. Since the move from a two-legged final back in 1990 there have been two occasions when the crowd has been less than 20,000. Given the average support of these two clubs I think that there is every chance that this will be the case again.

The irony is that this is probably the biggest game that some of these players will ever be involved in and the atmosphere will be eerie, almost ghost like. Wembley with only 20,000 inside is a strange place and the television companies have to do more work with smoke and mirrors than Paul Daniels in order to create the illusion of an atmosphere.

The camera shots towards the North Stand on the Royal Box side of the ground will be wide high angle and will show the vast majority of the crowd packed together. The far side camera shots will be tight, not showing the seated area. That is because there will be very little or indeed no crowd in that vast area, the only people over there will be the ball boys. There will be a smattering of folk behind each goal but they are so spread out they add nothing to the atmosphere.

As well as coping with a strange ambiance the players will also have to get used to very different surroundings than that of which they are used to. The build up will have been totally different, the team will be photographed, suited and booted, outside the team hotel and then will receive a police escort to the stadium. The new Wembley is palatial and the players will be in awe of their surroundings. In order to combat this both clubs will have had the opportunity to visit the ground in the days leading up to the game and be walked through the events of the day.

I've been there, done that and got the tee shirt and with the benefit of hindsight if I ever get the opportunity to do it again I would limit as much of the razzmatazz as I could.
I would ensure that we only stayed in a hotel for the one night prior to the game rather than breaking the routine and turning it into a week long preparation period. I would not do the suited and booted and photographs and buttonholes and all the other paraphernalia which distracts everyone from the job in hand. I would make sure that we turned up an hour-and-a-half before kick-off dressed in tracksuits and warmed up in exactly the same manner as for a league game. Above all else, I would ensure that the players stayed focused on the job not the occasion.

The team that blocks everything out with the exception of that white spherical object that needs placing between the posts will prevail in this match. The side that is wandering around two hours before kick-off in their best bib and tucker signing autographs and admiring the wonderful new architecture of the stadium will lose. There is plenty of time to wave at friends and family once the game is won.

Human nature is not like that though, everybody will want to enjoy the moment and milk an occasion like this for all it's worth. I think the pressure will get to both sides and it will be a tense, nervy affair. Odds of [1.72] should be attainable on fewer than 2.5 goals and I think that is a very big price. There was very little between the two sides at the end of a 46 game season and I expect the final to be the same. I'm going to have a few bob on Rochdale to win 1-0 at [9.0] and hope that their manager Keith Hill keeps them focused!

Comments (1)

1. Elliott | 27 May 2008

   I guess you were wrong about the attendance being less than 20000! The average attendance in league 2 is low, but working on your calculations, if the Final in league 1 had not included Leeds then the expected attendance would have been less than 20000 (Ave attendances for the other playoff teams were all below 10,000)

   Play off finals, or any other wembley visit always bring the fans out of the woodwork as anyone who had done their homework would have realised!