Promotion, Relegation, and Pies

By london_dan Last edited 228 months ago
Promotion, Relegation, and Pies
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Easter Bank Holiday weekend, then. Traditionally the weekend of the football calendar when promotion challengers get ready to either strengthen their cause or weakly limp out, and similarly those sides at the bottom attempt to make that final push for safety. Traditionally, but not this year, or at least not for the top two divisions anyway as the Easter fixture-fest gave way to International games (the Czech Republic beat Finland 4-3 by the way). Which gave some of us far too much time to make excuses for not putting up those shelves.

Not Brentford fans though, who had an easy bank holiday home tie against relegation favourites Peterborough to cement their place in the Division Three play-offs. At least that was the idea. A mixture of poor finishing, a lack of technique and a controversial decision by referee Paul Danson to rule out an own goal by Peterborough's Christopher Kanu after 54 minutes led to the Bees only getting a point from a 0-0 draw.

A bumper weekend of fixtures for Leyton Orient though, although you suspect with recent form in mind, their fans would've rather been putting up shelves. On Good Friday, mid-table Cheltenham came to town hoping to improve on a run of five defeats in their last six games. Which they did, rather too easily from the O's perspective with the away side being 2-0 up inside 20 minutes. The O's did rather better in the second half but couldn't stop Cheltenham from winning 3-2 in the end.

Easter Monday gave Orient a chance to redeem themselves as they travelled to Oxford - one of the more inconsistent sides in the division. Luke Steele scored Leyton Orient's fastest ever goal when he netted after just 12 seconds, which was exactly the kind of start they needed. However 54 minutes later they found themselves 2-1 down, but Michael Simpson rescued a point for the O's when he equalised after 72 minutes. It's been a horrible 2005 so far and just one point from two winnable games isn't good enough for Leyton Orient who will need to make changes in the summer if they're to have any substance to mount any serious threat next season.

Better news however for the Bees of Barnet who are now just one win off automatic promotion back to the Football League after their 1-0 over Canvey Island yesterday. It's been an excellent season for the Bees and the Londonist looks forward to seeing how well they'll do back in the brotherhood of the Football League.

And AFC Wimbledon have finally confirmed their promotion from the Ryman League and their continuous movement up the league pyramid after their 3-0 win over Dorking. All that remains for the Dons fans is to see low-life MK Dons getting relegated from Division Three to make their season complete.

To round off, we couldn't finish without mentioning the power, corruption and lies going on behind the scenes at Vicarage Road. After months of bizarre sackings and resignations including the Financial Director who felt he had "no alternative other than to resign, if I were to remain true to my own beliefs", came the idiotic dismissal of manager Ray Lewington. Much has been written about this elsewhere already, which leaves us just to give you the news of the appointment of Leeds coach Adrian Boothroyd with former Spurs manager Keith Burkinshaw as his number two, and leaves Watford...where?

Anyway, still waiting for those pesky sirens to call...

Last Updated 29 March 2005