Today's results - 4th April 2009

[Sean of the Shed]

FA Premier League

Arsenal 2-0 Manchester City
Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur
Bolton Wanderers 4-1 Middlesbrough
Fulham 0-1 Liverpool
Hull City 0-0 Portsmouth
Newcastle Utd 0-2 Chelsea
West Bromwich Albion 0-2 Stoke City
West Ham Utd 2-0 Sunderland


Football League Championship

Barnsley 1-1 Nottingham Forest
Blackpool 0-1 Plymouth Argyle
Bristol City 1-1 Preston North End
Coventry City 0-0 Reading
Derby County 1-1 Burnley
Doncaster Rovers 1-2 Watford
Norwich City 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday
Queen`s Park Rangers 0-0 Crystal Palace
Sheffield Utd 2-0 Ipswich Town
Southampton 2-3 Charlton Athletic


Football League 1

Cheltenham Town 0-1 Leyton Orient
Colchester Utd 0-1 Leeds Utd
Hartlepool Utd 4-2 Hereford Utd
Huddersfield Town 0-1 Southend Utd
Leicester City 2-2 Carlisle Utd
Millwall 3-1 Walsall
Milton Keynes Dons 2-0 Brighton & Hove Albion
Oldham Athletic 1-2 Peterborough Utd
Stockport County 0-0 Yeovil Town
Swindon Town 0-0 Crewe Alexandra


Football League 2

Accrington Stanley (2) 0-2 Lincoln City
AFC Bournemouth 4-0 Rochdale
Aldershot Town 0-1 Rotherham Utd
Bradford City 1-1 Brentford
Darlington 0-0 Morecambe
Exeter City 2-1 Dagenham & Redbridge
Gillingham 0-2 Barnet
Macclesfield Town 1-1 Chesterfield
Notts County 1-2 Chester City
Port Vale 1-1 Bury
Shrewsbury Town 1-1 Grimsby Town


Sunday 5th April:

FA Premier League
Everton 4-0 Wigan Athletic
Manchester Utd 3-2 Aston Villa

Football League Championship
Cardiff City 2-2 Swansea City

Football League 1
Tranmere Rovers 2-0 Bristol Rovers

Football League Trophy Final
Luton Town 3-2 Scunthorpe Utd
(At Wembley Stadium. After Extra Time)


Monday 6th April:

Football League Championship
Birmingham City 2-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers

[Sean of the Shed]

[Sean of the Shed]

[Sean of the Shed]

[Sean of the Shed]

[Ray de Galles]

That 2-2 draw in the South Wales derby was an absolutely cracking game. Cardiff really should have won on the balance of play but were ultimately a bit lucky to get a draw after a soft injury time penalty won and converted by Rossaldinho McCormack.

Sadly, some moron in the home end caught Mike Dean with a coin. He did get caught, fined and banned in the end though.

[Various Artist]

Well, Norwich are in a bit of a tricky situation, but the goodwill surrounding the appointment of club legend Bryan Gunn as manager recently hasn't fully dissipated yet and I'm confident we'll be able to survive. It's been 50 years since we were in the third tier, for goodness' sake.

If all else fails, our final fixture is at Charlton and they're already doomed, so it should be an easy enough way to pick up a concluding three points if we really need them.

[DCI Harry Batt]

AFC Wimbledon 2 - 0 Team Bath

The Dons returned to winning ways in the face of studious resilience from Team Bath and one of the strangest refereeing decisions in living memory.

After two successive defeats no-one connected with AFC Wimbledon was doubting how important a victory against Team Bath would be. Not only had the Dons lost two games in a row, they hadn't played to anything like their full potential in either game, and with Hampton & Richmond, Eastleigh and Hayes & Yeading all on impressive winning streaks, the pressure was on.

Terry Brown was without Jason Goodliffe and Alan Inns, so opted to pair Ben Judge and Jake Leberl at the centre of the defence and reverted to his early season 4-3-3 formation, with Kezie Ibe joining 46-goal partnership Jon Main and Danny Kedwell up front. The unlucky Rob Saunders joined his fellow evictees from the number 11 shirt, Elliott Godfrey and Anthony Finn, on the bench.

Team Bath. managed by former QPR and Bristol Rovers defender Andy Tillson, hadn't come to help the Dons cause, but neither did they seem overly ambitious in their approach, getting at least nine men behind the ball at every opportunity and denying the Dons any space to create chances. Defenders Warren and El-Abd looked assured and had the measure of Main and Ibe, forcing Kedwell to drop back into a deeper role in his attempt to affect the game.

With Team Bath's lack of cutting edge, the game ebbed and flowed until one side or the other side reached the final third, and then any promise of an attacking threat was nullified by poor crosses or wrong decisions. A Main header on 25 minutes that flew 15 yards wide was the Dons' best chance of the opening half-hour, but Judge and Leberl were coping just as easily with the visitors' Piotronski and Cooper.

With three minutes of the half remaining, the Dons should have taken the lead. Ibe found himself one on one with keeper Meredith and had to decide quickly whether to try to round the onrushing stopper or sidefoot the ball past him into the bottom corner. Unfortunately he chose a third way and attempted to lob Meredith, but got it all wrong and shinned the ball into the air, presenting the keeper with the simplest of saves.

Seven minutes into the second half, he made up for his error. The Dons' best move of the game saw Dwane Lee play a delightful ball down the right flank into the path of Jay Conroy, who broke into the box and sidefooted a pinpoint pass into the six-yard area, where Ibe applied a calm finish for 1-0. 52 minutes of ineffective huffing and puffing and two simple passes had undone the Students.

The visitors then threw caution to the wind by taking off their centre-forward and bringing on another one, a sure sign that a draw was what they had come for, but with Tom Davis back to something like his best, the Dons were intent on making sure they left with nothing. But chances were still hard to come by, and 10 minutes after scoring Ibe was off, replaced by Godfrey and with half of the half left, Main also got the hook and Antony Finn came on in his place.

Finn shortly became involved in one of the strangest refereeing decisions you will ever see. A long James Pullen clearance bounced over everyone, and the impressive Warren watched it carefully before steering his header back to Meredith, under pressure from Finn. However, the defender hadn't reckoned on his keeper being six feet behind him, and the two collided heavily as the ball trickled over the line for a corner. But amazingly, both the referee and the linesman on the near side awarded a goal kick, much to the bemusement of everyone in the ground. Whether or not Team Bath took this as a sign that luck was on their side is debatable, but suddenly Canham and Cooper conjured a couple of half-chances out of nothing, and the Dons, who just minutes before had seemed set for a comfortable victory, now looked edgy.

A head injury to Pullen with just a minute left on the clock, and just 60 seconds after Brown had made his final substitution, was cause for concern, but the keeper emerged with his blond mane tamed by a swathe of bandages, much to everyone'e relief. Even more relieving, though, would be a second goal. Finn's 20-yard effort flew narrowly wide on 90 minutes, but that second goal did arrive, seconds into injury time and thanks largely to another odd decision.

A volley from Godfrey was so wild that it threatened to go out of play for a throw-in on the far side, but the ball bounced on the touchline and spun out for what was surely a goal kick. Bizarrely, the referee awarded the Dons what would be the first of two corners. That was put behind by Lock; the second was only half-cleared by Smith, and Judge's long ball was pounced on by Kedwell, who fed Godfrey, and although his weak shot would have been saved, Davis was on hand to drill a shot into the net from five yards.

[Ray de Galles]

I think the writer might be overselling that refereeing decision a little.

[Southport Zeb]

Watched Southport lose 2-0 at Alfreton today. Think that pretty much ends any chance of us taking the title but we should get a playoff place. Don't think we'll be good enough to win them, but I do think we may get a chance to see every dog belonging to Northumbria Police.

[longeared]

IIRC Newcastle's defeat to Chelsea was the beginning of Shearer's long and distinguished managerial career.

Was the Manchester United win the game where Macheda scored the winner in the last minute or was that a different season?

[Patrick Thistle]

Shrewsbury made the play offs and lost at Wembley to a last minute goal. Then they sold Grant Holt to Norwich. Two heartbreaking moments in one summer.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I think the writer might be overselling that refereeing decision a little.

I don't remember it. Not sure I if I was there or not. We could probably find it somewhere and check.

[Ray de Galles]

I wasn't there but I'm not sure any wrongly awarded goal kick could ever justify that hyperbole.

[Sean of the Shed]

Watched Southport lose 2-0 at Alfreton today. Think that pretty much ends any chance of us taking the title but we should get a playoff place. Don't think we'll be good enough to win them, but I do think we may get a chance to see every dog belonging to Northumbria Police.

That was a proper ding dong of a title race. I think by this time Tamworth were just ahead of the field but none of the top five were winning consistently. It was another four games later when we finally sealed the title at home to Hinckley.

[fatbear]

I was part of the 15,842 watching MK Dons comfortably beat Brighton 2-0. Albion were poor and looked certainties for relegation after this display with recent signing Craig Davies looking particularly ineffective. However, an unlikely run of 16 points in the last 7 matches, mainly thanks to 7 goals from on loan Lloyd Owusu, meant that Albion ended the season safe in 16th place

[DCI Harry Batt]

I wasn't there but I'm not sure any wrongly awarded goal kick could ever justify that hyperbole.

Oh, I thought you meant the wrongly awarded corner.

[That Night In Barcelona]

3-2 loss at home to bottom-club Charlton for Southampton. They were still only 3 points from safety but with a patched up side of youth teamers pushed into the first team a bit early, cheap signings from Europe and senior players that didn't attract any buyers in the previous two transfer windows.

Of the players in the squad that day, a small handful went on to have good careers: Morgan Schneiderlin was sat on the bench, Adam Lallana started, David McGoldrick scored and on the left-wing, Andy Surman went on to be a mainstay for Bournemouth. In goal, Kelvin Davis went on to be club captain for two consecutive promotions back up to the Premier League but was fairly quickly replaced by first Gazzaniga (now at Spurs) and then the holy goalie Arthur Boruc.

[imp]

I have no recollection of any of these results. I may have watched one or several of the Premier League games on telly, sat on a sofa in the US eating bacon and egg, but then again I maybe didn't. Which goes to show - football on telly is no experience at all when you can do it all the time. The only live games should be the FA Cup Final and the annual Home Internationals final game between England and Scotland.

What's with the (2) after Accrington Stanley?

[DCI Harry Batt]

I remember very little about any games I've been to. In fact, I remember very few games I've been to.

[Sean of the Shed]

What's with the (2) after Accrington Stanley?

The results are taken from an archive site that goes back to the 1888/89 season so it is probably there to differentiate from the original incarnation.

[imp]

Ah, thanks.

Has OTF ever been this busy on a Saturday afternoon?

[Viktor Boskovic]

I was at Notts County, a rather tense and dramatic win. Ryan Lowe scored and then went in goal after John Danby went off injured, my nerves were shredded by the time injury time arrived, but we held on for the first win of 2009 and to stay in the race to avoid relegation. As ever it's the hope that kills you, as the win that day and at Accrington a couple of games later just delayed the inevitable.

[That Night In Barcelona]

Seeing Hereford in the tables there reminds me of Robert De Niro pronouncing the place as 'here-fod' (i.e. not 'herry-fod') in the film Ronin.

[cantagalo]

At Bradford City to see a goal from on-loan Billy Clarke earn a point. Five games later the title was clinched at Darlington.

This was the first of eleven consecutive top half finishes as Brentford rose through the divisions to the verge of the Premier League before the current season was so cruelly cut short.