[Lord Snooty]

May 28:

Having been relegated at the end of the 1987/88 season, Town finally ended seven years of 3rd Division football on this date in 1995, by beating Bristol Rovers at Wembley in the Play Off Final.

Under normal circumstances, this would've been the semi final, with Rovers finishing 4th and Town 5th. But the league was under going reconstruction, due to the Premier League trimming down from 22 teams to 20 and so in this season only, there were only two promotion places up for grabs. We had already knocked out the unlucky Brentford, who had finished second and would normally have gone up automatically. Birmingham had gone up as champs, having won at our place on the last day of the season.

The Pirates had beaten Crewe in the semis on the away goals rule and were favourites to win this one, even though we had Neil Warnock in charge, who had won two previous Play Off Finals with Notts County. They had John Ward managing them. His failure in this match was followed by more failure in the next season and he was replaced by Ian Holloway.

Anyway, the first half was a tense affair, with Town taking the lead after a bit of head tennis in the area in the 44th minute, with Andy Booth finishing it off for his 30th goal of the season. So 1-0 to Town at half time. Or was it?

Was it flippin' 'eck as like! Town's players were still celebrating and with their minds on their half time pie n a pint and a quick ciggy and so lost concentration at a Rovers throw in. Up popped future Town legend, Marcus Stewart to level things up. He would sign for Town at the end of the next season, with manager Holloway telling him he would be wasting his talent going to such an awful place and club as Huddersfield.

The winning goal came after 81 minutes, just a minute after super sub Iain Dunn, had come on. It was his precise cross, that was headed back across the box by Boothy, which was met by a diving header from Chris Billy into the back of the net. All pile on!

Rovers hit back immediately and another future Town player, Marcus Browning, forced Steve Francis into a miraculous save to keep us ahead. Then Stewart hit the bar with a rocket of a shot from 30 yards.

They were so unlucky, but what's luck got to do with it when promotion's at stake? We held on and the relief around the stadium as the whistle went was immense. Phew!

Here, have a watch of it all.........