Play-off Dates

Think yourself lucky you're young enough to have a granny. If they were alive now my grans would be 121 and 117, in fact I've lived far longer than my maternal grandfather and I'm rapidly approaching the age that my paternal grand daddy died at.

I've got more chance of discovering a new constellation than "discovering" a new granny! ;D

Must have pressed a wrong button as hadn't finished with the dates!!!

2nd leg 4th May & 5th May

Final 17th May (but not necessarily at Wembley)

Is the Trophy Final at Wembley? Because somebody somewhere has their priorities mixed up if that is, and Play-Off Final isn't.

The FA Trophy is a tournament of some repute, and i certainly don't think it to be the 'tin-pot' trophy some suggest - but it shouldn't be considered more relevant than the League Play-Off - 'FA' Trophy or not.

good date. My Mum's birthday and my good friend Andy

You reckon it's going to matter? I have got a bad feeling about this after tonights result.

Looking round the top BSP teams websites I came across a change to the playoff dates and times.


www.cambridge-united.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10423~1632324,00.html

Good spot, KevGull, with the additional reminder that it's 5th v 2nd on Thurs 30 April and 4th v 3rd on Friday 1 May.

Earlier on this thread the suggestion was made that the BSP final may be a more worthy occasion of Wembley than either the FA Trophy or FA Vase final. I don't believe that's the case because the Trophy and Vase are national Football Association competitions and there's a history of Wembley finals dating back to the FA Amateur Cup in 1949. However, I do believe it's a phenomenal effort on behalf of the BSP for getting the play-off finals played at Wembley since 2007. It's certainly not an idea I could have imagined and full credit to them for having the nerve to ask in the first place. It is - after all - a fairly modest game in the wider scheme of things.

Maybe the whole idea of Wembley play-off finals offends my sense of proportion anyway. It does strike me as rather odd that - had we not won at Southend that day (as we had failed to do so at Leyton Orient in 1998) - we could have been at the Millennium Staduim (with Wembley being closed at the time) a few weeks later with ten times the support, in far grander circumstances and with much more ballyhoo. And what would have been the greater achievement - automatic promotion or winning the play-offs? Equally, Exeter are now faced with the prospect of beating Morecambe at home - a great place to win promotion of course - for a bigger prize (in the sense it's higher up the ladder) than the one they lost to the same opposition at Wembley. Should Exeter fail to win promotion on Saturday they then get another chance at the Don Valley Stadium the following week. That's a venue where they'd be able to take a very large following and it would be interesting to see how many would travel. A support of 4-5,000 would be excellent but that would pale into insignificance against the numbers who went to the two Wembley occasions.

But that's being churlish on my behalf and I've admitted several times how much I've enjoyed play-off finals at Wembley and Cardiff. It does seem that taking the BSP play-off final to Wembley is a sound commercial decision and - whoever it will be -lots of people will have an enjoyable day out and it will be a spectacle. That's the name of the game, isn't it?

As a matter of interest, the earlier Conference play-offs - they only date back a few years anyway - were played at venues such as Stoke and Leicester. I'd be more than happy to see Torquay win promotion anybloodywhere but I wonder how many we'd take to places such as that?

Going back to the Vase and Trophy, there are occasional stories about the finals being played on the same day at Wembley in future. That would be a shame but it's true both competitions lost some lustre when they were played away from Wembley. Having said that, I must say Taunton's win at Villa in 2001 made for a good day even though there was less than 10,000 there. And at this rate - if Winchester beat Paulton on Tuesday night - Taunton could get another crack at the Vase next season through being relegated back to the Western League.

And - of Taunton's team of a few years back - I see Chris Myers is acting manager of Burscough.