Almanac Soccer: League Two Round up May 2025, and other sports

 

When I last posted in the Almanac the highlights and results of League Two towards the end of February, my team, AFC Wimbledon were flying as high as second on the table, and I boasted in my last paragraph that Wimbledon, based on their current form, were a statistical certainty to be automatically promoted.

 

I should have known. From the rounds that followed in March and April, Wimbledon created a new record in English football of throwing away leads to draw or lose matches. We hold the record of most points dropped from the 75^th minute onwards of games and there are multiple graphs from disheartened Wimbledon fans posting on social media back in England to back up my claim.

 

Two late penalties against Swindon in the 90^th and 95^th minutes for a come from behind win for the Robins.

Walsall equalising in the 87^th,

Doncaster in the 79^th

Barrow in the 88^th and 96^th.

A 76^th minute winner from Bromley.

 

Dropping 9 points in four games from winning positions saw us fall out of the automatic promotion spots down to the play offs. Spare a thought for Walsall. After leading the table for much of the season, they didn’t win a match in March and April and dropped down the table as well. The Saddlers were briefly back in the top three in the last match of the season when they broke their 13-game winless run to beat Crewe, but Bradford scored a stoppage time winner over Fleetwood to displace Walsall and win promotion to League One. Chesterfield lost 4-0 to relegation threatened Tranmere Rovers in April but were consistent enough in every other match over the last two months to sneak into seventh spot. Notts County, with only 15 points from their last 14 games, needed the points they built up earlier in the season as a buffer to keep them in contention.

 

This weekend, Notts County are at home to Wimbledon and Chesterfield host Walsall in the first leg of the play offs. There is no red-hot team amongst the four of them, no team is on a winning run, and no team are certain winners.

 

Doncaster’s three-year spell in League Two ended and Rovers were crowned champions. With only one loss from their last fourteen games, their wins over promotion chasers Bradford and County in the last two rounds clinched the title for Doncaster by four points. Port Vale, who in the new year were 14 points behind January table toppers Walsall regained their early season form to bounce back to League one at the first attempt, and thousands of Bradford fans flocked to Centenary Square to celebrate the Bantams promotion to League One.

 

It’s a good time to follow sport. The winter codes have begun in Australia; there’s still a few weeks of English football to run and the baseball season has begun in America.

 

Last weekend I watched on a computer in the study Port Melbourne play the Northern Bullants on a VFL live stream from Cramer Street, while on the telly in the lounge room I watched a Yankees game from the Bronx, then later in the day I had my pick of the Magic round of NRL matches from Brisbane to choose from, then I lay in bed on Saturday night watching English football updates on my phone. Time and technology have finally caught up with me.

 

It was bittersweet watching Port Melbourne. My father barracked for South Melbourne and Port Melbourne, but the Swans were so bad and Port Melbourne so good in the early to mid-seventies, that Dad paid more attention to the VFA results than to the results of the VFL. And Cramer Street was the venue of the under 10As grand final I played in for Bundoora in 1978. We won every game of the year but lost the grand final by a goal to Banyule. I still remember us in the clubrooms under the grandstand after the match, my teammates and I crying at the heartbreak of losing while listening to the raucous celebrations of under dogs Banyule in the adjacent clubroom.

 

Banyule wore Fitzroy colours, so every cloud etc.

 

Sport, hey?

 

Come on you Dons!

 

 

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