The play-offs are well and truly underway and we’ve already seen Salford City battle through this weekend and earn a spot in the Football League.
They’ve had four promotions in five years, but have also been bankrolled to achieve it. Elsewhere, the League Two play-offs have seen Mansfield and Forest Green in action, two more sides with big budgets.
Even in League One we see Sunderland with £5m of strikers come up against Portsmouth, a former Premier League side. It does seem as though money talks.
That’s why we’re excited for this afternoon’s clash between Doncaster Rovers and Charlton. It’s a shame this isn’t the final because of all the matches we’ve seen this week, this is the one that features two sides who have achieved success the good ‘ol traditional way; building a team.
Doncaster were written off at the beginning of the season and Grant McCann was even sacked by Peterborough for not being good enough to get a top six place. Talk about proving your point and bouncing back. McCann not only achieved a play-off spot, but also kept his former side out of the frame.
They’ve got a super side as well, with the goals of John Marquis as a focal point. It would be remiss to simply point to him as being the difference between sixth and tenth though. Whenever they’ve needed to pull a result out of the bag they have done with hard work and application.
Mallik Wilks, the Leeds Utd forward, has also had a good season and they’ve laid down a blueprint for other sides to follow. Gillingham, with Tom Eaves, had the same focal point as Marquis but didn’t get to the top six. Maybe that’s an unfair comparison, but in terms of size the two sides are very similar.
With a couple of loans and a set of dedicated professionals Doncaster have elevated themselves above the rabble and deserve huge credit for it,
On the other hand we have Charlton, a side who are the polar opposite of Sunderland. While Sunderland were adding £4m Will Grigg to their ranks, Lee Bowyer was being told he couldn’t sign free transfer Joe Mason to replace Karlan Grant.
They lost their leading scorer in January, their owner hasn’t bothered about them one bit and behind the scenes they’re in disarray. Youth players didn’t get water and Duchatelet, the despised despot at the helm, even wanted the EFL to take them over.
Did this affect them at all? Not one bit. Bowyer’s hard man image from his playing days has gone, replaced by that of a manager who can bring his players together and foster an ‘us and them’ mentality which has seen them outperform their big spending rivals. Had the season been 50 matches instead of 46, they would almost certainly have got into the top two.
These are two teams that have fought for their place amongst rivals with significantly bigger budgets, managers who have coached players and developed tactics that rely on squad mentality and not big signings.
If there was a play off match this week that truly could be called a people’s match, one between two sides who do things the right way, this is it. It’s just shame that one of them will eventually be eliminated.
