Swindon's play off 'win' in 1990

[Acido]

Ok this is my first new thread on here so I thought Id better make it as controversial as possible

As this is Swindon mad, Im thinking back to those play offs at the end of season 1989-90, when Ossie and Swindon were denied promotion despite winning the play off final.

So who deserved promotion instead then...
Was it Newcastle for finishing 3rd, even though they lost to 6th placed Sunderland in the Semis ?

Or was it Sunderland for actually getting to the final, even though they lost the Final ?

[gaz1959]

question that Acido

I would say Sunderland because we have a couple of occasional Black Cats here

On the evening of that final 1-0 win over Mackems in Swindon - riot police were called in from other towns as our fans rampaged though the streets of the Old Town part of Swindon wrecking cars windows etc

I was a part time fireman then and was called in for a job and was confronted by the riot police outside the station

My Sub Officer had to verify who I was

The Officer in charge said "Christ knows what they would have done if they lost"

Perhaps the rempagers knew our demise

[Stan_van_nel]

It was quite a roller coaster period in Swindon's history around that time.

Promoted but taken away and relegated, promoted and then promoted again to the big league. Crazy is this football fan lark.

Who was promoted instead?

I can't remember because we were scratching around in the 4th division.

[gaz1959]

Sunderland went up Stan

There was talk of us going down to third tier while top tier clubs were like were let off

[Acido]

It was an awful decision Stan, we were in the same division as Swindon at the time and I think we and a lot of other neutral teams/fans thought they were hard done by.

Gaz, what were the so called 'financial irregularities' ?


BTW, I didnt like Swindon the year before (1988-89) because they denied us a play off place!!

[lazaat]

As gaz said a lot of the bigger clubs did the same as us and only recieved a small fine

I believe we paid some "non contractual" bonuses? Also our chairman at the time bet that we would lose an FA cup tie at Newcastle (we got beat 5-0).

I was at Wembley the day we beat Sunderland 1-0, we played them off the park and should have scored a lot more!

I was absolutely gutted when we were not only denied promotion to the big league but also demoted to the old 3rd division, on appeal we were reinstated back to where we were in the 2nd division (championship now).

Who should have gone up in our place? No one, they should have relegated one less team from the top flight.

That decision still hurts today all these years later, lots of big clubs did what we did but we were made an example of!

[Acido]

Was it any consolation seeing Sunderland struggle, and come straight back down ?

[lazaat]

Funnily enough Acido, after we beat Sunderland lots of their fans were coming up to us outside Wembley to shake our hands and telling us we deserved it and the best team won! They are really nice decent people up there so i felt sorry for them being relegated the following season so no it didnt really help, it wasnt Sunderland who i blamed but those @$$holes from the FA or whoever it was who not only denied us our promotion but then tried to relegate us 2 divisions!

[gaz1959]

Same as Laz said

Sunerland fans are the best I have met too

They are the only fans back then to be allowed in the County Ground Hotel

Up the Mackems