Final Day Countdown

And now for something completely different. This afternoon’s Conference National fixtures. The only game in-play is the Torquay United v Burton Albion game, with the Gulls the selection at 2.24. Burton’s current form is the worst of ALL the Conference teams, and with Torquay needing a win to guarantee a play-off spot, and a friendly crowd , they can win this.

Cambridge United, with automatic promotion a possibility, host Altrincham, whose players already have one foot in Benidorm (or wherever Conference players holiday these days). Cambridge will win this, and are at 1.23. Borderline value. Anyway, if the net margin of victories by Torquay and Cambridge is 5 goals or greater, then it is Cambridge who will rejoin the Football League.

Histon are already in the play-offs and with little to play for, I am leaving their game at Crawley alone. Stevenage should be too strong for Mansfield, and need to win (1.79) to avoid being pipped at the post by Kidderminster who are 1.5 to beat Kettering at home, and will. Oxford should also beat Northwich at 1.36, but their fate is not in their feet, and I will be leaving this one alone.

I love final afternoons like these. It’s what real football supporting is all about. Keeping track of the latest scores and looking at the permutations as they change every few minutes. Burton all but had this league sewn up a few weeks ago. Perhaps they are another club whose players already had one foot on the beach, only in their case, it’s on the Devon Riviera that they find themselves, not the Spanish one, and the season is not quite over. I suspect that when the dust has settled tomorrow, Burton Albion will have clinched promotion (1.29), even if it is only on goal difference.

What price on AFC Wimbledon topping this league next season? I have to say that when the club was formed I thought the whole enterprise was doomed to failure, but in less than seven years the club are now just one step away from the Football League and playing the likes of former top division teams Luton Town and Oxford United. That is a great story.