League One
If the measure of a championship-winning side is resilience – finding a way to win, week in, week out – then this might just be Bristol City’s season. Steve Cotterill has made no secret of his desire to claim the title with a team that were in the relegation zone when he arrived at Ashton Gate last December, but City started slowly at home to Chesterfield. Twice they were pegged back by Paul Cook’s side after Ian Evatt’s own goal had given them an early lead. With the game deep into injury time, and Peterborough thrashing Crawley 4-1, stalemate – and with it, a minor blow to the hosts’ title ambitions – seemed inevitable. City, though, unbeaten since March, are nothing if not tough. Cue Wes Burns, who duly popped up in injury time to drive home the winner. So was Cotterill’s joy unconfined? Not exactly. Bemoaning a lack of ruthlessness, he said City should have scored five – precisely the kind of attitude he will need if he is to pull off promotion.
It was a dramatic finale, but – if stoking the dying embers is your thing – Bramall Lane was the only show in town. Leyton Orient may be labouring at the wrong end of the table, but they are unbeaten away from home this season and reached the 90th minute a man down but a goal to the good. Then followed seven minutes of mayhem, with Paddy McCarthy and Marc McNulty scoring two goals in two minutes to put the Blades on course for an unlikely win, before Romain Vincelot scored an equaliser so late you could have read it the last rites. What is it about footballers and beards just now?
It was likewise a good day for Orient’s neighbours in the League One basement. Scunthorpe picked up their first away win of the season at Gillingham, for whom Doug Loft was dismissed, while Crewe won 2-1 at Gresty Road against Coventry.
League Two
Richard Money has repeated it like a mantra: win a match in the tightly bunched environs of League Two, and the upper reaches of the table quickly come into view; lose, and you will soon be looking over your shoulder. By that reckoning, the Cambridge United manager must have been flirting with vertigo by the time his side had recovered from a goal down to put five past Oxford United in the afternoon’s early kick-off. The resounding win – in which Kwesi Appiah, with two well-taken strikes, was the standout performer – briefly propelled Cambridge from 16th spot to eighth, within a point of the play-off places. Results elsewhere justified the cautious optimism with which Money hailed the result – “a pretty sound effort”, he called it – but that Cambridge finished the afternoon in 11th merely supported his theory that things change quickly in the division.
Step forward Bury, who started the day as league leaders but were down to third by close of play after failing to make their early dominance count against Neal Ardley’s impressive Wimbledon side. A 3-2 defeat at Kingsmeadow leaves the Shakers with Luton – who beat Southend 2-0 to make it five wins in six outings – breathing down their necks.
Events at the Sixfields Stadium likewise attested to the truth of Money’s philosophy, with Northampton Town’s 2-1 undoing at the hands of Burton Albion moving them out of the play-off positions and down into ninth. They are now just a point clear of 12th-placed Portsmouth, who drew 1-1 with Mansfield at Fratton Park.
Wycombe Wanderers made the smaller but potentially more significant step from second to first, surviving Morecambe’s often stern examination of their defence to emerge 3-1 winners. At the other end of the table, Carlisle and Hartlepool both won to lift themselves out of the drop zone, where they were replaced by Oxford United and Tranmere.
But if League Two offers an ever-altering picture, some things never change. Dave Beasant, the man who so memorably captained Wimbledon to victory over Liverpool in the 1988 FA Cup final, featured on the bench for Stevenage as they slipped to a 3-0 defeat at Carlisle. He is 55.
