Phil Brown certainly knows a thing or two about drama. With his Southend side looking like suffering play-off heartache for the third time in the last four seasons, the 55-year-old must have thought their luck was out. But less than an hour later Brown was on the Wembley turf where he won promotion to the Premier League with Hull back in 2008 savouring the acclaim of his supporters as the Shrimpers finally ensured they will return to League One for the first time in five seasons.
“You can’t write the script. I wouldn’t swap this day for anything,” Brown said. “It’s very difficult. The last time I was here with Hull it was a great day. This is even greater but I feel desperately sorry for Wycombe because they’ve had a fabulous year.”
After 46 matches that saw them finish the season level on points in League Two was followed by 120 minutes of nerve-jangling tension at Wembley, these two teams could not be separated. They eventually were by the 16th penalty of a shootout that first saw Wycombe go ahead after Ben Coker’s effort was saved, only for misses from Matt Bloomfield and Sam Wood to give Southend victory.
Unlike when he took to the microphone to celebrate Hull’s top-flight survival, however, this time Brown refused to break into a song and instead reserved his sympathy for his opposite number, Gareth Ainsworth, with whom he had stood shoulder to shoulder watching the shootout.
Brown said: “The one guy I feel for in this world is Gareth. It’s an awful way to end a season. We both said that we wouldn’t go overboard, whoever wins it. It’s in the lap of the gods and it was. The young lads and the old lads showed a lot of character to win the game. To get the equaliser in the 122nd minute shows what we’re about. |
“We’ve got to dust ourselves down in the summer and come back in League One. That’s what we set out to achieve at the start of the season and that’s what we’ve done today.”
Ainsworth is no stranger to the world of music either, having given up rehearsing for his heavy metal band Road to Eden to concentrate on preparing his side for this match. Wycombe’s transformation from escaping relegation from the Football League last season to the verge of promotion 12 months later has been remarkable and their manager paid tribute to his players’ efforts. “It’s devastating to lose but I’m ready now to build; we’ve had a phenomenal season,” he said. “The players have given it everything and haven’t got anything out of it but I’ll be telling them to remember how far we have come in the last 12 months. I’m proud of them. We were part of a momentous battle today.”
A dour first half had ended with Southend feeling rightly aggrieved after being denied what looked a perfectly good goal from Barry Corr. They continued to create the better chances after the break and should have been awarded a penalty when Joe Jacobson pushed Corr in the box. But Wycombe also had their chances to win it in normal time and Brown was thankful for Dan Bentley’s last-ditch save from Aaron Pierre to take the game into extra time.
It looked as though the Southend keeper would have a day he would never forget for all the wrong reasons. He deflected Jacobson’s 25-yard free-kick into his own net to give Wycombe an extra-time lead. But with 24 seconds left on the clock the substitute Joe Pigott kept his nerve to take the game to penalties and leave Wycombe wondering what might have been.
