Play-offs add spice to the end of season malaise

11:33am Friday 2nd May 2008

Sitting huddled in the rain, surrounded by hordes of nail-biting, screaming AFC Wimbledon fans at Kingsmeadow on Tuesday night as the Dons advanced to tomorrow's Ryman Premier play-off final against Staines Town, I against started musing on the magic that is the play-offs.

Much maligned on their introduction, the play-offs have transformed the usual end-of-season meandering into an exciting, tenson-filled thrillathon, with teams battling to make the promotion promised land.

Take the Harlequins clubs, for example - in union, Quins are entangled in a six-team free-for-all for the top four, while, in league, seventh-placed Quins RL could easily end up in Super League's top six, booking their place in the end-of-season jamboree.

What this does is maintain the excitement, increase the number of important fixtures and, no doubt, delights the fans and media.

In fact, the only people who are dead set against the play-offs are probably the sides that lose in them - and this is where the counter-argument comes in.

When a team that finishes the season way ahead of one of their play-off rivals fails to advance, the line that is trotted out time and time again is but we were much better than them during the season'.

But surely the season' includes the play-offs?

If you know you did not deserve automatic promotion then why should you deserve to be treated any differently?

The play-offs are still stacked in the favour of the better' side, thanks to home advantage, and, if you fail to perform on the day, tough.

Sport is all about peaking at the right time and, in the modern age, there is no greater time than the play-offs.

We have seen on countless occasions teams scrape into the play-offs on the last game of the season, then go on to win the thing - it allows the form teams to capitalise.

Had Andy Scott, for example, maintained his sparkling early form and piloted Brentford into the League Two play-offs, do you think Bees fans would have cared two jots about how many points they were behind fourth place? I think not.

The beauty of sport is the uncertainty of it, the twists and turns that fire the drinking-den debates and fill the column inches.

And that is why, to me, as a fan and a journalist, the play-offs are a thing of true beauty.

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