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First rumour is regarding a long standing defender. Prickly customer with questionable choices when it comes to haircuts and first team coaches. May be on his way out if the deal is right.
I always think it's a bit odd that they decide and present these awards before the season ends especially when there's still so much to play for which was certainly the case in League Two. Alexander was a lucky deflected goal from leading the biggest club in League Two to the Play-Offs and this is on the back of a 9th place finish last season. If they'd ended up in the Play-Offs and not gone up surely this season would've been deemed a failure?
I don't always think the manager of the team that wins the division should get the award but Doncaster were fifth last season so that's still a decent improvement this season. Salford went from 20th to 8th, Grimsby from 21st to 9th and Col U from 22nd to 10th. All improved by 12 positions on last season. Bromley finished 11th in their debut season in the football league which is quite some achievement and probably surpasses McCann's at Doncaster and is definitely ahead of Alexander's for me. All four clubs in the Play-Offs have improved on last year's position in the division and if Chesterfield were to go all the way and win it surely that would put Cook right up there in terms of Manager of the Season.
Ultimately they decided on Alexander about two weeks too early and there are at least half a dozen managers that you could make a case for winning it ahead of him including Danny Cowley.
Thanks wessex, I normally just deal in stats and data so was nice to add a bit more colour to something but boy did it take a lot longer than I had anticipated. I now have even more respect for all your previews and other bits over the years.
Less than 60 people from averaging 5,000 in the league for the season but still our fifth highest average attendance in 49 seasons! And our highest fourth tier attendance since 1974 and we finished third that season.
2022/23 - 3,586 2023/23 - 4,179 2024/25 - 4,997
Nearly 20% up on last season and nearly 40% up on the previous season. And all this in a very northern division with no natural local rival.
Going into the final match of the 2014/15 season we were in 22nd position in the table on 49 points. Leyton Orient were one point behind on 48 points with a better goal difference. Crawley were point ahead along with Notts County. Crawley’s goal difference was worse than ours but Notts County’s better by four. Crewe were in 19th on 52 points but with a worse goal difference than everyone below them apart from bottom of the table Yeovil. Coventry were also on 52 points but with a better goal difference than most but could still be relegated if they lost and results went against them.
League One table after close of play on 02 May 2015
Col U had shown an uptick in form in April, starting with two wins over the Easter weekend but back to back defeats away against Coventry (1-0) and Chesterfield (6-0) left the team on the brink. A 2-2 draw against Scunthorpe followed where the U’s had fought back from 1-0 down with less than 10 minutes remaining to lead 2-1 before conceding in stoppage time. There was more late drama the following weekend where two goals in the last 10 minutes gave the U’s a vital 3-2 win away at Fleetwood. A Tuesday night home game versus Swindon was next and despite taking a first minute lead and having opportunities to win the game a 1-1 draw was the result which left the U’s needing a minor miracle to pull off the great escape from relegation to League Two. The final day fixtures for the teams who could still get relegated were as follows:
Colchester Utd V Preston North End Crawley Town V Coventry City Crewe Alexandra V Bradford City Gillingham V Notts County
Firstly we had to beat Preston at home who needed to better MK’s result for automatic promotion. We also needed for Crewe to get beaten and either Crawley or Notts County not to win. If Crewe managed even a point then a Crawley or Notts County win would send us down. Preston would come into the match on an 18 game unbeaten run with their last league defeat coming in January and their last defeat of any description was in February against Man United in the FA Cup where Preston had actually led in the second half of that game. It was a very tight game with chances few and far between and despite Chris Porter missing a second half penalty the U’s would beat Preston 1-0 thanks to a well taken goal by George Moncur in the 82nd minute. I won’t go into too much detail about the match itself but I feel we can never talk about this game without mentioning Tom Eastman’s incredible sliding tackle to deny Jermaine Beckford. It was timed to perfection and if we’d fallen behind it would’ve been a long, long way back. We’d done our bit by winning but we still needed at least two other results to go our way to be saved from relegation.
Colchester Utd 1-0 Preston North End Crawley Town 1-2 Coventry City Crewe Alexandra 0-1 Bradford City Gillingham 3-1 Notts County
In somewhat miraculous fashion not just two results went our way but all three did with Crewe, Notts County and Crawley all losing meaning that Notts County and Crawley were relegated along with Leyton Orient and Yeovil. Looking at those results in a bit more depth:
- Crewe lost 1-0 at home to Bradford with the goal being scored by former Col U loanee Billy Clarke and former U’s keeper Ben Williams keeping a clean sheet.
- Crawley lost 2-1 at home despite taking the lead early in the second half. The winner came in the stoppage time and was scored by a young James Maddison with the assist coming from a certain Frank Nouble.
- Notts County lost 3-1 away at Gillingham. County had taken the lead just after the hour mark but Gillingham hit back with goals in the 88th, 93rd and 95th minutes. The second goal was scored by Brennan Dickenson and the third goal by Luke Norris. Another future U’s player, Doug Loft also played the for Gillingham that day. Not really related but the Gillingham goalkeeper back in the 2014/15 season has featured nearly 40 times for Gillingham in the 2024/25 season.
League One end of season table for 2014-15 season
Preston would go on to win the Play-Offs by winning their next three matches without conceding a goal and the only downer on that memorable day was helping MK get promoted.
We are definitely up against it tomorrow but it is the 10 year anniversary and maybe, just maybe, something magical just might happen again.
Barrow have one defeat in 12. Maybe not on the beach quite yet.
It feels like we've had more than our fair share of bad luck and decisions go against us this season. How many PGMOL apologies? Maybe tomorrow is the day things go our way.
This was our first ever defeat at Salford and what a time for it to happen.
Also this is the first time we've ever not taken points off Salford in a season where we've been in the same division (six seasons) and it also means that we've taken at least a point off every club in the division except Salford, of all teams annoyingly. I was wondering how many times we've managed to get at least a point off of every other club in the division as I imagine it's probably been quite a rarity in our history.
Imagine! I missed the Preston game, which many consider to be their favourite moment at the new stadium, so I'm definitely not missing Saturday. Plus I bought my tickets weeks ago.
North 1-3 are all available to U's fans which seems optimistic given where we now find ourselves. Although I do think the odds of us making it are probably shorter than they were back in 2015.
Great for the club and our fans that go away to lose some of those really long trips and replace them with some much shorter ones.
Also some of biggest League Two clubs are going up and some of the smallest League One clubs coming down. Is football levelling off? Will "punching above your weight" become a thing of the past?
I very rarely use the phrase "must win game" as it's very rarely true but tomorrow nearly falls into that category. I fully expect Chesterfield to get six points from their remaining fixtures which would mean 70 points wouldn't be enough unless Notts County go pointless across their final two games.
We've had more than our fair share of bad luck and poor decisions going against this season and maybe tomorrow some of that luck will fall our way for a change and I think we're probably going to need it to as well.
Whatever happens tomorrow I know we'll all be proud of the team but here's hoping that two more big pushes can keep the dream alive.
I've heard that Peterborough turned down £6 million for Poku and that they're hoping to get £8 million from the tribunal. I'd imagine a chunk of that will be heading our way.
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