The EFL play-offs at 40
Memories lovingly relived across Sky Sports from up and down the EFL of four decades of the play-offs
The EFL play-offs. You can't guarantee drama - but you might as well.
Euphoria. Despair. Controversy. Stunning goals, smash-and-grab victories and three unforgettable days out at Wembley Stadium every season, somehow almost faultlessly in the spring sunshine.
This season marks the 40th edition of the play-offs since they were introduced to the Football League in 1986/87.
In the four decades since they have provided countless memories for hundreds of thousands of fans up and down the country, and up and down the divisions.
As the 2025/26 season draws to a close ahead of this season's play-offs, we asked the Sky Sports News team for their best - and worst - memories of the delight, and the pain, that they can bring...
PLUS: Watch The Play-Offs at 40 documentary on Sky Sports Football from 6pm on Saturday, revisiting some of the most memorable moments from the last four decades.
Norwich 1-1 Birmingham (Birmingham won 4-2 on penalties)
2001/02 First Division play-off final | 12 May 2002 | Millennium Stadium (Att: 71,597)
By Ed Higgs, Sky Sports News Deputy Producer
If core footballing memories are created between the age of five and eight, then it’s little wonder I’m a glass half-empty kind of supporter.
Three consecutive play-off defeats, each more traumatic than the last, had seen off Trevor Francis as manager and even my sister, who packed it in after 1999's shootout defeat to Watford. 'It was too much seeing grown men cry’, she said.
So when Norwich went 1-0 up in extra-time of the 2002 final, it was little wonder that eight-year-old me burst into tears. A kindly gentleman gave me some crisps to try and cheer me up, but it was no good. Surely there was more to life than this?
Somehow, Blues found an equaliser to take it to penalties. Up stepped 18-year-old Blues fan Darren Carter to win it. My dad, knowing life would rarely get much better than this, turned to me and lifted me aloft.
‘Can you see? Make sure you can see.’
Carter scored, with a strike to both banish those play-off ghosts, and give me my fondest memory as a Blues fan.
Charlton 4-4 Sunderland (Charlton win 7-6 on penalties)
1997/98 First Division play-off final | 25 May 1998 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 77,739)
By Ben Ransom, Sky Sports News Reporter
THE greatest game. Three words to describe the best match the old Wembley has ever seen, and also the title of the VHS I still have of it up in the loft.
To say it was a rollercoaster doesn’t even begin to do this game justice. I was one of nearly 78,000 fans to pack into the creaking stadium – a play-off record at the time – experiencing every emotion as the final ebbed one way, and then the other.
Clive Mendonca was the Charlton hero, scoring the first Wembley final hat-trick since Sir Geoff Hurst did the same in ’66, the narrative twist being the fact that he was born on Wearside. In retirement ‘Super Clive’ moved back there to work in a car factory.
Charlton's hero at Wembley, Clive Mendonca
Charlton's hero at Wembley, Clive Mendonca
At one point Sunderland were five minutes from a Premier League return thanks to goals from their famous strike partnership of Phillips and Quinn, before Richard Rufus headed home a late equaliser to make it 3-3. Unlikely scorer doesn’t come close – it was his first goal in 165 Charlton appearances!
4-4 after extra-time, penalties were perfect until Sasa Ilic saved from poor old Micky Gray – a moment I never fail to remind him of even 28 years on!
Put simply, I will never witness a better game of football.
Coventry 1-1 Luton (Luton win 6-5 on penalties)
2022/23 Championship play-off final | 27 May 2023 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 85,711)
By Anthony Hagen, Sky Sports Ranger Team Leader
It was a joyous atmosphere at Wembley on that sunny day in May. Fans of both our clubs had suffered the pains of administration and points deductions. It was a shame one of us had to lose.
For us Hatters the win was redemption. The 30-point deduction in 2008 was a clear message that the footballing authorities wanted to shut us down, to make an example of us.
But we never gave up, the board, players or fans. So the delirium after Dabo had smashed his penalty up and over was an explosion of bubbling resentment and passion.
Some 11 years after the despair of losing to York City at Wembley in the Conference Promotion Final, we (and Pelly Ruddock) had completed the EFL by earning promotion to the Premier League.
We won’t talk about what’s happened since!
By Dan Donovan, Sky Sports News Producer
Is pain the price we pay for joy? The euphoria of being a Coventry fan right now is undoubtedly heightened by the many scars collected along the long road back.
The final against Luton was especially tough. It was meant to be the moment.
Our saviours, Mark Robins and Adi Viveash, arrived in our darkest period and dragged us back from the brink. What they rebuilt went far beyond the pitch. Victory that day would have been the closing chapter in our resurrection story.
It’s still upsetting to watch Fankaty Dabo – a popular former Player of the Year - blast the decisive penalty high into the stands, in what many knew would be his final act for the club. The silent sadness as we trudged away from Wembley was a different kind of agony.
Star players Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer were sold in the aftermath, but the reinvestment ultimately built the squad that would finish the job. Even so, there will always be a tinge of sadness that it wasn’t Robins' crowning glory.
Leeds 1-2 Charlton (AET)
1986/87 Second Division play-off final replay | 29 May 1987 | St Andrew's (Att: 15,841)
By Mark Alford, Director of Sky Sports News
There's so much to explain with this one... but let's start with the reason for my selection.
Firstly, Leeds only do play-off heartbreak. Secondly, John Sheridan put Leeds 1-0 up in extra-time, scoring direct from a free-kick having pointed at the top corner he would go on to put his shot in an audacious display of confidence/arrogance (don't believe me? You can watch it on YouTube). That's the moment; that's the reason.
Leeds finished fourth in the second division that season. They lost (also after extra-time) in the FA Cup semi-final to Coventry. It was some season - almost as good as this one! Charlton finished fourth-bottom (19th) in the first division. The Addicks won 1-0 at home in the first leg at Selhurst Park.
Leeds manager Billy Bremner
Leeds manager Billy Bremner
Leeds won 1-0 at Elland Road. So a replay at St Andrew's was required. 0-0, that went to extra-time with Charlton scoring four and eight minutes after Sheridan's wizardry (Peter Shirtliff scored them both) to save their spot in the top flight.
This was the inaugural round of play-offs. Four decades of drama later, my love/hate relationship with them endures and Leeds United's rollercoaster (mainly big dipper) results in them continues.
Wolves 3-0 Sheffield United
2002/03 First Division play-off final | 26 May 2003 | Millennium Stadium (Att: 69,473)
By Adam Bate, Sky Sports Football Features Writer
It had been 19 years since Wolves had played in the top division but for those of a certain age that was a lifetime, or at least a childhood.
So many near misses, including a collapse in the previous season that saw rivals West Brom go up instead. Demons.
It is why that day at what was then known as the Millennium Stadium felt so cathartic. After all the wasted years, the money spent and wasted, the great Steve Bull trying in vain to make the impossible happen, the match itself was oddly straightforward.
Mark Kennedy opened the scoring inside six minutes. Nathan Blake and Kenny Miller also scored before half-time. When Matt Murray saved Michael Brown’s penalty early in the second half even the pessimists started to accept that this was to be Wolves’ time.
There was a moment towards the end of the game when Sir Jack Hayward, the club’s owner, appeared on the big screen and gave a thumbs-up gesture – now immortalised in statue-form outside the stand that bears his name at Molineux – to roars of delight.
Mission finally accomplished.
Leeds 2-4 Derby (Derby win 3-4 on aggregate)
2018/19 Championship play-off semi-final, second leg | 12 May 2019 | Elland Road (Att: 36,326)
By Simeon Gholam, Sky Sports Digital EFL Editor
In my decade of covering the EFL for Sky there has never been a game I have attended quite like the second leg of Leeds vs Derby at Elland Road in 2019.
Marcelo Bielsa vs Frank Lampard, 'Spygate' et al. It felt like a rivalry which had been building up all season.
But it was still a comeback that should never have been allowed to happen. Leeds led 1-0 from the away leg at Pride Park, and doubled their advantage in the tie quickly on the night in front of a buoyant home support.
A goal from Jack Marriott gave Derby hope just before the break and must have unnerved Leeds badly, because Mason Mount then levelled things up seconds after half-time.
Just before the hour, Harry Wilson put Derby 3-1 up on the night, and ahead in the tie for the first time. Stuart Dallas then got one back for Leeds to level the aggregate score, before Gaetano Berardi's red card left them vulnerable with 10 men.
There were five minutes left on the clock when Marriott raced in to score the winner. Derby became the first side in the history of the Championship to overturn a first-leg deficit from their home leg to progress.
I've never heard a noise quite like it. Near-enough a sound of total silence - save a few thousand screaming away fans in one corner.
Crystal Palace 3-0 Blackburn (Crystal Palace win 4-3 on aggregate)
1988/89 Second Division play-off final, second leg | 3 June 1989 | Selhurst Park (Att: 26,358)
By Dave Fraser, Sky Sports Digital Video News Producer
As a Crystal Palace fan, I have no shortage of play-off memories.
The Kevin Phillips penalty in 2013 that propelled us back to the Premier League (where we have been ever since). Neil Shipperley’s goal at Cardiff to mark a remarkable season turn around under Iain Dowie and, of course, David Hopkin’s last-minute stunner that broke the hearts of Sheffield United.
My favourite memory though goes way back to the early days of the play-offs.
In 1989 the play-offs were just a few years old – Palace had been building momentum gradually each season under Steve Coppell and 1989 was the year all the hard work came to fruition.
In those days, the final was a two-legged affair - home and away – Palace had lost their first leg 3-1 to Blackburn – it was all about the second leg at Selhurst Park.
There was no wall-to-wall coverage like there is these days... I was a very nervous teenager listening to the radio in my garden – kicking a ball against a wall for the 90-plus minutes it took for Palace to turn that deficit with a 3-0 win.
I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs – no chance. Palace had been the only subject on my mind that day... and ended it with an A+.
Stockport 1-1 Carlisle (Carlisle win 5-4 on penalties)
2022/23 League Two play-off final | 28 May 2023 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 34,004)
By Jon Walton, Sky Sports Senior Assistant Producer
February 2022, and it looked like Carlisle were heading out of the Football League for only the second time in their 118-year history.
The fanbase had endured 17 years of decline and nine different managers since hometown hero Paul Simpson had taken the club to League One following back-to-back promotions from the fifth tier.
After the club parted ways with Keith Millen, it was Simpson that the Cumbrians turned to in their hour of need. He delivered immediate results and eventual safety.
Taylor Charters' winning penalty earned Carlisle a first promotion in 17 years
Taylor Charters' winning penalty earned Carlisle a first promotion in 17 years
Despite having one of the smallest budgets in the league and just over 14 months after taking over a struggling side, Simpson was leading his side out at Wembley in the League Two play-off final against Stockport.
An 84th minute equaliser from Omari Patrick forced extra-time before Carlisle-born Taylor Charters scored the winning penalty in the eventual shoot-out to give Carlisle their first promotion in 17 years - and cement Simpson’s legend in the city.
Blackpool 1-2 West Ham
2011/12 Championship play-off final | 19 May 2012 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 78,523)
By Jamie Hunt, Sky Sports Head of Digital Media
In 2012, I couldn’t be at Wembley for West Ham’s win over Blackpool, because I was pitch-side in the Allianz Arena, co-producing Nick Collins live into Sky Sports News ahead of Chelsea’s Champions League win over Bayern.
I admit I wasn’t fully focused on Nick as I was listening to updates from Wembley on studio talkback in my ear. Club legend Carlton Cole gave us the lead.
Tom Ince – of course it was an Ince – pegged us back but then Ricardo Vaz Te put us ahead and we held on. Cue bemused looks from the foreign broadcasters next to us as I celebrated wildly in the middle of Nick’s live cross.
Back in London, my wife knew too because of the noise that came from inside Brixton Prison, which is a pitching wedge away from our back garden.
For balance, we know when most London clubs score, as well as Liverpool and Manchester United, and if England are playing in the World Cup it goes up another level.
It’s the last time we were in a play-off final. I won’t mind if we don’t have to go through that again. Let's see...
Crystal Palace 1-2 Leicester
1995/96 First Division play-off final | 27 May 1996 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 75,573)
By Tom Clarke, Sky Sports Assistant Producer
Wembley was like a second home for Leicester during the 90s, but my love affair with the club was born on May 27, 1996. Leicester's play-off final win over Crystal Palace.
Steve Claridge etched himself into Leicester folklore on a dramatic day at the Twin Towers.
Leicester were trailing after Andy Roberts' early goal before Leicester got a second-half lifeline when Muzzy Izzet was brought down in the area. Garry Parker held his nerve from the spot to send Leicester fans into raptures.
Extra-time was defined by two moments. Martin O'Neill made the brave call to introduce Zjelko 'Spider' Kalac in the final minute.
The 6ft 7ins goalie was being primed for penalties. That proved to be a masterstroke, but not for the reason you might think.
The Palace players seemed distracted by the substitution and as Leicester pumped a final long ball forward, it fell to Claridge. Time seemed to stop still as his half-volley, courtesy of his shin, flew into the back of the Palace net.
The goal was met by scenes of jubilation as the Blue Army were back in the big time.
Barnsley 2-4 Ipswich
1999/00 First Division play-off final | 29 May 2000 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 73,427)
By Adam Williams, Sky Sports Home Page Editor
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again.
Ipswich Town under George Burley at the turn of the century proved that proverb could not have been more appropriate.
Burley’s side finally reached a play-off final after three successive semi-final defeats as Barnsley provided the opponents for the last to be played at the old Wembley.
Craig Hignett’s early long-range strike bounced off the crossbar and in off the unfortunate Richard Wright’s palm to put the Tykes 1-0 up. Talismanic Tony Mowbray levelled with a towering header before atonement for Wright, who saved Darren Barnard’s penalty on the stroke of half-time.
The drama didn’t end there. Richard Naylor poked Town ahead having been thrust into action as an early injury-enforced substitution for David Johnson and his dyed-blue dreadlocks before Marcus Stewart headed in to make it 3-1.
Barnsley weren’t done. Hignett pulled one back from the spot to set up a nervy final 12 minutes before Wright saved a Georgi Hristov bullet header from point-blank range.
On the break, Martijn Reuser was set free from the halfway line to hammer home the decisive fourth. The sunshine after the rain for 37,000 decked in blue and white behind the old tunnel end.
Crystal Palace 1-2 Bristol City
2007/08 Championship play-off semi-final, first leg | 10 May 2008 | Selhurst Park (Att: 22,869)
By Ron Walker, Sky Sports Digital Football Journalist
“Why did we get up at 6am for a three-hour bus journey to watch a game we’re definitely going to lose?”
None of me and a few school friends on the supporters’ coach to Selhurst Park could come up with an answer beyond blind hope. But that was enough.
Bristol City had been on a fairytale ride in their first season back in the second tier in eight years. But after topping the table at the end of March, they faded badly to settle for fourth spot and a two-legged date with play-off cheat code Neil Warnock and his Crystal Palace side, who had ended the season like a steam train.
The odds were, to put it lightly, not in our favour. But it was a beautiful day for football. Just as it always seems to be in the play-offs. Perfect pitch, blazing sunshine, the old away section next to the Holmesdale.
The first half was a typical play-off chess match. Plenty of probing but no knock-out blows. We went in at the break wondering if a classic half-time Warnock speech would do for us. Something about enjoyment and discipline, perhaps?
The most improbable of scorers saw to that. Centre-back Louis Carey, who would go onto become our record appearance maker, turned into prime Alan Shearer to hook a free-kick routine dubbed the ‘weasel’, a favourite of Gary Johnson’s, beyond Julian Speroni for a fine opener.
The joy was unbounded but soon turned to nerves. On the pitch as much as off it, clearly. Three minutes from time, Bradley Orr and goalkeeper Adriano Basso got in an entirely unnecessary tangle before Carey brought down Jose Fonte amid the confusion. A blatant penalty, confidently dispatched by Ben Watson.
The hardest part was trying to convince yourself a draw was still a great result to take back to Ashton Gate. Fortunately, any delusion was shortlived.
Two minutes into added time, midfielder David Noble picked up the ball 30 yards out and, later admitting he was too tired to run any further, used his second touch to hit one of the sweetest strikes you will ever see past Speroni to win it.
I have never hugged so many sweaty bald men in all my life. And until we do make it to the Premier League, I’m not sure anything will beat the euphoria of that finale.
Barnsley 0-1 Sheffield Wednesday (AET)
2022/23 League One play-off final | 29 May 2023 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 72,492)
By Joe Mason-Perrill, Sky Sports News Senior Producer
A personal milestone for me - the first play-off final I produced. Sheffield Wednesday had already been unlucky to miss out on automatic promotion, finishing with a substantial 96-point tally, but were edged out by Plymouth and Ipswich.
Missing out on the final day made you wonder whether the players could raise themselves for a gruelling play-off campaign - and it proved to be the case when they were heavily beaten 4-0 at Peterborough in the first leg of the semi-finals. What happened after was legendary.
Darren Moore had the players in the next morning following a sleepless night where he watched the game back. He told them that day not only could they turn this round, but they would turn this round.
So - onto the Miracle of Hillsborough. A 5-1 scoreline took them to penalties and the coolness of Jack Hunt…he was never going to miss.
Then Wembley, which wasn’t a classic. An all-Yorkshire tie with Barnsley. Not much between the two across 90 minutes saw things head to extra-time.
And like every play-off final, a moment of magic. Josh Windass in the 120th minute, emulating his dad Dean from 2008. Sheffield Wednesday’s play-off journey that year had everything - it's one I’ll never forget..
Charlton 2-1 Sunderland
2018/19 League One play-off final | 26 May 2019 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 76,115)
By Charlotte Marsh, Sky Sports Senior Digital Football Journalist
Growing up as a Charlton fan, you’re told bedtime stories of Clive Mendonca’s 1998 hat-trick against Sunderland to help send the Addicks into the Premier League.
You see the footage over and over again, and wonder if you will ever get your own Wembley moment where you can say: ‘I was there’.
Fortunately for me – and unfortunately for Sunderland (spoiler: they did alright in the end) – Charlton have had two such moments in the last seven years, but little will top the 2019 League One play-off final.
A goalkeeping howler from Dillion Phillips made for a nervous afternoon – but it was all the sweeter when Patrick Bauer’s towering header won it for Charlton in the 94th minute.
I say this without shame - it remains one of the best moments of my life. My dad and I have hugged twice in our lives, and the other was when the Addicks beat Doncaster on penalties in the semi-finals that year. It had been a long, painful road by that time and the joy was overwhelming and deserved for our fans.
The 2025 play-off campaign was less dramatic, more of a pleasant surprise. Few people expected Charlton to be there, considering we were 17th in Legue One when Nathan Jones took over, but no less special.
Macaulay Gillespie joins the likes of Mendonca, Ben Purrington and Bauer in Charlton’s play-off folklore. The Addicks have never lost a play-off final at Wembley – and hopefully never will!
Sunderland 1-1 Coventry (Sunderland win 3-2 on aggregate)
2024/25 Championship play-off semi-final second leg | 13 May 2025 | Stadium of Light (Att: 46,530)
By Abigail Smith, Sky Sports Assistant Producer
It’s not exactly a tale from the archives — this one’s still got a pulse.
Just last year, Sunderland were seconds away from penalties, a collective threat of doom shrouding the stadium.
Two minutes into stoppage time, big Dan Ballard decided enough was enough.
Up he went - and with a thumping header, the ball hit the back of the net — absolute bedlam.
Limbs everywhere, pitch invaders swarming and me wondering how this was the only game I’d attended all season.
It felt like England had won the World Cup. They hadn't, obviously - it was only a play-off game - but try telling that to anyone in red and white losing their minds around me.
After eight years of misery and back-to-back relegations, this wasn’t redemption just yet. But it was the loudest, messiest, most Sunderland way imaginable to start believing again.
Coventry 3-1 Exeter
2017/18 League Two play-off final | 28 May 2018 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 50,196)
By Daniel Eales, Soccer Saturday Senior Assistant Producer
Gary Weaver summed it up in commentary. "What happens here can change the life of a football club, it can breathe new life into a football club." He was right.
You could say we’ve had a ‘troubled’ journey, 25 years since Paul Merson relegated us from the Premier League – we've seen our fair share of EFL play-off drama…
Our rise back up through the leagues started back in 2018, when we met Exeter at Wembley for a sunny League Two play-off final. With a squad assembled on zero Great British pounds, Mark Robins’ side took to the pitch in front of 40,000 Coventry fans full of hope and desperation for something to believe in.
Second-half strikes from academy grads Jordan Willis and Jordan Shipley – Willis a lovely curling effort and Shipley a looping deflected shot - were joined by a stunning third from Jack Grimmer. All three goals at the Coventry end, sending us all into tearful sunshine delirium.
It would be our first promotion for 51 years, since Jimmy Hill led us to the 1967/68 First Division. The game effectively planted the seeds of revival which now sees us stepping into the 2026/27 season as a Premier League club once again… The sun burn was worth it.
Derby Manager Frank Lampard was watching from the stands - I wonder what happened to him!
Torquay 2-2 Blackpool (Torquay win 5-4 on penalties)
1990/91 Fourth Division play-off final | 31 May 1991 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 21,615)
By Andy Charles, Sky Sports News Assistant Producer
How many play-off finals have inspired a fanzine title?
There’s at least one as I can attest to the creation of Bamber’s Right Foot, named for the ending of the dramatic 1991 Fourth Division final on a warm Friday evening at the old Wembley.
Poor Dave Bamber - a striker who ended up in Blackpool’s Hall of Fame - became a legendary figure in Torquay for missing the penalty that saw the Gulls promoted (briefly) to Division Three, leading to thousands of fans celebrating on the streets of north-west London, some going long into Saturday.
The game had everything – an early Blackpool goal, a ferocious Torquay comeback led by future manager Wes Saunders and future Scotland international Matt Elliott, and a calamitous own goal which sent the game to extra-time and penalties.
That shootout will long be remembered on the English Riviera although it was Bamber’s miss that made the headlines rather than a goalkeeper – former Spurs trainee Gareth Howells – scoring what turned out to be the winning penalty!
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