pension333: Football League: your thoughts

Cardiff secured a play-off spot, Shrewsbury were promoted from League Two, but it was a bad day for Wycombe, Chesterfield, Exeter and Macclesfield

Championship

Southampton's comfortable 4-0 victory over Coventry City means they return to the Premier League, while West Ham United must settle for a place in the play-offs despite a 2-1 victory over Hull City. Cardiff's win at Crystal Palace confirmed their place in the play-offs and they will travel to Upton Park to face West Ham in the semi-final first-leg on Thursday. Blackpool, who drew 2-2 at Millwall, will host Birmingham ? who beat champions Reading 2-0 ? in the other semi-final on Friday night.

League One

Sheffield Wednesday leapfrogged city rivals Sheffield United into second place with a 2-1 victory at Brentford. Keith Treacy opened the scoring for Dave Jones's side but Clayton Donaldson equalised from the penalty spot before Miguel Llera scored the winner for Wednesday. The victory moved them onto 90 points with one game to play, but they could still miss out on automatic promotion. Sunderland's 90 points in the Championship in 1997-98 is currently the highest tally for a side who did not go up automatically.

Sheffield United can reclaim second spot with victory over Stevenage in Saturday's evening kick off. Stevenage have plenty to play for after Carlisle joined them on 69 points with a comfortable 4-1 home win over Exeter ? a defeat which relegated Exeter.

Wycombe were also relegated despite leading Notts County 3-2 with just one minute of normal remaining. Dele Adebola equalised before Alan Judge struck in the 93rd minute to send Wycombe into League Two and move Notts County into the final play-off position, at least until the outcome of the evening game.

Chesterfield were also relegated after they lost 3-2 away to Yeovil while Walsall, who drew at home Huddersfield, and Leyton Orient, who lost at Hartlepool, both survive.

In a final note, Preston's Graham Alexander came off the bench to score in the final minute of his final game before retirement. A fitting end to a wonderful 1,023-game career.

League Two

Having won promotion last Saturday, Paolo Di Canio's Swindon claimed the League Two championship in style with a 5-0 victory over Port Vale.

Shrewsbury secured promotion to League One with a victory over Dagenham and Redbridge in front of a crowd of 10,000 at New Meadow.

Macclesfield were relegated from the Football League after losing at home to Burton Albion but Hereford, who occupied the other relegation spot prior to Saturday's games, produced the performance of the day with a 3-0 win away to Crawley Town. Crawley remain in the third automatic promotion spot after Torquay United could only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Crewe Alexandra.

Barnet also won, beating AFC Wimbledon 2-0 at Underhill, and go into their final fixture away at Burton Albion with their destiny in their own hands. Hereford are at home to Torquay United in their final game and know that they need to win ? and hope Barnet fail to beat Burton ? in order to survive the drop.

Cheltenham Town ensured that they will be in the play-offs with a 3-1 win at home to Bradford while Oxford United missed the chance to close the gap on Crewe in the final play-off position after they lost 2-0 at home to Southend.

For all Saturday's results click here.

For the final Championship table click here.

For the League One table click here.

For the League Two table click here.

Evan Fanning

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/football-league-blog/2012/apr/28/football-league-your-thoughts

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