5th time lucky? The key lies at the Palace.
You can't knock Bristol City fans for disliking the thought of settling for the Championship play-offs despite coming straight up from League 1 the previous season; In the 21 year history since the system was introduced domestically, City have been involved 4 times, and despite finishing in the top position twice, have consistently failed to win promotion using the contentious method.
They say that form doesn't matter in the play-offs, and they'd better be right - a 5-0 thrashing of Burnley by Crystal Palace on Sunday will have done their confidence no end of good. But, so long as we can keep 11 men on the field for more than 7 minutes, we should be able to surpass Burnley's somewhat meagre achievement at Selhurst Park.
My last post lamented our inability to succeed as the frontrunner. I mentioned our great habit of doing so; to win 11 in a row during the 2003/4 season but finish 3rd was quite a feat. To then lose the dullest play-off final I have ever had the misfortune to pay £35 to watch (after a somewhat less dull semi-final against Hartlepool, with 5'6" Marc Goodfellow scoring a header from a good 15 yards to equalise in the dying minutes of the second leg, and Christian Roberts subsequently beating 5 men in a dazzling run before slotting the ball into the far corner, while all of 90 seconds remained on the clock), was a shocker. We royally messed up that season, and failed to recover until 2006/7, when the marvel of Gary Johnson took us to automatic promotion in his first full season in charge.
To get 70 points from 41 games of this season was great, and especially when only West Brazil Albion could knock us from the top of the table, even if we had limped our way to the top of the table. As I said before, to pick up 3 points from the next 5 games, was disastrous. It left us on a very respectable 73 from 46, but to get into such a great position and fail to show the maturity and ability we'd shown to get there was hugely disappointing. Especially with our record in the play-offs.
Perhaps I'm being a little harsh on City. We do, after all, have the best form against bottom-half sides out of anyone else in the division, and considering we've been in the play-off positions since mid August, we would have been favourites in the vast majority of those games. We did, after all, lie 22nd in League 1 barely 2 years ago, with the fans baying for Johnson's head.
And things aren't all bad right now. We got our game back at a very much in-form Sheffield United 10 days ago, and cruised to our biggest win of the season on Sunday against Preston, with the much maligned Lee Trundle delivering his best game in a City shirt to date; and just at the right time! I can't deny being as excited as Jose Mourinho looking in a mirror about potentially winning the play-offs this season, but after the way the gutless defeat at Stoke got to me, I'm not ready to admit it to myself just yet.
Maybe I'm just worried that, should we fail to capatalise on the position we've got ourselves into this season, we will fail to replicate it next. At worst, we could topple into the abyss, as the Colchesters and Lutons of this world have managed so spectacularly. At best, we could realistically look at another play-off charge...
...6th time lucky, anyone?
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