Justice!
Carlisle Utd 0 Leeds Utd 2 (2-3 on aggregate)
League One Play-off semi-final 2nd leg
Carlisle United - Westwood, Raven, Livesey, Murphy, Horwood, Dobie, Lumsdon, Bridge-Wilkinson, G Smith, Hackney, Graham. Unused subs - Howarth, Arnison, Thirlwell, Taylor, Madine.
Leeds United - Ankergren, Richardson, Huntington, Douglas, Prutton, Beckford, Howson, Johnson, Michalik, Kilkenny, Freedman. Unused subs - Marques, Carole, Kandol, Hughes, Lucas.
Justice was served in a large measure last night when the team that got 91 points on the pitch during the season and missed the League One title by two points got to the Wembley play-off final.
The 2-0 Leeds Utd victory over Carlisle United came courtesy of local Leeds lad Jonny Howson scoring in each half.
It was a stunning victory - an adjective often over-used in football but appropriate for this match. Howson scored with 90 minutes and 40 seconds on the clock just as the stadium announcer had said that there would be only one minute of added time. The referee played an extra minute after the goal and Carlisle managed to get the ball in the box but didn’t threaten the Leeds goal and then it was all over. Leeds fans and players celebrated and the Carlisle Utd players were understandably shocked, some in tears.
The fact that there was so little added time was due to the spirit in which the game was played. The game had no bookings - surely a record for a second leg play-off match - and no substitutions. I cannot remember the last time I saw that in a game.
Carlisle United and their fans must feel like they have had something taken from them but in truth the job was only half done after the first leg victory and the overall result was fair.
Carlisle had a better chance than Leeds of securing automatic promotion during the regular season and blew it at the death.
They dominated the 1st leg at Elland Road but didn’t play to the final whistle and how important Dougie Freedman’s goal was to be. Last night was the reverse of the first tie, with Leeds dominating the match for long periods with Carlisle limited to a handful of chances compared the hatful they made in the first leg. The Leeds midfield played the ball around last night, having been AWOL in the first leg. The Leeds fullbacks, Bradley Johnson and Frazer Richardson were more effective in defence in preventing the crosses that had made Carlisle so dangerous in the first leg and both were tireless in attack, Johnson hitting the post late on with a header and Richardson linking up with the attack and pumping in cross after cross. Jonathan Douglas deserves credit for his hard work in front of the defence too. Worthy of mention was Carlisle-born Paul Huntington who suffers dog’s abuse all night from the home fans but that would have been light relief compared to the threatening phone calls he received earlier in the year from the brain-dead sections of Carlisle’s support - no one savoured the Howson goal more than Paul.
In the end Carlisle Utd were undone by not playing to the final whistle again, when extra-time was surely in the mind of everyone on the pitch including the Leeds home-grow hero Jonny Howson.
The result still doesn’t mean Leeds United are promoted but a trip to Wembley is a fitting reward for the loyal and active support given by tens of thousands of Leeds fans up and down the country this season. It is justice.
Meanwhile spare a thought for Lord Mawhinney who will have spent a sleepless night trying to work out how he can avoid being present at the League One play-off final or what it will be like to spend the worst two hours of his life on national and international television being verbally abused by 50,000 Leeds fans. Let’s hope that as he pours the gin on his cornflakes this morning the wretched little man considers the “revolver in library solution” and does us all a favour.
