Six Winner-Takes-All Promotion Matches Involving The Imps

Next Tuesday, we will travel to Oxford to play a game that could define both teams’ seasons. Assuming the gap between us is still nominal (fewer than three points), it becomes a real ‘winner-takes-all’ encounter.

There will still be a chance for one of us to overtake the other, but you’d imagine it to be a crushing blow if, for instance, we go there and lose, dropping three points to a rival. Games are running out, and that one screams ‘absolutely vital’. It’s not often that two teams chase the same prize and play each other in the final few games of the season, but it has happened.

Indeed, there have been instances where we have played a promotion rival in the season’s final game.

Imps v Oxford from earlier in the season – Credit Graham Burrell

There might be a four-point gap between us next Tuesday, and we might have to go with an all-or-nothing attitude. Nothing is certain, but it feels like a race for sixth that is going right to the wire. It feels like two teams who are neck-and-neck in the division are ready for a shootout like no other.

Well, I say like no other, what I guess I mean is a shootout just like these six matches, which felt like they were winner-takes-all at the time. It won’t be the first time the Imps are involved in a game that feels like a six-pointer, a season-definer. How have we done in the past?