Southend United 1-1 Wycombe Wanderers (Southend United win 7-6 on penalties)

Wycombe Wanderers were one match away from a chance to sample League One football next season but their dreams turned to dust in the League Two play-off finals at Wembley stadium on Saturday 23rd May 2015.

The hopes of Wycombe were pinned on the Wanderers when they came out to play on the hallowed turf at Wembley Stadium for the League Two play off final which started at 5.30pm.

From the very early stages Southend United were the more dominant team, however Wycombe kept their opponents at bay and after the ninety minutes of normal time were over not a single goal had been scored and the scores were still level.

At the start of extra time, in the ninety fifth minute, Southend United’s Daniel Bentley scored an own goal after deflecting a 25 yard free kick from Wycombe’s Joe Jacobson’s into his own net giving Wycombe the lead in extra-time.

With Wycombe leading by one goal it looked like the Blues were heading for promotion but in the last few moments of extra time, in the one hundred and twenty second minute, Joe Pigott scored for Southend United to bring the scores level with a left footed shot from the centre of the box in to the bottom right corner of the Wycombe net.

The scores were now level and the prospect of penalties became a reality.

With the penalty scores level after the mandatory shots had been taken the penalty shoot out became sudden death. With the scores level on six penalties piece Cian Bolger stepped forrward to make it seven for Southend, the pressure was on Wycombe’s Sam Wood to score to keep the Blues in with a chance of promotion. Sadly his left footed shot was saved and Southend were promoted to League One leaving Wycombe fans to make their way home to remain in League Two for another season.

The match statistics show that Southend had 56% ball possession compared to 44% for Wycombe. The Blues made eighteen attempts on goal (four on target) compared to seventeen attempts on goal (three on target) for Southend United. There were twenty three fouls by Southend players compared to nineteen by the Wycombe team.

Despite spending most of the regular season in the automatic promotion places Wycombe seemed to take their foot off the accelerator at a crucial time and slipped from safety into the nightmare of the play-off zone in the final moments of the season.

Football can be a cruel game as Wycombe found out today at Wembley Stadium.

The attendance at Wembley Stadium was 38,252.