The EFL play-offs at 40: Sky Sports' memories of four decades of drama

Q: What are the EFL play-offs and when were they introduced?

The EFL play-offs are a series of matches to determine promotion to higher divisions, introduced in the 1986/87 season.

Q: How many editions of the EFL play-offs have occurred?

This season marks the 40th edition of the EFL play-offs.

Q: What memorable events have happened during the EFL play-offs?

The EFL play-offs have featured stunning goals, controversial moments, and dramatic victories that have created lasting memories for fans.

Q: Where are the EFL play-off finals held?

The EFL play-off finals are held at Wembley Stadium.

The EFL play-offs. You can't guarantee drama - but you might as well.

Euphoria. Despair. Controversy. Stunning goals, smash-and-grab victories and three unforgettable days out at Wembley Stadium every season, somehow almost faultlessly in the spring sunshine.

This season marks the 40th edition of the play-offs since they were introduced to the Football League in 1986/87.

In the four decades since they have provided countless memories for hundreds of thousands of fans up and down the country, and up and down the divisions.

As the 2025/26 season draws to a close ahead of this season's play-offs, we asked the Sky Sports News team for their best - and worst - memories of the delight, and the pain, that they can bring...

PLUS: Watch The Play-Offs at 40 documentary on Sky Sports Football from 6pm on Saturday, revisiting some of the most memorable moments from the last four decades.

Norwich 1-1 Birmingham (Birmingham won 4-2 on penalties)

2001/02 First Division play-off final | 12 May 2002 | Millennium Stadium (Att: 71,597)

By Ed Higgs, Sky Sports News Deputy Producer

If core footballing memories are created between the age of five and eight, then it’s little wonder I’m a glass half-empty kind of supporter.

Three consecutive play-off defeats, each more traumatic than the last, had seen off Trevor Francis as manager and even my sister, who packed it in after 1999's shootout defeat to Watford. 'It was too much seeing grown men cry’, she said.

So when Norwich went 1-0 up in extra-time of the 2002 final, it was little wonder that eight-year-old me burst into tears. A kindly gentleman gave me some crisps to try and cheer me up, but it was no good. Surely there was more to life than this?

Somehow, Blues found an equaliser to take it to penalties. Up stepped 18-year-old Blues fan Darren Carter to win it. My dad, knowing life would rarely get much better than this, turned to me and lifted me aloft.

‘Can you see? Make sure you can see.’

Carter scored, with a strike to both banish those play-off ghosts, and give me my fondest memory as a Blues fan.

Charlton 4-4 Sunderland (Charlton win 7-6 on penalties)

1997/98 First Division play-off final | 25 May 1998 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 77,739)

By Ben Ransom, Sky Sports News Reporter

THE greatest game. Three words to describe the best match the old Wembley has ever seen, and also the title of the VHS I still have of it up in the loft.

To say it was a rollercoaster doesn’t even begin to do this game justice. I was one of nearly 78,000 fans to pack into the creaking stadium – a play-off record at the time – experiencing every emotion as the final ebbed one way, and then the other.

Clive Mendonca was the Charlton hero, scoring the first Wembley final hat-trick since Sir Geoff Hurst did the same in ’66, the narrative twist being the fact that he was born on Wearside. In retirement ‘Super Clive’ moved back there to work in a car factory.

Charlton's hero at Wembley, Clive Mendonca

At one point Sunderland were five minutes from a Premier League return thanks to goals from their famous strike partnership of Phillips and Quinn, before Richard Rufus headed home a late equaliser to make it 3-3. Unlikely scorer doesn’t come close – it was his first goal in 165 Charlton appearances!

4-4 after extra-time, penalties were perfect until Sasa Ilic saved from poor old Micky Gray – a moment I never fail to remind him of even 28 years on!

Put simply, I will never witness a better game of football.

Coventry 1-1 Luton (Luton win 6-5 on penalties)

2022/23 Championship play-off final | 27 May 2023 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 85,711)

By Anthony Hagen, Sky Sports Ranger Team Leader

It was a joyous atmosphere at Wembley on that sunny day in May. Fans of both our clubs had suffered the pains of administration and points deductions. It was a shame one of us had to lose.

For us Hatters the win was redemption. The 30-point deduction in 2008 was a clear message that the footballing authorities wanted to shut us down, to make an example of us.

But we never gave up, the board, players or fans. So the delirium after Dabo had smashed his penalty up and over was an explosion of bubbling resentment and passion.

Some 11 years after the despair of losing to York City at Wembley in the Conference Promotion Final, we (and Pelly Ruddock) had completed the EFL by earning promotion to the Premier League.

We won’t talk about what’s happened since!

By Dan Donovan, Sky Sports News Producer

Is pain the price we pay for joy? The euphoria of being a Coventry fan right now is undoubtedly heightened by the many scars collected along the long road back.

The final against Luton was especially tough. It was meant to be the moment.

Our saviours, Mark Robins and Adi Viveash, arrived in our darkest period and dragged us back from the brink. What they rebuilt went far beyond the pitch. Victory that day would have been the closing chapter in our resurrection story.

It’s still upsetting to watch Fankaty Dabo – a popular former Player of the Year - blast the decisive penalty high into the stands, in what many knew would be his final act for the club. The silent sadness as we trudged away from Wembley was a different kind of agony.

Star players Viktor Gyokeres and Gustavo Hamer were sold in the aftermath, but the reinvestment ultimately built the squad that would finish the job. Even so, there will always be a tinge of sadness that it wasn’t Robins' crowning glory.

Leeds 1-2 Charlton (AET)

1986/87 Second Division play-off final replay | 29 May 1987 | St Andrew's (Att: 15,841)

By Mark Alford, Director of Sky Sports News

There's so much to explain with this one... but let's start with the reason for my selection.

Firstly, Leeds only do play-off heartbreak. Secondly, John Sheridan put Leeds 1-0 up in extra-time, scoring direct from a free-kick having pointed at the top corner he would go on to put his shot in an audacious display of confidence/arrogance (don't believe me? You can watch it on YouTube). That's the moment; that's the reason.

Leeds finished fourth in the second division that season. They lost (also after extra-time) in the FA Cup semi-final to Coventry. It was some season - almost as good as this one! Charlton finished fourth-bottom (19th) in the first division. The Addicks won 1-0 at home in the first leg at Selhurst Park.

Leeds manager Billy Bremner

Leeds won 1-0 at Elland Road. So a replay at St Andrew's was required. 0-0, that went to extra-time with Charlton scoring four and eight minutes after Sheridan's wizardry (Peter Shirtliff scored them both) to save their spot in the top flight.

This was the inaugural round of play-offs. Four decades of drama later, my love/hate relationship with them endures and Leeds United's rollercoaster (mainly big dipper) results in them continues.

Wolves 3-0 Sheffield United

2002/03 First Division play-off final | 26 May 2003 | Millennium Stadium (Att: 69,473)

By Adam Bate, Sky Sports Football Features Writer

It had been 19 years since Wolves had played in the top division but for those of a certain age that was a lifetime, or at least a childhood.

So many near misses, including a collapse in the previous season that saw rivals West Brom go up instead. Demons.

It is why that day at what was then known as the Millennium Stadium felt so cathartic. After all the wasted years, the money spent and wasted, the great Steve Bull trying in vain to make the impossible happen, the match itself was oddly straightforward.

Mark Kennedy opened the scoring inside six minutes. Nathan Blake and Kenny Miller also scored before half-time. When Matt Murray saved Michael Brown’s penalty early in the second half even the pessimists started to accept that this was to be Wolves’ time.

There was a moment towards the end of the game when Sir Jack Hayward, the club’s owner, appeared on the big screen and gave a thumbs-up gesture – now immortalised in statue-form outside the stand that bears his name at Molineux – to roars of delight.

Mission finally accomplished.

Leeds 2-4 Derby (Derby win 3-4 on aggregate)

2018/19 Championship play-off semi-final, second leg | 12 May 2019 | Elland Road (Att: 36,326)

By Simeon Gholam, Sky Sports Digital EFL Editor

In my decade of covering the EFL for Sky there has never been a game I have attended quite like the second leg of Leeds vs Derby at Elland Road in 2019.

Marcelo Bielsa vs Frank Lampard, 'Spygate' et al. It felt like a rivalry which had been building up all season.

But it was still a comeback that should never have been allowed to happen. Leeds led 1-0 from the away leg at Pride Park, and doubled their advantage in the tie quickly on the night in front of a buoyant home support.

A goal from Jack Marriott gave Derby hope just before the break and must have unnerved Leeds badly, because Mason Mount then levelled things up seconds after half-time.

Just before the hour, Harry Wilson put Derby 3-1 up on the night, and ahead in the tie for the first time. Stuart Dallas then got one back for Leeds to level the aggregate score, before Gaetano Berardi's red card left them vulnerable with 10 men.

There were five minutes left on the clock when Marriott raced in to score the winner. Derby became the first side in the history of the Championship to overturn a first-leg deficit from their home leg to progress.

I've never heard a noise quite like it. Near-enough a sound of total silence - save a few thousand screaming away fans in one corner.

Crystal Palace 3-0 Blackburn (Crystal Palace win 4-3 on aggregate)

1988/89 Second Division play-off final, second leg | 3 June 1989 | Selhurst Park (Att: 26,358)

By Dave Fraser, Sky Sports Digital Video News Producer

As a Crystal Palace fan, I have no shortage of play-off memories.

The Kevin Phillips penalty in 2013 that propelled us back to the Premier League (where we have been ever since). Neil Shipperley’s goal at Cardiff to mark a remarkable season turn around under Iain Dowie and, of course, David Hopkin’s last-minute stunner that broke the hearts of Sheffield United.

My favourite memory though goes way back to the early days of the play-offs.

In 1989 the play-offs were just a few years old – Palace had been building momentum gradually each season under Steve Coppell and 1989 was the year all the hard work came to fruition.

In those days, the final was a two-legged affair - home and away – Palace had lost their first leg 3-1 to Blackburn – it was all about the second leg at Selhurst Park.

There was no wall-to-wall coverage like there is these days... I was a very nervous teenager listening to the radio in my garden – kicking a ball against a wall for the 90-plus minutes it took for Palace to turn that deficit with a 3-0 win.

I was supposed to be revising for my GCSEs – no chance. Palace had been the only subject on my mind that day... and ended it with an A+.

Stockport 1-1 Carlisle (Carlisle win 5-4 on penalties)

2022/23 League Two play-off final | 28 May 2023 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 34,004)

By Jon Walton, Sky Sports Senior Assistant Producer

February 2022, and it looked like Carlisle were heading out of the Football League for only the second time in their 118-year history.

The fanbase had endured 17 years of decline and nine different managers since hometown hero Paul Simpson had taken the club to League One following back-to-back promotions from the fifth tier.

After the club parted ways with Keith Millen, it was Simpson that the Cumbrians turned to in their hour of need. He delivered immediate results and eventual safety.

Taylor Charters' winning penalty earned Carlisle a first promotion in 17 years

Despite having one of the smallest budgets in the league and just over 14 months after taking over a struggling side, Simpson was leading his side out at Wembley in the League Two play-off final against Stockport.

An 84th minute equaliser from Omari Patrick forced extra-time before Carlisle-born Taylor Charters scored the winning penalty in the eventual shoot-out to give Carlisle their first promotion in 17 years - and cement Simpson’s legend in the city.

Blackpool 1-2 West Ham

2011/12 Championship play-off final | 19 May 2012 | Wembley Stadium (Att: 78,523)

By Jamie Hunt, Sky Sports Head of Digital Media

In 2012, I couldn’t be at Wembley for West Ham’s win over Blackpool, because I was pitch-side in the Allianz Arena, co-producing Nick Collins live into Sky Sports News ahead of Chelsea’s Champions League win over Bayern.

I admit I wasn’t fully focused on Nick as I was listening to updates from Wembley on studio talkback in my ear. Club legend Carlton Cole gave us the lead.

Tom Ince – of course it was an Ince – pegged us back but then Ricardo Vaz Te put us ahead and we held on. Cue bemused looks from the foreign broadcasters next to us as I celebrated wildly in the middle of Nick’s live cross.

Back in London, my wife knew too because of the noise that came from inside Brixton Prison, which is a pitching wedge away from our back garden.

For balance, we know when most London clubs score, as well as Liverpool and Manchester United, and if England are playing in the World Cup it goes up another level.

It’s the last time we were in a play-off final. I won’t mind if we don’t have to go through that again. Let's see...

Crystal Palace 1-2 Leicester

1995/96 First Division play-off final | 27 May 1996 | Old Wembley Stadium (Att: 75,573)

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