Harbinger Of Glory

: Playoff

The DW staff member who drew the short straw for away team duty led the Luton Town players through the corridor.

For a person who had been looking forward to the Wigan players, the task felt more difficult than usual, but he was getting paid, well, at that, to complain too much.

The Luton players were a different matter.

They came through with the particular confidence of a side that had finished third in the Championship, talking among themselves, taking in the stadium with the easy familiarity of men who had been here before and expected to be here again.

They knew the ground.

They knew Wigan.

And even if that wasn’t the case, they could afford to say so when they had met the same team 4 times even before the playoffs, which was soon going to be 5 after the day’s game and 6 after the second leg of the playoffs.

Rob Edwards peeled away from his players at the junction before the away dressing room, pointing them through with a brief word to his assistant before turning toward the media suite.

There, Dawson was coming the other way.

They saw each other from a few metres out and both nodded, exchanging a few words before Dawson kept walking, and Edwards turned into the media room, where the door closed behind him a second later.

Forty-five minutes later, the DW had found its voice.

The announcer’s presence filled every corner of the stadium, bouncing off the upper tiers and coming back down warmer than it left, and the crowd fed into it and gave it back doubled.

On the broadcast, the commentary settled in, the atmosphere slowly but surely getting to them.

”Good evening and welcome to the DW Stadium. The Championship playoff semi-final first leg. Wigan Athletic against Luton Town, and the prize at the end of this two-legged tie is a place at Wembley in the playoff final, with promotion to the Premier League waiting for whoever wins it.”

The commentator paused briefly as down on the pitch, both sets of players had completed their warmups and were retreating toward the tunnel as the formalities began.

”These two sides know each other well. Four meetings this season with Wigan, losing one, drawing one and then winning two. On paper that matters, but on a night like this, everything starts from zero, and I am sure that the Luton fans and team feel the same way.”

The announcer’s voice came back over the speakers as the last arrangements were made on the pitch where the lineups for both sides threatened to burst out of the tunnel.

”And now, your starting lineups for this evening.”

The away end gave their response as each Luton name was read out, the visiting supporters making themselves heard in the pocket of the stadium they’d been allocated.

Goalkeeper, number one, Shea.

The back three of Osho, Potts and Bradley.

Watson and Campbell through the middle alongside Clark, with Onyedinma and Doughty providing the width, while Freeman and Taylor up front posed all the main threat.

The home end answered when it was their turn.

Ben Amos was in goal with Tilt and Whatmough at centre back, while Bennet stayed at left back and Darikwa on the right to complete the back four.

Sitting just ahead of the defence in the pivot alongside Max Power was Tiehi, with Sze carrying the ball forward from midfield on the right was Callum Lang.

Ezra started on the left in the absence of McClean, whose red card from the final day had followed him into the playoffs, and leading the line was Ashley Fletcher, who had looked lethal leading into the last days of the league.

The crowd held their applause back until the last name was read and then gave it all at once.

”Both teams are taking the field now,” the commentator said. ”And looking at the two lineups, this is a fairly even contest on paper. Luton will feel they have the slight edge in quality across the park, having finished the regular season considerably higher, but Wigan’s record against this specific opponent this season tells a different story.”

Like a coincidence, even though it probably wasn’t, the camera found the Wigan bench, panning slowly along it before it settled on Dawson and then a face in the seats behind him.

”And there he is. Leo Calderon, starting on the bench this evening. The seventeen-year-old who, it can be argued, is the primary reason Wigan Athletic are in this playoff semi-final at all. Dawson has been managing him carefully, and that continues tonight, which means Wigan will have to do the early work without him.”

”But he’s there. And if the game needs him, he won’t be far away.”

Leo sat with his hands clasped together, elbows on his knees, watching the two sets of players line up in the centre circle for the final formalities.

He looked to his left, where Jake sat, fidgeting despite not even being on the pitch.

Leo smiled at that before turning his attention back towards the pitch, where the referee checked both ends.

The DW held itself together for one last second before the whistle went to begin the game.

The opening twenty minutes belonged to nobody in particular.

Luton came with their shape intact and their press high, and Wigan matched them without flinching.

It was cagey keeping the crowd in the stadium on the edge of their seats because whenever each team got the ball, they looked like scoring.

The defences of both sides kept up too, making spectacular blocks and cutting off any chance that tried to materialise.

Something was always going to have to give, but at the moment, the question was who, when and how.

The first real moment came in the twenty-third minute when Campbell drove forward from deep and found Freeman in the channel.

The striker took one touch and hit it low and hard across the goal, trying to find the bottom corner, but Ben Amos got down quickly and turned it behind.

The away end rose to their feet, certain that the ball was going in until it didn’t.

”Good save from Amos,” the commentator noted. ”And that’s the clearest look either side has had. Luton is probing that right channel, and Wigan need to be more alert to it.”

The analyst came in from the studio.

”The problem for Wigan there is the gap between Tiehi and Darikwa on the right. Campbell has found it twice now. Luton know it’s there and they’ll keep going back to it. Dawson needs to have a word.”

Not lying down and just taking it, Wigan’s response came five minutes later, and it came through Ezra.

He received it from Bennet on the overlap, took one touch inside to set himself, and then played it first time across the face of goal where Sze had arrived from deep, unmarked, and he didn’t need to be asked twice.

The finish was clean and low, Shea’s end be damned, and the DW came apart.

”Szeeeee makes it count. Chris Sze, and it’s Ezra with the assist, arriving late from the left. It’s one-nil in the twenty-eighth minute, and the DW is absolutely bouncing.”

The Wigan players converged on Sze near the corner flag, and the noise from the home end rolled down in waves, sustained and loud, and it stayed up even after the game restarted.

Luton didn’t panic, which said something about the mindset they had come with.

They kept the ball, kept their shape, and in the thirty-seventh minute, Watson drove a ball wide to Onyedinma, who took Bennet on with a sharp drop of the shoulder and whipped a cross in that Whatmough only half cleared.

The second ball fell to Clark almost like a gift, and in the next second, he met it with his head from twelve yards, and it was in before Amos had finished moving.

”CLARK!! Luton equalise, and just like that, this game is level again. It’s been cagey, and now both teams have found the back of the net.”

The away end found their voice and gave it everything as the analyst beside the commentator came through again on the broadcast.

”That’s exactly what I was talking about. Wigan switched off from the corner situation, and Luton punished them. The second ball in that scenario, you cannot afford to lose it at one-nil up. Dawson will not be happy.”

The broadcast camera panned to Dawson at the mention of that, but the latter refused to give his mood away, keeping a blank stare on his face.

Both sides held on, not wanting to lose any more momentum by conceding before the break.

When they came out of the tunnel after the break, both sides were firing.

Taylor rattled the post for Luton in the fifty-third minute with a driven effort from outside the box that had Amos beaten all ends up and the away end on their feet before the sound of metal rang around the DW.

Three minutes later, Lang went on a run down the right that drew three Luton defenders across before he cut it back to Fletcher, who got his shot away cleanly but straight at Shea.

”How has that not gone in?” the commentator said, and he sounded genuinely affronted. ”Lang does everything right, and Fletcher hits it straight at the keeper. Poor effort from the Striker.”

”Fletcher has to go across Shea there,” the analyst followed.

”The keeper is set perfectly for the straight one. You take a fraction of a second, you place it to the left, and that’s a goal. That’s the difference between the Championship and the Premier League. Things are going to have to change in the short term if they want to make it!”

The game continued its argument with shots and clearances as well as a booking for Potts after a late challenge on Lang that brought the DW to its feet briefly, and a Luton free kick that Amos gathered without drama.

The 75th minute was fast approaching, and looking like he’d seen enough, Dawson turned to his bench.

”Is it that time yet?” the commentator said, tracking the movement on the touchline. ”Dawson’s elected to go to the bench, and with Wigan pushing for the lead in this first leg, there’s only one name anyone in this stadium is looking at right now.”