LOVE OR HATE IT THERE IS NO TIME LIKE IT

LOVE OR HATE IT THERE IS NO TIME LIKE IT.

As another football season draws to a close, with all the excitement and drama that comes with clubs hoping to achieve promotion or escape relegation, I thought I would remind us all of some of the big issues that have been resolved over the years in the game we all love, which helps make it as enjoyable as it is.

Premier League, 1993/94
Any two from five clubs could have gone down on the final day of the season, but only the Toffees were hoping to hang on to a record of staying in the top flight since the early 1950s.
They enjoyed a home advantage on the final day of the season but had a tough clash against a Wimbledon side on their way to a sixth-place league finish. Everton also knew that even a win might well not be enough, thanks to their appalling goal difference, while a draw would have been next to useless.
All those subtleties looked to be made irrelevant when Dean Holdsworth's penalty in the third minute squeezed past Neville Southall's outstretched glove into the bottom corner.
And when a horrific defensive mix-up ended with Gary Ablett slicing an attempted clearance into his own net 17 minutes later, it seemed that Everton would surely be on their way down.
Everton pulled one back just before half-time, but with 20 minutes left they still trailed 2-1, and it should have been worse when Graham Stuart appeared to handle the ball on the line.
But with Wimbledon still protesting for the clear penalty, the hosts broke upfield and released Barry Horne, who fired a 30-yard scorcher in off the post - his first goal of the season.
And Stuart was the hero as he added another with 10 minutes to go, albeit in less-than-fine style this time with a miskicked drive that somehow bobbled past Hans Segers.
The Toffees hung on grimly, booting the ball into the stands at every opportunity to run down the clock, while down at Stamford Bridge Chelsea did their bit for Everton by beating Sheffield United to ensure that the Merseyside club stayed up.
Everton are still yet to be relegated, although they have had to endure further last-day tense climaxes. 
English Third Division, 1998/99
Carlisle looked to be losing their football league status as their must-win match against Plymouth Argyle on the last day of the season ticked into injury time with the scores locked level at 1-1.
One man refused to give up, however, and when Carlisle won a corner the club's emergency-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass charged up the pitch in desperation.
Incredibly, after a classic lower-league goalmouth scramble, the journeyman found himself in the perfect spot to bang home a winner from five yards out, keeping the club's 71-year unbroken run in the football league intact and sending Scarborough down instead.
The goal remains one of the most memorable last-gasp escape acts in sport and sparked an enormous and instantaneous pitch invasion.
Glass never played another match for Carlisle, and as his football career fizzled out he ended up retiring at the age of 27 to become an IT salesman. He now runs a taxi firm in Dorset.
But he'll always have that one golden moment, and he'll never have to pay for a drink in Cumbria as long as he lives.
Serie A, 2004/05
The final day of this astonishing season saw 12 of the 20 teams in the Italian top flight at risk of taking one of the final two relegation spots.
Even Roma - who finished second a year later - were at risk of going down before they ground out a draw against Chievo, while Brescia were hammered 3-0 at Fiorentina to make sure that they joined Atalanta in being relegated.
That victory also saved Fiorentina on goal difference as they finished ahead of Parma and Bologna, who could not be separated and were sent into a play-off against each other.
Parma had gone through an astonishing season, even playing their reserve team in Europe in order to fight relegation (having said that, those reserves somehow made the semi-final).
Yet they were on the back foot in the two-legged play-off, with the referee during their final day 3-3 draw with Lecce having booked six players who all just happened to be one card away from suspension. The referee in question, Massimo De Santis, was later banned from officiating for his role in the Calcipoli match-fixing scandal.
With the six players missing, Parma lost the first leg at home but beat Bologna 2-0 in the second leg to save their Serie A status thanks to an outrageous fluke goal that ricocheted in off Alberto Gilardino's knee.
It seems unimaginable to think this of a man city side considering the vast array of trophies they have won recently, but 20 + years ago they were stuck in the doldrums like in 1996
If younger readers have ever wondered how we all got by before the invention of the smartphone – we didn’t. And to prove it, Manchester City got themselves relegated on the final day in 1996 because they had the wrong scoreline from a different ground.
Needing to better Coventry City’s result at Highfield Road, City were level at 2-2 against Liverpool and got word that the Sky Blues were losing to Leeds United – so manager Alan Ball instructed his team to time-waste as much as possible and keep Liverpool at arm’s length at Maine Road. There was just one slight problem – Coventry were actually level
against Leeds and stayed up at City’s expense. The farcical miscommunication saw the City spend ten whole minutes wasting their way to their own demise. Like I said  It’s hard to imagine it happening under Pep Guardiola, isn’t it?
1989. 
At the time it was hailed as one of the, greatest title stories ever as the top two clubs in the old first division played the last match of the 1988/89 season. Arsenal, three points behind leaders Liverpool, had to win by two clear goals to clinch the title, and 18 million viewers tuned in to see who would be crowned champions.
The scale of the task placed in front of Arsenal was at best sizeable and at worst nigh-on impossible. The all-conquering Liverpool side of the 1980s simply didn't lose at Anfield, let alone by the two-goal margin Arsenal required.
The last few weeks of the 1988/89 season had been overshadowed by the tragedy at Hillsborough, meaning the meeting of the two title rivals was postponed until the end of May.
Though the first half was keenly contested there were few clear-cut chances. Both sides seemed reluctant to over-commit as they went into the interval with the scoreline locked at 0-0, and it was all part of the tactical master plan of Graham and Arsenal.
Early in the second half Arsenal was awarded a free kick outside the Liverpool penalty area,
They had practised that free kick so much in training and used it so many times in matches but it had never come off.
This time it did work. Smith converted Nigel Winterburn's delivery with a glancing header. Liverpool's players surrounded the referee in protest.
Arsenal feared their chance had come and gone when Thomas prodded a shot straight at Liverpool's keeper Bruce Grobbelaar late on.
Luckily for Arsenal, and Thomas, they had one final opportunity. Goalkeeper John Lukic threw the ball to Lee Dixon in space. Dixon's pass out of defence then found Smith, who brought the ball down with exquisite control before lofting it forward in search of Thomas.
When the ball bounced kindly for him via a deflection from Steve Nicol, Thomas found himself through on Grobbelaar's goal, then the immortal words of the late great commentator Brian Moore rang out. It's UP FOR GRABS, NOW he screamed as Thomas
burst into the penalty area, took one touch and fainted to shoot before lifting the ball over the on-rushing Grobbelaar and into the back of the net. There are wild celebrations. There’s a forward roll and a jog on the floor from Thomas, while Winterburn runs away from his team-mates to celebrate with the Arsenal fans. There have been many more stories like this across the whole pyramid with supporters crying both tears, of joy & despair, like I said they say it's the hope that kills you at times but it's a game we all love, even though at times it seems like what's going on makes us hate it, it's the mix of emotions that can't be bettered & even though we don't like the despair part if the truth be told we wouldn't have it any other way so as another season reaches its climax strap yourself in for a great end of season ride that will take us all the way into the drama of the playoffs.