11:50
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live, minute-by-minute coverage of the League Two play-off final between Morecambe and Newport County at Wembley. This is, gulp, the 1665th and final game of another soul-stirring EFL season, and one way or another it’s going end on a high. By 5pm, at a push 6pm, one of these teams will be in the giddiest of stratospheres: League One.
Morecambe have never played in the third tier before; nor have this iteration of Newport County. They were last in the old Division Three in 1986-87, a couple of years before the club went out of business. A reformed team started in the Hellenic League, where they played the likes of Kintbury Rangers and Almondsbury Picksons, and eventually returned to the Football League in 2013 under the late, legendary Justin Edinburgh.
Since then they have been ever-present in League Two, though they came heartobliteratingly close to promotion when they lost in controversial circumstances to Tranmere two years ago. They are a different team now. Their manager Michael Flynn used the first lockdown to plan a style overhaul, and this season Newport have brought a bit of tiki-taka to south Wales.
At Morecambe, there has been a change of substance. This is only the second time since they became a Football League team in 2007 that they have finished in the top 10. In the last five years their league positions have been 21st, 18th, 22nd (when they avoided relegation to the National League on goal difference), 18th and 22nd. In his first full season, and with precisely £0 to spend on transfer fees, their Scottish manager Derek Adams has done an astonishing job.
The play-off final, particularly in the Championship, is usually framed in financial terms. Nobody gives a stuff about money today; this one’s for the glory.
Kick off 3pm.
Updated