The Wanderer - issue 119 - http://www.wwisc.co.uk/

MYTHBUSTERS
Separating the fact from the fiction
We continue our occasional look at some of the popular myths, legends and
theories surrounding Wycombe Wanderers Football Club…
EPISODE 7: “WYCOMBE DIDN”T DESERVE TO GO UP”
The myth…
“Wycombe finished eighth. Wycombe pressured clubs and the EFL to end the season.
PPG was unfair. Wycombe voted to end the season because it suited them. If Wycombe
couldn’t afford to play out the season, they shouldn’t have been allowed in the playoffs.
Wycombe were plummeting down the table…etc.” Take your pick from any of that.
The case for…
Whilst it’s ridiculous to claim that our ‘race was run’ and we were ‘plummeting down
the table’, it is fair to say that our long term form wasn’t the best as we went into the
second half of the season. Since our December 14 th win over Burton, we’d lost 8 of the
14 league games we’d played, conceding 25 goals. That said, it’s perhaps worth noting
that our form immediately before lockdown was comparable with Peterborough’s. Our
last 5 games before football stopped saw us win three and lose two, while Peterborough
won three, drew one and lost one, so our race was surely no more run than theirs.
PPG was undoubtedly a less than ideal way to determine the final table and no-one’s
disputing that in a perfect world, the fixture schedule would have been played out in
full. But if there was one thing the world wasn’t in 2020, it was ‘perfect’. Regarding the
vote, it’s true that we did vote in our own best interests. WE ALL DID, GENIUSES! That’s
generally how votes work. Peterborough fans seem particularly upset that we didn’t try
to stitch ourselves up by voting for an outcome that would suit them more than us. PPG
was applied after a democratic vote decided it was the best of the options tabled by the
EFL to decide the final standings. Until the season was ended and PPG was applied, the
current table wasn’t the final table. Once that had been done, Wycombe were third.
Wycombe no more finished 8 th for having briefly been in 8 th position during the season,
than we finished 1 st for having been there for the majority of the campaign.
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