May 18 – Nottingham Forest will play Huddersfield Town in the so-called richest individual game in football after reaching the English Championship play-off final.
Forest beat Sheffield United on penalties after drawing 3-3 on aggregate on Tuesday and are now one game away from a return to the top flight after 23 years.
Previous estimates broadly place gaining Premier League status at £100 million and thousands of joyous Forest fans spilled on to the pitch at the end.
But the scenes of jubilation were marred by an attack on United captain Billy Sharp with manager Paul Heckingbottom saying Sharp was “shook up and bleeding”. Police said a 31-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of assault in connection with the incident.
The showdown with Huddersfield on May 29 will be Forest’s first ever play-off final at any level while Sheffield’s shootout defeat extends the club’s woeful play-off record to nine failed attempts from nine campaigns and denies them a chance of making an immediate top-flight return.
What makes Forest’s achievement all the more remarkable is that they suffered their worst start to a league campaign for more than a century and were bottom of the table when Steve Cooper took over as manager and transformed their fortunes.
Now the two-time European champions, mired for years in the lower reaches of the English professional game, are one game away from the promised land.
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