BILLY BUNTER

Weblog: The football punter

Giantkillers Stevenage could come back to haunt Wilson

I CAN'T imagine Stevenage would have been high on the list of places Danny Wilson wanted to visit this summer.

It was Stevenage, of course, whoscuppered Wilson's hopes of leading
Sheffield United back into the Championship automatically when they held the Blades at Bramall Lane on the penultimate Saturday of the season.

Wilson's punishment is having to take United to Stevenage for the
first leg of this play-off semi-final rather than being able to live
it up in the sun somewhere congratulating himself on a job well done.

The number of times the big teams in League One have been left feeling mugged by Stevenage this season reminds me of the justice scheme where victims of crime were invited to meet their offenders.

I tried something similar when I caught a bloke nicking the money I'd
put down on the local boozer's pool table at the weekend and offered to extend our acquaintance outside, but not surprisingly he declined.

This time, though, Sheffield United have no say in the matter and
there won't be any apologising from Stevenage either.

Borough have been superb when hosting the best teams in League One, winning seven out of 11 at home to teams in the top half.

In contrast, Sheffield United have struggled on the road against the
better teams, losing four out of five - including against Stevenage -
away to the rest of the top six.

It won't take much for Blades followers to turn against Wilson given
his Sheffield Wednesday past, so instead of a sunny seaside resort it
may soon be a long hot dole queue that awaits him.