Ranking the 10 best EFL Championship play-off finals in history | OneFootball

Known as "The Richest Match in Football", the Championship play-off final has seen some incredible games over its 39-year history.

Billed as the "Richest Match in Football", the Championship Play-Off Final has seen some incredible matches, as teams go head-to-head for a place in the Premier League.

Over the course of the 39 years of its existence, the play-off final to determine who will be promoted into the top-flight of English football has become one of the global game's most lucrative matches.

Those who earn promotion to the Premier League don't just benefit from at least a season's worth of revenue from its vast global broadcasting contract, either; they're also entitled to at least two years of parachute payments should they be relegated back, amounts of money that can provide a crucial advantage over their rivals in that eventuality.

Considering what's on offer, it's no surprise that there have been some exceptional and controversial Championship play-off finals over the years, so here's FLW's pick of the best of the bunch.

10 ? ? 1987 - Charlton Athletic 2-1 Leeds United

Upon their introduction for the 1986-87 season by the Football League, the play-offs initially looked somewhat different to now. At that time, they were played between the third, fourth and fifth placed teams in the Second Division along with the team that had finished 19th in the First Division.

This meant that Charlton Athletic had to line up alongside Oldham Athletic, Leeds United and Ipswich Town, hoping to preserve their place in the following season's First Division. In addition to this, the final was played home and away over two legs, rather than being a one-off match. Away goals would decide the winners of all matches.

Both of the semi-finals were tight affairs. Charlton won through the final with a 2-1 aggregate win against Ipswich. After a goalless draw in the first leg at Portman Road, two Jim Melrose goals in three minutes in the first half of the second leg were enough to see them through.

In the other semi-final, Leeds United were pushed all the way by Oldham Athletic. An 89th-minute winner scored by Keith Edwards gave Leeds a 1-0 advantage to take to Boundary Park for the second leg, and after another 89th-minute goal, which gave Oldham a 2-0 lead on the night, seemed to have sent the home side through, a last-minute strike from Edwards was enough to send them through.

The two legs of the final were tense affairs, with each team winning their home leg 1-0, and this meant a replay which was scheduled to be played at Birmingham City's St Andrew's four days after the second leg.

The game was goalless at 90 minutes, and when John Sheridan gave Leeds the lead nine minutes into the first period, it looked like they had done enough to secure a return to the top-flight following an absence of five years. But two Peter Shirtliff goals in five minutes, scored in the 113th and 117th minutes, were enough to keep Charlton up.

9 ? ? 1990 - Swindon Town 1-0 Sunderland

In 1989-90, Swindon Town were the Second Division's surprise team. Managed by Lou Macari, just four years earlier they'd been playing Fourth Division football, and even though two successive promotions had taken them up to the Second, they'd not looked very much like progressing much further until - with the system having already been tweaked so that the fourth-bottom First Division team was no longer involved - they squeezed into the play-offs on the final day of the season.

This was also the first season that would end with a play-off final at Wembley, with the two-legged finals of the previous three years having been abolished, and Swindon edged through to Wembley with two 2-1 wins against Blackburn Rovers. They would face off at Wembley against Sunderland, who beat Newcastle 2-0 over two legs in a bad-tempered semi-final in which the second leg was almost abandoned because of a pitch invasion by home fans.

The 1990 final isn't on this list for the quality of the match itself. Swindon won a fairly unedifying spectacle 1-0 thanks to a first half Alan McLoughlin goal. What mattered was what happened afterwards. Swindon had been under investigation over financial irregularities since the previous November, but after their promotion was secured, the League confirmed that instead of being promoted to Division One, they would be demoted to Division Three, with Sunderland promoted in their place.

This caused uproar and the two-division demotion was reduced to one, keeping Swindon where they were instead. They finished the 1990-91 season just two points above relegation, and although they would get a season of Premier League football four seasons after they missed out the first time around, that first denial still rankles in some parts of Wiltshire.

8 ? ? 2000 - Ipswich Town 4-2 Barnsley

Ipswich Town had been away from the Premier League for five years by the time they faced off against Barnsley in what was the final domestic club match to be played at the old Wembley Stadium before it was demolished and rebuilt. They'd almost gone up automatically, only missing out by two points to runners-up Manchester City, and saw their way through to Wembley as a result of a thrilling 7-5 aggregate win against Bolton Wanderers in the semi-finals.

Their opponents in the final had demolished Birmingham City 5-2 in their semi-final, and appropriately for two teams who'd scored 12 goals between them to get to Wembley, they managed another six between them on the day. This was Ipswich's fourth consecutive appearance in the play-offs, and fifth in total. It was the first time they had progressed to the final, having lost in the semi-finals for the past three years.

It initially looked like this final wouldn't be any better for them. After just five minutes, a long-range shot from Craig Hignett hit the crossbar and bounced in off goalkeeper Richard Wright. But Ipswich equalised through Tony Mowbray just before the half-hour and were 3-1 up by the time an hour had been played. Hignett pulled a penalty back for Barnsley with twelve minutes to play, setting up a tense closing few minutes, but on 90 minutes Martijn Reuser broke from his own half to score a fourth goal to seal Ipswich's promotion.

7 ? ? 2019 - Aston Villa 2-1 Derby County

Again, this wasn't an especially exciting game, but it did come to have significant ramifications for both clubs. Aston Villa's revival started with Anwar El Ghazi and John McGinn's goals. Five years on from this, they'd finish 4th in the Premier League and be returning to the Champions League for the first time since 1982-83.

But while the win would have lasting positive effects for Villa, the opposite was true for Derby County. They'd been spending heavily under owner Mel Morris in the hope of securing a return to the Premier League themselves, but this match was the point at which that bubble burst.

Within two and a half years they were in administration, and it's taken them five years from them to return to being in a position in which they could challenge for a Championship play-off place again.

6 ? ? 1989 - Crystal Palace 4-3 Blackburn Rovers (On Aggregate)

This two-legged final marked possibly the greatest comeback seen in a Championship play-off final. This was a match between two clubs who'd both been missing from the top-flight for a while. Crystal Palace hadn't been there since the "Team of the 80s" collapsed in on itself in 1981, while Blackburn Rovers hadn't been there since relegation in 1966.

And by the end of the first leg, it looked as though Blackburn were on their way back, having won 3-1 at Ewood Park. But in the second leg, Ian Wright and David Madden scored to take the tie into extra-time, and the win was then sealed by a second Wright goal three minutes from the end of the second period.

Palace marked their first season back by reaching their first-ever FA Cup final, losing to Manchester United, and the season after that they finished 3rd in the First Division. Blackburn made it up themselves in 1992, just in time for the formation of the Premier League, which they won three years later.

5 ? ? 2011 - Reading 2-4 Swansea City

Having edged past Cardiff City and Norwich City in the semi-finals, Reading and Swansea City, who'd finished third and fifth in the final league table respectively, played out a goal-filled final which came laden with drama, despite seeming to be just about wrapped by half-time.

Reading absolutely flew out of the traps, racking up a 3-0 lead by the interval thanks to two goals in a minute midway through the first half from Scott Sinclair and a third added five minutes from the break by Stephen Dobbie. But Cardiff weren't done yet. A Joe Allen own goal and a second scored by Matthew Mills brought the score back to 3-2 with more than half an hour to play.

A Cardiff onslaught could have forced extra-time, but Reading weathered the storm and with ten minutes to play Sinclair scored his second penalty kick and third goal of the afternoon to ensure Reading's return to the Premier League, becoming the second-ever player to have scored a hat-trick in a Championship play-off final. We'll be returning to the first, a little later in this list.

4 ? ? 2010 - Blackpool 3-2 Cardiff City

The 2011 play-off final followed another cracker a year earlier, which ended a run without both teams scoring in this match which stretched all the way back to 2002.

Blackpool had only squeaked into the play-offs in 6th place in the table, and had ended their Championship season a massive 21 points short of runners-up West Bromwich Albion. But both of the semi-finals brought something of a surprise with Blackpool beating Nottingham Forest 6-4 on aggregate while Cardiff City beat Leicester City on penalty kicks after drawing 3-3 over two legs.

This was a dramatic game, but most of the drama came in the first half. Michael Chopra gave Cardiff a ninth-minute lead, but this only lasted four minutes before Charlie Adam equalised for Blackpool. Joe Ledley regained the lead for Cardiff eight minutes from the break, but two goals from Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Brett Ormerod in the final five minutes of a breathless first half gave Blackpool a 3-2 half-time lead.

Cardiff pushed forward in the second half in search of an equaliser but were unable to find one, and at the full-time whistle it was the Seasiders who returned to the Premier League, the first time they'd been a top-flight club since 1971.

3 ? ? 1993 - Swindon Town 4-3 Leicester City

Three years after their promotion that never was, Swindon Town returned to Wembley for a match against the team that had been beaten by Blackburn Rovers in the previous year's play-off final, Leicester City, although, with Swindon having finished the season in 5th place in the table and Leicester in 6th, there were those who were questioning how fair these still relatively new play-offs might be.

But both Swindon and Leicester were there on merit, by the rules of the competition, with Swindon beating Tranmere Rovers and Leicester beating Portsmouth in the semi-finals to get there.

And once they did, they played a storming match, the first of a succession throughout the 1990s. By this time Swindon were managed by Glenn Hoddle, and he scored the opening goal of the match shortly before half-time, while two goals in eight minutes early in the second half, scored by Craig Maskell and Shaun Taylor, extended their lead to 3-0 and seemed to have put the game beyond Leicester.

Except nobody told Leicester this. Four minutes after Taylor's goal, Julian Joachim pulled one back for the Foxes, and two goals in a minute from Steve Walsh and Steven Taylor midway through the half shocked Wembley by bringing the score back to 3-3 with just over twenty minutes to play.

But the afternoon would end in Leicester heartbreak. With just six minutes left to play, Steve White was brought down inside the penalty area. Paul Bodin converted the spot kick and Swindon Town were on their way to the top-flight of English football for the first - and to date only - time in their history.

2 ? ? 1995 - Bolton Wanderers 4-3 Reading

With the Premier League reducing from 22 to 20 clubs, there was only one automatic promotion place at the top of the First Division at the end of the 1994-95 season. In the end, only six points separated the top five, with Middlesbrough taking the title and promotion. Bolton Wanderers and Reading were both surprise faces near the top of the table, and they got past Wolves and Tranmere Rovers in the semi-finals to book a place at Wembley.

The match turned out to be even more dramatic than the meeting between Swindon and Leicester had been a couple of years earlier. Reading raced into an early two-goal lead thanks to goals from Lee Nogan and Adrian WIlliams, and fans had to wait until there were just 15 minutes to play before Owen Coyle pulled a goal back for Bolton. With Wanderers pressing hard at the Reading defence, Fabian De Freitas equalised with four minutes to play to force the game into extra-time.

After 15 minutes of extra-time, Mixu Paatelainen completed Bolton's recovery, and with two minutes of extra-time to play De Freitas scored his second goal of the afternoon to seemingly put the game beyond doubt. But a minute later, the Reading player-manager Jimmy Quinn scored a third for Reading, leading to a desperately tense last couple of minutes before the full-time whistle and Bolton's return to the top-flight following an absence of 15 years was confirmed.

1 ? ? 1998 - Charlton Athletic 4-4 Sunderland (Charlton win 7-6 on penalties)

In 38 finals, the Championship play-off final has only been decided by a penalty shootout on four occasions, and this was the first. Not only that, but it came at the end of an extraordinary match which saw eight goals and the first to feature a hat-trick.

It had been a tight season at the top of the First Division, with just six points separating the top four. Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough were automatically promoted as champions and runners-up, with Sunderland and Charlton finishing third and fourth respectively. Sunderland beat Sheffield 3-2 on aggregate and Charlton beat Ipswich Town 2-0 to get to Wembley.

Not for the first time in this final, there was little indication of the drama to follow by half-time. Charlton led 1-0 thanks to a Clive Mendonca goal scored midway through the half.

But in the second half, it all went off. Niall Quinn levelled for Sunderland five minutes in, and before an hour had been played Kevin Phillips scored again for them to turn the score on its head. Charlton battled back with a second goal of the afternoon for Mendonca, but Quinn restored Sunderland's lead two minutes later, only for Richard Rufus to level things up at 3-3 with five minutes to play.

Extra-time at the end of such a gruelling season was probably the last thing that either team wanted, but they continued to deliver on the pitch. Sunderland took the lead nine minutes into the first period, but four minutes later Mendonca levelled it at 4-4, becoming the first player to score hat-trick in this fixture. Only one player has done it in the 28 years since.

With the scores tied at 4-4, the match went to a penalty shootout and, perhaps surprisingly, given the players' tiredness levels, the first twelve penalty kicks were all perfect, tying the score at 6-6. Shaun Newton stepped up to convert the 13th penalty to give Charlton a 7-6 lead, but then the Charlton goalkeeper Sasha Ilic saved Michael Gray's kick and they were promoted to the Premier League.