The Sunday Times - UK (2022-05-29)

12 May 29, 2022The Sunday Times

Football Sky Bet Championship

The richest sports game in the

world takes place today, apparently.

At least that’s what the Sky Bet

Championship play-off final has

become known as. I actually don’t

know if that’s true. I’d imagine last

night’s Champions League final

would be worth a few bob too, but

it does seem that the one-off final

game of the EFL season has come

to be seen as the pathway to a

wonderland of riches.

I have to say that sometimes

the figures that you see banded

about make no real sense

to me. It all ends up a bit

like when someone

points out how much

more we spend on

bombs than medicine.

Human behaviour

makes no real sense

when you really begin

to analyse it. Indeed, in a

week when it looks like rail

workers are going to strike

because the government

is looking to save £2 billion

on upgrading our

EXTRA

TIME

with

Jonny

Owen

infrastructure, a football club was

sold for double that amount. Work

that one out.

Anyway, the two teams,

Nottingham Forest and Huddersfield

Town, who will fight it out to unlock

the golden gates to the promised land

that is the Premier League are the

form teams in the division. There is

little to separate them. They finished

two points apart, swapping league

positions in stoppage time on the last

day. Since Christmas Day, one team

have collected 53 points, the other 49.

They both have brilliant young

managers in Steve Cooper and Carlos

Corberán — Huddersfield’s Corberán

is still in his thirties — and both teams’

budding superstars are Welsh:

Forest’s Brennan Johnson and Sorba

Thomas of Huddersfield. They will

hightail it from Wembley to Cardiff for

another enormous game when Wales

play Scotland or Ukraine a week later

in yet another play-off final, with

another life-changing reward — this

time a World Cup spot — at the end.

Honestly, it’s enough it make

sleeping very hard for this columnist,

who, as a Welshman, has a dog in

both fights. You see, I’ve been on the

board at Forest for a few seasons and

I’ve seen first-hand the almost surreal

change that Cooper has brought to

the club. To say it’s been remarkable

seems like an understatement.

I’ve been settled in the city for

nearly ten years and lived and

breathed these past few months.

Everywhere I go now people shout

words of encouragement and beep

their car horns and wave. It’s

galvanised the whole of Nottingham.

Saying that, I’ve been telling all

who will listen all week that one of

the best teams I’ve seen against

Forest this season has been

Huddersfield. I was hugely

impressed. In fact, this week

someone asked the former Forest

great John Robertson how he thought

it would go and he simply mimed

the toss of a coin. And he’s right.

There is no favourite for me — they

are evens. Simple as that.

Now how on earth do you enjoy a

game like that? Well you don’t, do

you? You all know that. I mean, it

makes it fascinating for the neutral

but unbearable for those with skin in

the game. Especially when people

keep telling you about the rewards at

the end.

But that’s what makes this part

of the season so beautiful — and I

thought about what word to use

there, because that’s what it is. It’s

the beautiful game, because it can

take us through so many emotions.

It will all be there this afternoon.

All those dreams and hopes to be

either raised or shattered. Honestly,

I can barely type here writing about

it. God knows how it will be at kick-

off. Good luck to all involved.

Jonny Owen & Friends is on

talkSPORT from 9am on Sunday

It’s fascinating for

the neutral — but

unbearable for

those with skin

in the game

The play-off

final really is

the beautiful

game — but it

will be agony

played there,” he says. “It will be a

different kind of emotion when I play.

“I feel like I’m the kind of player

who enjoys the atmosphere, the

feeling of the big crowd. If you don’t

have nerves before the game, you’re

not human. But it’s a good feeling to

have. It means it matters to you.”

O’Brien is fine company when we

speak on Monday, less than 24 hours

after the thrilling denouement to the

Premier League campaign in which

Pep Guardiola’s City were crowned

champions. “I’m very happy today,”

O’Brien says, even though he missed

all the action. Huddersfield’s players

and their families were travelling

home from a warm-weather training

break at the Vale do Lobo resort in the

Algarve, Portugal — a trip the club also

made before their play-off final

victory over Reading in 2017.

“Our flight was at 4pm, so we

missed every game [on the last day of

the Premier League season],” O’Brien

says. “We had to get the pilot to

announce the scores. It was good,

there’s a few Liverpool fans in the

camp — Sorba [Thomas], Duane

[Holmes], Lee Nicholls, a few coaches

— so I’ve been winding them up.

“I’ve still got a season ticket. I can’t

get to many games now, but I’ve been

going with my dad for as long as I can

remember. If we do get to the Premier

League, and I play against City, I think

T

his morning a coach will set

off from the town of

Littleborough, nestled at the

foothills of the South

Pennines, and make its way

to Wembley to see the town’s

favourite son do battle for a

place in the Premier League.

Lewis O’Brien, the Huddersfield

Town midfielder, admits that it would

be a struggle to name everyone

making the journey from the place he

grew up to the Sky Bet Championship

play-off final against Nottingham For-

est, but he knows exactly how many

tickets he had to get hold of.

“Seventy-five,” O’Brien says with a

smile. “The whole village wants to go.

I can’t say no, can I? So I’m taking my

whole village down to Wembley and

hopefully I can give them a positive

result. I’ve put a coach on. Getting 75

tickets was hard — especially when we

had to get everyone’s names down,

that was a tough job.” A costly one too.

“I’m hoping to get the money back.. .”

O’Brien adds with a smile.

The highly rated 23-year-old will

not, in all likelihood, have to worry

too much about reimbursement if he

and Huddersfield win a contest billed

as the most lucrative game in football,

with a £175 million windfall awaiting

the victors.

O’Brien is an industrious, box-to-

box midfielder with a fine left foot

who was coveted by Leeds United last

summer, and his performances at the

heart of a remarkable transformation

in West Yorkshire this season, under

the head coach, Carlos Corberán,

have garnered further admiration

from Premier League clubs. But it

would “mean everything,” he says, to

get there today with the club whose

academy he joined aged ten.

Wembley will heave with the

weight of hope and expectation. The

journey to the national stadium is one

O’Brien has travelled many times with

his father, David, to watch his beloved

Manchester City, but never as a

player. “I watched City lose to Wigan

in the [2013] FA Cup final, I was there

when City beat [Manchester] United

when Yaya Touré scored [in the 2011

FA Cup semi-final]; I’ve been to watch

[games there] a lot, but I’ve never

which diminished O’Brien’s opportu-

nities in a stroke. An impressive loan

spell at Bradford City in League One in

2018-19 “kick-started” his career.

And after Huddersfield’s return to

the Championship, in 2019, O’Brien

was a stand-out performer as the side

spent two seasons battling to avoid

relegation while reducing an inflated

wage bill.

Now Huddersfield are within

touching distance of the Premier

League again. O’Brien, however,

knows all about the dangers

Forest pose. “They’re very

direct. They like open

spaces. They’ve got

Brennan Johnson, who’s

very fast, down the right;

[Philip] Zinckernagel,

who likes to float in

pockets. They’ve got a bit

of everything: aggression

in midfield, playmakers,

big strikers, fast wing backs.

But we’ve got to try and play

our own game. It’s probably

going to be a game where whoever

makes the fewest mistakes will win.”

ON TV TODAY

Huddersfield v Nottingham Forest

Sky Sports Football. Kick-off 4.30pm

LOCAL

HERO

Gregor Robertson

Lewis O’Brien aiming

to take a whole town

to the Premier League

I’m going to ask for every player’s shirt.

I’ll be able to wave at my dad in the

home end. He’ll probably shed a tear.”

O’Brien was approaching his 18th

birthday, on the first-team periphery,

“making up the numbers” in training

and no more when, five years ago,

David Wagner led Huddersfield to the

top flight for the first time since 1972,

wage bill.

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But w

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O’Brien cannot

wait to play

in the febrile

atmosphere of

Wembley in this

afternoon’s

play-off final

DAVID ROGERS

Nottingham Forest were bottom

of the Championship when Steve

Cooper replaced Chris Hughton

as manager last September

Before Cooper (Pos 24th)

P 8 W 1 D 1 L 6 Pts 4

With Cooper (Pos 4th)

P 38 W 22 D 10 L 6 Pts 76

Cooper’s Forest record

(all competitions)

P 44 W 26 D 10 L 8

(win% 59)

HOW COOPER REVIVED FOREST