BBC HomeExplore the BBC
This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving.

28 October 2014

BBC Homepage

Local BBC Sites

Neighbouring Sites

Related BBC Sites


Contact Us

Exeter City

You are in: Devon > Sport > Exeter City > Exeter off to Wembley!

Exeter City players celebrate

Wembley here we come! (Pinnacle Photos)

Exeter off to Wembley!

Exeter City reach the Conference play-off final at Wembley, after beating Oxford on penalties in a thrilling semi-final. They now face Morecambe in the final on 20 May - listen to the live commentary here.

Exeter City are just one game away from a return to the Football League, after an amazing Conference play-off semi-final win over Oxford.

City now face Morecambe in the play-off final at Wembley on Sunday 20 May (2pm), and the prize for the winners is a place in the Football League.

It's City's first ever appearance at Wembley and the biggest day in the club's 102-year history.

More importantly, it means they are just 90 minutes away from a return to the Football League, four seasons after being relegated.

City players watch the shoot-out

City players watch the shoot-out (Pinnacle)

At the end of the roller-coaster match at the Kassam Stadium, City manager Paul Tisdale: "It's fantastic - we're going to Wembley!"

"But this is a step. The next step is winning and getting promotion."

The Grecians certainly didn't make it an easy ride to Wembley, with a nail biting semi-final play-ff against Oxford.

Trailing 1-0 after the home leg, City had it all to do in the second leg at the Kassam Stadium - and they looked all but down and out when Odubade's 27th minute goal put Oxford 2-0 up on aggregate.

Earlier, Exeter were hard done by when Lee Phillips had a perfectly good goal disallowed wrongly for offside.

However, goals from Phillips in the 39th minute and Adam Stansfield 20 minutes from time brought the aggregate score to 2-2 and sent the tie into extra time.

City looked the team most likely to win, but there were no further goals and it went to penalties.

It was agony for the 1,000 or so City fans in the crowd of 10,691.

Steve Tully

Steve Tully hits the winning penalty (Pinnacle)

Each team scored three of their five penalties - with City coming from behind after Billy Jones hit the post with their first.

So the penalty shoot-out went into sudden death, and it was right-back Steve Tully who was the Grecians' hero, slamming the ball home to earn a 4-3 win on penalties after Oxford's Chris Zebroski had missed with his sudden death effort.

Paul Tisdale told BBC Radio Devon: "I think we had a little more faith getting a result than we let on, we had a game plan. We've been practicing penalties for six weeks. Okay, we missed two but we scored more than they did.

"The players did us proud, they did the club proud, they did me proud and more importantly they did themselves proud. I'm very pleased for the club and the supporters.

"Ten days ago step one was to get into the play-offs, step two was to get to Wembley. Step three is to gain promotion.

"We've had a little celebration because it's hard not to, but we've quickly regained our composure. The celebrations lasted five minutes and we deserved them, but we know we've got a job to do.

"I don't think Morecambe will fancy playing us. We've given them a couple of hard games this year and they can see we're a fit, dynamic bunch."

City are taking around 30,000 supporters to Wembley, and the final will be a big pay day for the St James Park club.

Tickets are on sale from 9am on 10 May. Prices are: adults £28; disabled £28 (carer free); behind the goal seats are £23; and under-16s are £11.

Tickets are being distributed by TicketZone on 0871 855 1904.

Listen to live commentary of the Wembley final, using the audio link on this page.

last updated: 09/08/07

You are in: Devon > Sport > Exeter City > Exeter off to Wembley!

Sports photos

Girls rugby

Take a look at our collection of sports photo galleries

In Pictures

We've loads of photos you can look at and add to.

Browse through our vast selection of photo galleries



About the BBC | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy