“People's jobs at stake” - Inside Premier League’s most dramatic Survival Sunday
With the Premier League title race and the battle for the top four safely sewn up, all eyes will be on the fight to remain in the top flight during the final weekend of the season.
Leicester City - champions as recently as 2015 - sit on 31 points along with Leeds United, while Everton's 59-year run in the top division could yet come to an end. The Toffees have fate in their own hands and can clinch survival with a win over Bournemouth.
The Foxes could capitalise if Everton drop points, but only a win against West Ham would be enough to climb out of the relegation zone. Leeds - who host Tottenham - are also left needing snookers, knowing they need to better the results of both of their rivals for Sam Allardyce to complete another Houdini escape act.
It's an afternoon which promises twists, turns and gnawed fingernails as three teams battle for one spot. But 2023 will have a way to go if it is to replicate the most dramatic of all Survival Sunday.
The events of May 22, 2011 have since go down in folklore as for the first - and only - time in Premier League history, five clubs at risk of relegation entered the final day separated by just a single point.
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Everton are one of three clubs battling against the drop on the final day of the season (Michael Regan/Getty Images)Whilst West Ham ’s fate had been confirmed, Wolves, Blackburn Rovers, Blackpool, Birmingham City and Wigan were all in danger of the drop.
Over the course of the 90 minutes that followed, all five clubs spent one time or another in the relegation zone. This is the story of the Premier League’s most dramatic Survival Sunday, told by those who were there:
High stakes
Chasing a place in the Premier League is the ultimate ambition - but staying at the highest level is another matter.
Jason Roberts played over 500 games in the Football League during the course of his career.
But it is the day on which he scored his final Premier League goal to help keep Blackburn Rovers in the top flight that stands out as the day on which the stakes were highest.
“One thing I would say is just the pressure,” Roberts, now Director of Development at Concacaf, recalls. "From all my time in football, I don’t think I’ve ever felt pressure like trying to avoid relegation going into a game.
All the teams involved knew what was at stake and felt the pressure on the final day (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)“You’re fully aware that for a club like Blackburn, it’s people’s livelihoods at stake. It effects those who work at the club, as players we had relegation clauses in our contracts and stuff like that, so the knock-on effects of what happens in that scenario are huge.”
Liam Ridgewell, who had helped lead Birmingham City to promotion to the top flight two years earlier, says: “We knew what it’d do to a club to get relegated. Not just for the players, but for everyone connected.
“Extra chefs, extra ground staff, all those people that are potentially going to lose their jobs, and that was hard for all of us.”
For all those involved from the five clubs at risk, it was a day where there was no avoiding the fact that what transpired over the next 90 minutes would have life-changing consequences.
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Blackpool dragged in as Wigan cling on
Blackpool’s debut season in the Premier League was the feel-good story of the first half of the campaign.
Ian Holloway’s fearless side had claimed numerous scalps, including doing the double over Liverpool, but slipped into the relegation battle.
A last-gasp Jermaine Defoe equaliser against Tottenham was a bitter pill to swallow, but a 4-3 win in a thriller against Bolton in their final home game meant they went to Old Trafford on the final day with hopes of survival.
Holloway says: “I just remember the heartbreak of a couple of weeks before, when we were winning after 90 minutes and Jermaine Defoe comes on and scores an equaliser.
Ian Holloways looks back with immense pride at what his Blackpool side achieved (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)“That was still hanging in our heads, but we’d been on a really good run. We beat Bolton 4-3 at home, and we needed to beat them.
“But then we knew we had to go to Manchester United, who were already champions, at their ground, so we were on a hiding to nothing.”
There was one big problem for the Tangerines in the form of Wigan Athletic.
“Wigan just kept winning, beating everybody!” Holloway recalls. “We’d only just dropped into the bottom three and it was a last shot for all of us.”
At one stage, Roberto Martinez’s side looked dead and buried before launching a late survival push which they took to the final day via a 94th minute Charles N’Zogbia winner to relegate West Ham in their penultimate game.
A trip to Stoke City awaited and Martinez declared before the game: "We've had no fear and nothing to lose in the last two games. It's been an opportunity more than fear.
”We have nothing to lose. We have been in this situation since the end of November. And everyone expected Wigan to be the first team relegated and we've been working hard to stay at this level.”
Wolves nightmare leaves Blackburn in dreamland
It was a cagey start as Wolves and Blackburn got underway at Molineux.
“I think the big thing was that we didn’t want to overcommit,” Roberts recalls. “We set up quite sensibly because the last thing we wanted was to be chasing the game.”
“We only needed a point and we were fairly confident,” Wolves winger Matt Jarvis says. “Before the game everyone was ready, everyone was hyped up and fully focused.”
By half-time, however, Wolves’ worst nightmares had come true.
Jarvis was left wondering "what has happened?" at half-time on the final day (Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)“The next thing I remember just walking in at half-time thinking, ‘how has that happened?’” Jarvis reflects. “It was so surreal. How is this happening?”
At 3-0 down, Wolves’ destiny was no longer in their own hands whilst Blackburn were in dreamland.
It was Roberts who opened the scoring with what proved to be the final Premier League goal of his career, diverting the ball cleverly beyond Wayne Hennessey and into the bottom corner to give his side the lead.
“I managed to get the first goal, which I meant by the way!” Roberts jokes. “If you watch it back, Michael Salgado hits it across and I knew if I could just divert it in the other direction it’d go in.
“I got a bit of stick from the lads saying I didn’t mean it, but I definitely did, I just want to put that out there!”
Jason Roberts' goal helped put Blackburn Rovers in dreamland at half-time at Molineux (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)However, Rovers recognised the dangers at the break whilst Mick McCarthy laid out the scenario his Wolves side faced in no uncertain terms.
“It was ‘this is it now. This is your season, there and then in 45 minutes,’” Jarvis recalls. “If we could get back into the game, score the next goal, we knew we needed to get a result or it was out of our hands.
“Everyone was fully aware of what was at stake, so it doesn’t take much to get the commitment and effort. Everyone was fully there already, just for whatever reason in that first half it just did not go to plan.”
Blackpool stun United as Wigan strike
It was typical of the fighting spirit shown by Blackpool that they refused to lie down after going a goal down at Old Trafford.
Instead, Gary Taylor-Fletcher gave the visitors a shock lead which would have kept them up.
“I remember I’d won there before at Queens Park Rangers, we beat them 4-1 and it was the biggest shock ever, and I hoped it might happen to us.
Gary Taylor-Fletcher gave Blackpool a brief lead at Old Trafford to keep their dreams alive (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)“We kicked off and within a couple of minutes Keith Southern missed a sitter. You just thought then it might not be our day. But we got back into it, went 2-1 up and then you start to think maybe it could happen.”
Just as Manchester United turned things around, Wigan finally found the goal they craved just an hour down the M6.
Hugo Rodallega’s bullet header in the 78th minute gave them a safety cushion and ultimately sealed their great escape.
"We came to Stoke and we beat them and kept a clean sheet, which no other team has done in 2011. Now it's time to enjoy the feeling,” declared a jubilant Martinez at full-time.
Hugo Rodallega's bullet header secured Wigan's great escape (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)‘We only need one goal’
Just a minute after Rodallega’s goal for Wigan, Craig Gardner sparked bedlam in the White Hart Lane away end.
Gardner, a boyhood Birmingham fan, fired in a rocket which would have sent local rivals Wolves down as a result of their first-half horror show.
“It was massive,” says Ridgwell. “Any goal we ever scored, the group we had and the team we had, we celebrated together and had a really close bond.
Craig Gardner's stunning strike looked set to keep Birmingham in the Premier League (Julian Finney/Getty Images)“When Gards hit that and it went in it felt like it might’ve cemented our place in the Premier League. It was a great goal from Gards, something he’d been doing all season, and something we were all buzzing about at the time.”
At that moment, Wolves were left facing relegation on the basis of goals scored.
Fans, following results elsewhere from the stands, passed on the message to their team with a rousing chant of “we only need one goal”.
“Little did we know the comeback that was going on over at the other pitch, what they were doing...” Ridgewell reflects.
As the song reverberated around Molineux, the players were in little doubt as to what they needed to do, whilst Blackburn felt the weight of the home crowd.
"Obviously the second half you could just hear from the crowd,” Jarvis remembers. “People were just shouting, ‘you need one more!’ And you’re like, ‘what?’. You were getting so many messages from the crowd telling you what was going on.”
For Blackburn, the weight of being away from home started to take its toll.
“I remember the second half it felt like the whole of Wolverhampton was on the pitch with us,” Roberts says. “Everyone was following what was going on in the games elsewhere, and they were really driving Wolves on.
“It just felt like we were under constant pressure, they just kept coming and kept driving forward and we were up against it at times.”
With just three minutes of normal time remaining, a long ball fell to Stephen Hunt in the right hand corner of the Blackburn box.
As he opened his body onto his favoured left foot, Jarvis made a run to the back post appealing for a cross.
Instead, Hunt went for goal.
Stephen Hunt's curling effort saved Wolves by giving them the edge over Birmingham on goals scored (Michael Regan/Getty Images)“What? Why are you shooting from there? Oh…oh amazing! Great strike!” Jarvis says, playing out the goal vividly in his mind.
“When he had the touch and he’s curling it into the top corner, it just took ages to get into the back of the net.
“The emotion, the relief I felt, that was the biggest thing. The celebrations were wild and epic and I’ve never, ever celebrated so much after losing a game of football. It was quite surreal, a really crazy moment.
“It was a massive rollercoaster ride to be honest. You have three different feelings - before the game, half-time then after the game and they’re all just totally different emotions.”
As it stood, Wolves were safe by the finest of margins via goal difference.
Hunt's goal sparked bedlam at Molineux as both sides survived (Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)Double despair
Just moments after his side took the lead at Old Trafford, Holloway saw the last thing he wanted.
“I remember with 20 minutes to go, I looked at the scoreboard, we’re 2-1 up. The substitution board goes up and on comes Michael Owen.
“It’s your worst nightmare.”
Moments later, he fears were realised as Anderson equalised and Ian Evatt turned into his own net before Owen wrapped up a 4-2 win with a goal which all but confirmed Blackpool’s relegation.
There was also despair at White Hart Lane, where Birmingham City went all out in search of the goal they needed to survive following Wolves’ second goal.
"I turned to Alex (McLeish) with a few minutes left," said the Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp after the game. “Because I didn't understand what they were doing when they pushed [the centre-half] Roger Johnson up front. I said, 'Is a draw not enough?' and he said: 'No, Wolves have scored again, we need a win.’”
"It was a bit of a trance, really, what was going on,” Blues boss McLeish said at full-time. “That is the only way to describe it, really. It is hard to tell you the emotions – you have got to go through it yourself.”
With Johnson as an emergency striker, Roman Pavlyuchenko hit Blues on the counter-attack to confirm their relegation heartache.
Just a few months earlier, Birmingham had shocked Arsenal to win the League Cup, securing European football and signalling hopes for a bright future.
Liam Ridgewell reflects on relegation as a "massive low point" after winning the League Cup that same season (Julian Finney/Getty Images)“It was a massive low point,” Ridgwell says. “I remember going down there feeling confident, then at half-time we were losing. Anyone who says they don’t look at the scores in that situation is lying, and fortunately results were going the way we needed them to at that point.
“We knew what was going on. Wolves were losing at the time, so we were very upbeat going into the second half. Then you can hear the crowd, feel the mood, and we could sense they were making a comeback and it was swinging the other way.
“We started to really push forward in the end, obviously it didn’t work out, they hit us at the other end, and it was a massive disappointment.
“We’d gone from winning the Carling Cup, this massive high of getting into Europe, then the next step was to keep us in the Premier League and keep going. .
“It was a devastating blow, obviously, and one that was hard to swallow to be perfectly honest, because we didn’t expect to go down. We knew our squad was good enough to stay in the Premier League, but once we started losing we just couldn’t get off that train.”
Birmingham manager Alex McLeish was in constant dialogue with his opposite number Harry RedknappIn the immediate aftermath, manager McLeish, who left the club later that summer, was left to reflect on the fine margins which come into play at the highest level.
"It's probably the worst moment of my career because I've been in charge of the team for the whole season, they are my lads, I picked them and I built the squad," McLeish said.
"It's such a fine line. If the goal that put us out of the Premier League [by Hunt] had gone the other way, it would have been the greatest season in Birmingham's history.”
Instead, they dropped down to the second tier and have so far been unable to find a way back.
Bizarre finish and joint celebrations
After news of Pavlyuchenko’s late sucker-punch filtered through, both sides at Molineux knew they were safe.
The final minutes were played out in bizarre fashion, with both Wolves and Blackburn happy to simply let the clock tick down until their survival was confirmed.
Jarvis says: “It was really strange, because both teams had the result they needed so they didn’t want to do anything, we didn’t want to do anything.
“It was like walking football, just playing the game out. Such a strange game of football and, for me, you try and just remember the last little bit of Hunty’s goal and the celebrations afterwards.”
When the final whistle blew, fans streamed onto the pitch in jubilation.
Wolves fans approached the Blackburn end, saluting their opposing fans as both celebrated survival together.
Thousands of Wolves fans spilled onto the pitch following their dramatic survivalIn the tunnel, players from both sides eventually shared their moment of triumph and relief with one another before continuing the parties in the own dressing rooms.
“I just remember the celebrations were crazy,” Roberts says. “All the Wolves fans invaded the pitch, so we had to get out of there, make our way into the tunnel then everybody was celebrating, from both sides.
“There was never any bad feeling between the two teams so we all celebrated a bit together then ended up in our own dressing rooms and carried on celebrating.
“It was the best scenario really for both clubs involved to stay up, I think that’s what everyone there would’ve wanted out of that day, and it was an unbelievable day.
“It wasn’t a great season for us, but just the way it ended, I’ll always take good memories from it because that last memory was staying in the Premier League.”
Standing ovation
It was somewhat fitting that an unforgettable season ended with Blackpool given a standing ovation as they left the home of the champions.
Manchester United fans, awaiting the presentation of the Premier League trophy, gave the Seasiders a rapturous reception as they made their way off the pitch.
Whilst it ultimately ended in heartache, Holloway’s side were one of the stories of the season and went out exactly as they started - by putting up a brave fight against the odds.
Ian Holloway and his Blackpool players were given a standing ovation at Old Trafford after relegation (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)“In the end, the effort from my lads the whole season, and the season before, was quite remarkable so I was just full of pride really,” Holloway says. “I didn’t realise at the time, but pretty much every season since, 39 points would keep you up, but that season it wasn’t enough and it wasn’t to be.
“It was a wonderful season, it was fantastic, something that you’ll never forget and always be very proud of because the team went out there and played above the odds almost every week.
“When we came up it was a whole new ball game trying to take them on, the level of where they were and where we were financially, but you wouldn’t have noticed it week in, week out.
“My lads were absolutely fantastic, and I still remember it now. We were demoralised at the end of it, of course, but I knew how well they’d done. Unfortunately it didn’t last, but it was a season nobody will forget ever again.”
An unforgettable season came to an unbelievable climax on May 22, 2011.
No matter their fate, all those involved can look back more than a decade later with an element of pride at their involvement in a classic day of the Premier League that will never be forgotten.
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