Two MOOR wins away from the Promised Land for local heroes!
SOLIHULL Moors are two wins away from a place in the EFL League Two next season. This remarkable story of the National League club formed just 14 years ago is one of progression on and off the field.
So what an achievement if the Moors pull it off!
They are the form team. Sunday’s 3-0 win at Boreham Wood kept them in third spot at the end of the regular season.
The Moors have lost just one of their last 22 league games and that was a last-minute 1-0 defeat at champions Stockport, who have won promotion to the EFL.
So to the play-offs. Solihull go straight to the semi-finals on Sunday week where they will meet the playoff winners of Halifax and Chesterfield.
That will be at the Moors’ ARMCO Arena at Damson Park near Birmingham Airport (12.30pm).
It will be a full house of just over 4,000. The club are geared up for the EFL. Now they just have to get there.
The play-off final will be on Sunday June 5 at the London Stadium (3pm). The play-off matches are live on BT Sport.
Second-placed Wrexham, owned by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mcelhanney, are expected to reach the final but they have to beat the victors of Notts County and Grimsby to do so.
Moors’ chairman Darryl Eales has really pushed the club on since switching from that role at Oxford United.
He has turned the players fulltime professional, opened up a training centre at Alcester and developed the facilities at the Arena.
He brought in another successful businessman Tim Murphy as vicechairman and investor and picked Neal Ardley as manager after Tim Flowers had left.
Tim took the Moors to their bestever season so far when they finished second in the National League
in 2019, only to lose their semi-final play-off to AFC Fylde at home to a second-minute goal.
This time they have every chance of going one better. Moors certainly have two goalscorers up front in Joe Sbarra and Andrew Dallas, who have each scored 18 in the league this season.
There are others chipping in goals as well.
Their inspirational goalkeeper Ryan Boot was injured on May 2 but the Moors moved quickly to sign Eastleigh’s Joe Mcdonnell on loan for the play-offs.
To use football’s favourite cliché, ‘take each game as it comes.’
The two matches have to be won but it is an exciting prospect that Solihull Moors may well join the other West Midlands teams in the EFL next season.
Today, the world’s largest TV
sports promoter Barry Hearn is launching his autobiography at a special lunch at the Edgbaston cricket stadium.
Entitled Barry Hearn: My Life, it is published by Hodder and Stoughton (£20). His Matchroom empire has
brought many sports, including snooker, darts (now the secondmost watched sport on Sky), boxing, fishing and pool to our screens.
The first Chris Eubank-nigel Benn world title fight was a landmark event at the NEC while big-time
darts are regular events in the West Midlands.
In the Sunday Mercury, in association with IMPACT, I will feature some behind-the-scenes secrets, particularly the Eubank-benn fight.