Paul Tisdale is out to take Exeter up... a year after he was sacked by the fans
WEMBLEY’S a lonely place when you’ve lost and Paul Tisdale knows as much. When Exeter City lost in the League Two play-off final last May, Tisdale found himself stuck there. Press conferences had been done, family had consoled him and left, all the fans had long since gone and Blackpool were on their way home up the M1 to raucous celebrations. Four hours had passed since the final whistle blew on a lost opportunity.
Exeter couldn’t even go home. They had two players waiting for dope tests. Tisdale went to the team bus and spent half an hour there on his own and still they were waiting for the players to produce samples. So he spent another hour just sitting in the Wembley changing room with his thoughts.
He called home. His family were already back in Bath, kids were going to bed. He ended up walking the perimeter of the pitch in the empty stadium. Even the cleaners and ground staff had gone home.
‘ It was pretty miserable,’ he recalls. A 10-month game of snakes and ladders and you’ve just landed on 99 on the last day and gone back to the beginning… that’s what it feels like. Every other day of the year you have a comeback. You have a way of recovering. You can