Deep Dive

Joe Jacobson’s Success Story – Part 3 (2017/18)

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PROMOTION AT LAST:

Wycombe had ended the previous season extremely strongly and looked to carry that momentum into 2017/18. After a few years flirting with promotion and the play-offs, the Buckinghamshire outfit wanted to finally return to England’s third tier after for the first time since 2012 and win Ainsworth’s first promotion as a manager.

The summer window was relatively quiet as it seemed that the spine of Ainsworth’s ideal squad was already at the club. A few long serving players such as Sam Wood, Paul Hayes and Aaron Pierre were shipped off and Ainsworth opted to secure a mix of experienced heads and young hungry talents to gear the squad up for a promotion push. Veteran attackers Nathan Tyson and Craig Mackail-Smith were brought in as experienced forward options who knew where the back of the net was. Adam El-Abd also arrived from Shrewsbury Town and took the captains armband, another wise head who had mustered over 300 appearances for Brighton which had resulted in 2 promotions to the Championship.

A busy end to the window saw Josh Umerah, Dan Scarr and an emerging talent from QPR called Eberechi Eze join on loan until January, with Scarr remaining for the full season. Ainsworth hoping the mix of talented young players would learn off the wise heads in the dressing room and create the perfect balance to push for promotion.

Jacobson started the season by grabbing a quickfire goal and assist in a 2-2 draw at home to newly promoted Lincoln City, a team he would haunt over the next few years. He followed this up by scoring in 2 consecutive games for the first time in his Wanderers career, matching his goal tally from the season before in the first 4 games of the new campaign. Wycombe once again started the season strongly as they had become accustom to, only being beaten twice in the opening 14 fixtures and leaving them in 4th place.

Things seemed different over the course of the season and Wycombe didn’t suffer the barren run which they had done in previous seasons, a couple of defeats were sprinkled in towards the end of 2017 but a win against Forest Green Rovers on new years day saw them start 2018 just a single point off the automatic promotion places.

Jacobson’s electric goal scoring start to the season didn’t continue but he did manage to add another 2 goals over the final months of 2017 which took his total for the season to 5 guaranteeing him his best goal return in a Wycombe shirt so far. He had also found himself a new role as the designated penalty taker following the departure of Paul Hayes in the summer and had a 100% success rate after scoring all 3 he’d taken so far, a record which would see him go on to be one of the most reliable penalty takers in the EFL.

A crucial run of games in January and February saw Wycombe get the better of promotion rivals Luton at Kenilworth Road and snatch all 3 points in thrilling encounter against Carlisle United where with the game poised at 3-3 a last minute Jacobson free kick was cleared out by a Carlisle defender to the feet of midfielder Marcus Bean, who smashed the ball into the bottom corner and win it at the death for his side, his first ever goal for the Chairboys and it was a strike that would go down in Wycombe history for the implications it would have on the outcome of the entire season. As Eze and Umerah who had impressed on their loan spell returned to their parent clubs, Wycombe had to hope that the absence of its 2 young stars wouldn’t have any impact on results.

2 defeats and a draw followed this run and it threw Wycombe’s automatic promotion hopes into jeopardy once again, with fans starting to remember the 2014-15 season where the Blues had been strong all season but lost at crucial times which cost them 3rd place and praying that history didn’t repeat itself. Wycombe would pick up 2 massive wins in the next 2 games which saw Jacobson net his 6th and final goal of the campaign in a 2-0 away win at Barnet. A 4th from the spot for the 31-year-old who had recently lost his 100% spot kick record after a miss against Carlisle.

After avoiding defeat in their 8 previous matches, Wycombe sat in 3rd place with a 2 point lead over 4th placed Exeter with 3 games remaining in the season. Already promoted Accrington Stanley visited Adams Park and showed their class, turning Wycombe over 4-0, the heaviest home league defeat in Jacobson’s tenure thus far. Fortunately, Crawley managed to hold Exeter to a draw in Devon which kept Wycombe a point ahead of Exeter with 2 games to play, meaning the Chairboys could clinch promotion the following week if they won at already relegated Chesterfield and Exeter lost at Stevenage who had nothing to play for.

Nerves were understandably evident among Wycombe fans who had dealt with so many nearly but not quite moments in recent years with the Wembley heartache, the Tottenham defeat and just missing out on another trip to Wembley in the EFL Trophy the previous year. Chesterfield were having a tumultuous time in League 2 and having only accumulated 35 points in 43 games which left them glued to the bottom of the table and saw their relegation from the EFL confirmed in the weeks prior to facing Wycombe. Around 900 away fans made the journey up north with the hopes of seeing their team win promotion but their eyes would also be on Stevenage in the hopes that the team who had nothing to play for could defeat Exeter City.

The first news of the afternoon came early on and it was what the travelling Wycombe fans wanted to hear, former Chairboys striker Alex Revell had given Stevenage the lead after just 14 minutes. With Chesterfield and Wycombe still at 0-0 it still wouldn’t be enough but a goal for Wycombe would change that. It got even better when Revell found the net 15 minutes later and Exeter had a 2 goal deficit to overturn if they wanted to stand any chance of catching Wanderers. However, disaster struck when Chesterfield took the lead 5 minutes before half time after an unfortunate own-goal from Michael Harriman gave the bottom side a surprise lead and meant that the gap would still only be a single point heading into the final day if results remained the same. Undeterred by this set back, Wycombe pushed to get themselves back on level terms before half time and would be rewarded when Nathan Tyson bundled home the equalizer in first half stoppage time.

Half time arrived and with Exeter still 2-0 down at Stevenage, all Wycombe needed was to find another goal and promotion would be theirs. More encouraging signs came shortly after half time as Revell completed his hattrick to give Exeter a huge task to try and salvage something from 3-0 down, all they could do is hope that Chesterfield held firm and kept Wycombe at bay.

The pressure from the Chairboys was immense as the players knew that promotion was there for the taking, all they needed was a goal. In the 76th minute Wycombe won a corner which Jacobson headed over to take as expected. The ball was swung in and whilst it initially wasn’t met by a Wycombe head that could steer it goalward, it pinballed around in the box before falling to Dominic Gape on the edge of the box who leathered a fierce volley past Aaron Ramsdale and gave Wycombe what they needed to secure promotion, all they had to do was keep Chesterfield at bay for the next 15 minutes.

A Pierce Sweeney penalty for Exeter to make it 3-1 gave the Grecians a glimmer of hope late on, but their best hopes were for Chesterfield to find an equalizer late on and deny Wycombe all 3 points and put the promotion party on hold. Blues dug in and through resolute defending and excellent goalkeeping from Scott Brown were managing to keep Chesterfield at bay.

The whistle went at The Lamex Stadium and Stevenage had done their job and defeated Exeter 3-1. Now Wycombe had to see the remaining seconds of the game out and they would be playing third tier football in 2018/19. This time, there was no twist in the tale, the whistle went. Wycombe had done it, after a 5 year absence and near relegation out of the EFL, Gareth Ainsworth had defied the odds and with a shoestring budget taken the Buckinghamshire outfit back to League 1. The outpouring of emotion from everyone connected to the club was huge, just a few years prior the existence of the entire club was hanging in the balance, now the Chairboys were heading back to the third tier. Celebrations went on long into the night and carried over to the following week ahead of the final game which was, ironically, against Stevenage. Alex Revell received a heroes welcome at Adams Park after his hattrick against Exeter helped Wycombe secure promotion. The Blues ended the season with a 1-0 win with an emotional goal from captain Matt Bloomfield in front of a packed out stadium.

Wycombe Wanderers ended the season in 3rd place with 84 points and scoring the 2nd most goals in the league with 79 behind only Luton. As for Jacobson, it was his best season to date. He featured in all 46 league games and made an extra 4 in the league cup and FA cup respectively, taking his total for the season to 50. His goal tally doubled from the previous season as he fired in with 6 goals, all of which came in the league and 5 assists which saw him hit double figures in goal contributions for the second season running.

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20 year old Devon based Wycombe Wanderers Supporter, also a writer for TheRealEFL.