Deep Dive

Joe Jacobson’s Success Story – Part 5 (2019/20)

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A SEASON BEYOND OUR WILDEST DREAMS:

Having defied the odds to survive last season, things weren’t looking good at Marlow Road. The playing budget had to be trimmed meaning a thinner squad and less room for signings. With Wycombe reportedly only having a handful of players turn up in pre-season, pundits were quick to notice this and almost all predictions had Wycombe ending the season in the bottom 4. Thanks to fan contributions, Alex Pattison was brought in following his release from Middlesbrough.

It was clear that Wycombe needed a helping hand and after a proposed takeover deal from American businessmen Jim Collis and Bill Luby fell through, along came the Couhig family who had just been unsuccessful in their attempted acquisition of Yeovil Town. Rob Couhig had been looking to buy an English football club for years and Wycombe fit the bill perfectly for what he wanted. Despite a majority takeover not occurring until February 2020, Couhig invested into Wycombe during the summer to allow the club to be geared up to match his ambitions of reaching the Championship.

This allowed Ainsworth to add some serious talent to the squad. Whilst star player Jason McCarthy departed for Millwall, it paved the way for Fred Onyedinma to return to the club for a third time but this time it was permanent. On the same day, David Wheeler joined from QPR in what was a huge coup for Wycombe. Jack Grimmer was also signed as a replacement for the departing McCarthy and once again Wycombe used the loan market to their advantage bringing in Nnamdi Ofoborh, Paul Smyth and most impressively, Rolando Aarons from Newcastle.

This complete overhaul saw a start to the season which nobody would’ve expected, after 20 league games Wycombe had only been defeated once and sat top of the table with a 7 point lead over 2nd place Ipswich. The Chairboys had taken the division by storm and the relegation favorites were now sat top of the table thinking “we couldn’t could we?”

The question on everyone’s lips who wasn’t involved with the club was “how did Wycombe get there?” Well, Ainsworth’s comments about Jacobson being one of the best full backs in the lower leagues were certainly being proved right. His first goal of the season came just 3 games in after a thrilling 3-2 victory over county rivals MK Dons, giving the Blues a 1-0 advantage after 12 minutes from the penalty spot.

Just 4 games later, Jacobson would do the unthinkable by scoring a superb hattrick in a 3-1 home win against Lincoln City. He started with a trademark free kick within the first 5 minutes to give Wycombe the lead. Then, in the 36th minute, Jacobson would deliver an inch perfect cross from an in swinging corner which hit Lincoln’s Michael Bostwick on the line and went in. Whilst originally the goal went down as an own goal, the Welshman was rightly awarded the credit as the ball was deemed to be heading into the net regardless of Bostwick’s deflection. After Lincoln controversially found their way back into the game through former Wanderer John Akinde steering home Jorge Grant’s cross whilst Bruno Andrade and Matt Bloomfield lay stricken on the floor in the Wycombe box following a clash of heads which saw the latter stretchered off. Wycombe would regain the 2 goal buffer which they feel they’d unfairly lost 25 minutes later when Jacobson swung in another corner which caught Josh Vickers totally off guard and flew over the keeper’s head into the back of the net.

Seeing a goal directly from a corner is an extremely rare occurrence in football, so to see 2 in a single game was absolutely unheard of and the footballing world’s jaw dropped once news had spread of the defender’s stunning trio of set-piece goals, establishing Jacobson’s reputation as one of the best set-piece takers in the entire country, let alone League 1. Jacobson became the first left back to score a hattrick in professional English football since Dean Gordon achieved the feat for Crystal Palace in 1995, scoring all 3 in a 3-2 away win against West Bromwich Albion.

Following the blockbuster performance from Jacobson, he and Wycombe would continue the run of form that would see them only defeated once in the opening 20 league games and sit 7 points clear at the top of the table heading into the busy Christmas period. Another personal feat would happen for the defender as for the first time in his career he scored in 3 consecutive games, including 2 goals at Prenton Park in 8 days as the Chairboys faced Tranmere Rovers away twice in 8 days, drawing 2-2 in the FA Cup and forcing a replay then going on to come away 2-0 winners in a league fixture the following Sunday. A last minute penalty from the Welshman to secure a narrow 1-0 victory over Doncaster Rovers meant that Jacobson took his scoring streak to 3 games.

The Christmas period would be a struggle for Wycombe though as the team that had only fallen to defeat once thus far lost 3 on the spin to end the year, including a 4-1 thumping at home from promotion rivals Coventry City. Regardless of the poor run of form, Wycombe would start 2020 in 1st place and after a tight 1-1 draw to Ipswich on new years day, the gap between the top and second was down to 3 points. A strong Christmas period would’ve seen Wycombe romp away from the rest of the pack as all teams in the title race were struggling for consistency but the Blues were unable to take advantage of this.

A trip to the mighty Sunderland resulted in an uncharacteristic 4-0 defeat, knocking the Chairboys off the top of the league since 2nd November, with Rotherham moving ahead of them on goal difference. Whilst Wycombe would get back to winning ways the following week at Adams Park thanks to another late Jacobson penalty, another 4-0 defeat to fellow promotion chasers Peterborough United unsettled the nerves again and it seemed like usual promotion candidates were beginning to put an end to Wycombe’s fairytale.

Wycombe would continue this trend of win, lose, win, lose into February which would see them fall out of the automatic promotion places. Back-to-back wins over Bolton and Tranmere which Jacobson netted in both meant the Chairboys were just 1 point off top spot Rotherham all be it, having played 1 more game than the Millers.

Under normal circumstances, there were still 13 games remaining for Wycombe and all was to play for. However, a 3-1 away defeat to Doncaster proved to be the final game of the normal season with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the United Kingdom and putting all footballing activities on hold as the country entered a nationwide lockdown.

Wycombe had dropped to 4th place after defeat at the hands of Doncaster, however, with teams below them playing extra game the Chairboys slipped to 8th and found themselves out of the play-off places when the season was halted. The EFL had to decide along with its 72 clubs on how to end the league seasons. A vote was held between the 23 League 1 clubs on whether to end the season with a points-per-game system implemented to decide the table or resuming playing behind closed doors. On 9th June 2020, it was announced that clubs had voted in majority to formally end the 2019-20 season with the points-per-game system deciding the final table. It was also confirmed that the 4 teams who finished from 3rd to 6th would contest the play-offs as normal, with the only exception being that games would be behind closed doors.

As Wycombe were outside the play-off places, this would mean nothing for the Buckinghamshire club right? Well, due to Wycombe having played a game less than the teams in front of them, their points-per-game tally was higher meaning that the Chairboys were lifted from 8th back into 3rd and would contest the play-offs along with Portsmouth, Oxford United and Fleetwood Town.

On July 3rd 2020, Wycombe travelled up north to take on Fleetwood in the first leg of the play-off semi final. Jacobson would be featuring in his second play-off campaign with the Chairboys and was hoping to go better than last time by winning the whole thing. It had been 125 days since the regular season ended in defeat at the hands of Doncaster but confidence was high amongst the squad and the belief that they could go on and win promotion in the most unusual of circumstances was heaped into the players by manager Gareth Ainsworth and his ‘generals’.

The ‘generals’ were what Ainsworth called his senior and most influential members of the squad, 4 natural born leaders who everyone could look up to. These were long standing captain Matt Bloomfield, Adebayo Akinfenwa, Darius Charles and of course, Joe Jacobson. Together these 4 formed the glue of the squad which allowed the younger, less experienced players to mature and form a close-knit group which, on paper may not have been the strongest squad but the unbreakable brotherhood and togetherness of the squad Ainsworth had crafted over the years meant Wycombe feared nothing.

The work Ainsworth had put in was clear right from the off as Bloomfield’s cross was absolutely rifled into the bottom corner after 2 minutes by Nnamdi Ofoborh, who had excelled since joining on loan from Bournemouth. Just 2 minutes later, Fleetwood were awarded a penalty which Welsh striker Ched Evans scored to get the Cod Army back on terms. The breathless start would continue, 2 minutes later once again, Jacobson curled another corner directly in which caught Alex Cairns off guard and the goalkeeper managed to flap it into his own net. The goal was again rightly awarded to Jacobson to ensure that for the first time in his career, he would finish the season with double figures in goals.

The Welshman then had a chance to make it 11 in the league for the season from the spot in the 34th minute after Lewie Coyle was sent off for a reckless challenge on Jacobson in the box. Cairns had other ideas and denied Jacobson the chance to make it 3-1. However, on the stroke of half time, Wycombe would sink the 10 men of Fleetwood even further as David Wheeler headed home and did make it 3-1 this time.

Cairns once again fumbled after half time when he spilled a long ball straight into the path of Alex Samuel who punished the Cod’s goalkeeper to make it 4-1 and give Fleetwood a real mountain to climb. Things would go from extremely dire to disastrous for Town when Paddy Madden was convinced he should’ve had a penalty after a challenge from Darius Charles in the box, he was subsequently booked for simulation. The Irish forward was clearly unhappy with referee’s decision and gave him a piece of his mind, which resulted in a second yellow card leaving Joey Barton’s side with just 9 men.

Despite this, Fleetwood managed to keep the score at 4-1 which wasn’t what they’d have hoped for going into the game but following Madden’s dismissal Wycombe could’ve inflicted more misery. With a 3 goal cushion heading into the second leg back in Buckinghamshire, it looked like Wycombe would have a simple job to just get over the line and take on either Oxford or Portsmouth under the arch. However, Ainsworth wouldn’t allow complacency in his dressing room with it only being half-time in the tie. At the time, a deficit of that magnitude had never been overturned in a play-off game so all the odds were stacked against Fleetwood but neither manager was willing to admit the tie was over.

3 days later, it was back to Adams Park as Wycombe set out to finish the job. Fleetwood had nothing to lose so took the game to the Chairboys straight away and were rewarded when Danny Andrew tucked a powerful drive past Ryan Allsop after a Wes Burns cross wasn’t dealt with by the hosts. Sensing a way back, the Cod Army pressed on and when Barrie McKay’s shot from distance hit the hand of Anthony Stewart, Fleetwood were adamant they should’ve been awarded a penalty. Darren Bond waved away the shouts and Wycombe survived another scare.

Fleetwood took the 1-0 lead into half time but mere minutes after play resumed, they were back to square one when a mistake from Harry Souttar who gifted the ball to Fred Onyedinma inside his own penalty area who fired past Cairns. Jacobson went from penalty winner in the previous leg to conceding a spot kick when he tripped Barry McKay in the box. Ched Evans restored Fleetwood’s lead from 12 yards with 30 minutes left to play.

Pressure was being heaped onto Wycombe now and a heroic stop from Allsop to deny Evans from a free header proved pivotal as that would’ve brought Fleetwood back within a single goal of taking the tie to extra time. But as the Cod Army committed more and more men forward to try and salvage the tie, Wycombe broke through Fred Onyedinma and his late strike from distance beat Cairns at put Wycombe’s place in the final beyond doubt with just seconds left to play. Darren Bond blew for full time and for the 2nd time in 5 years Wycombe Wanderers were heading to Wembley Stadium with the hope of winning promotion.

In the other semi-final, local rivals Oxford United had beaten Portsmouth on penalties which meant that what some fans refer to as the ‘M40 derby’ would be taking place under the arch with a place in the second tier at stake. Long serving players such as Bloomfield and Jacobson had played in the previous game at Wembley and experienced the agony when Wycombe were pegged back with seconds remaining and went on to lose on penalties, the duo using the hurt to rally the squad, desperate for history not to repeat itself.

In the short lead up to the game, Ainsworth rallied his troops as he had become so accustom to doing. A final boost came in the team hotel just hours before Wycombe would contest the biggest game in the club’s history, Ainsworth gathered the squad together and in a darkened room and played video messages from the players families, friends, celebrities, former teammates and fans who had recently lost a loved one. Going into the game, the legendary manager gave a highly emotional team talk where he told his players to close their eyes and imagine ‘Mr Wycombe’, Matt Bloomfield standing on the Wembley pitch holding the trophy. That was all the squad needed to fire them up, Wycombe were ready to make sure that one of the most extraordinary stories in English football had its fairytale ending.

Wycombe would be the ones to start strongly as inside 10 minutes they would win a corner. It was swung in from Jacobson’s preferred left foot which had caused so much devastation across the EFL for years on end. Centre back and Wycombe academy graduate Anthony Stewart rose the highest to meet Jacobson’s delivery at the far post, his header was a powerful one and had too much on it for U’s goalkeeper Simon Eastwood and deflected off the veteran shot-stopper into the net, Wycombe had the lead after just 9 minutes in the biggest game in the club’s history.

Oxford would try to get back into the game and more Anthony Stewart excellence meant that Matty Taylor was denied from close range. Wycombe survived until half time and went in 1-0 up at the break, the Chairboys were just 45 minutes from reaching the second tier for the first time in their 133 year history. Once again Blues were in a position they had found themselves in plenty of times before, holding a slender lead and just needing to see it out.

The Oxford pressure would continue into the second half and they would eventually find the equalizer from absolutely nowhere when Mark Sykes mishit a cross which deceived Allsop and flew over the Wycombe keeper into the net, it was a total fluke but it didn’t matter how it went in as crucially the yellows were level. Oxford ramped up the pressure and it looked for all the world that they would take the lead when James Henry found himself clean through on goal. However, in what was a bizarre decision, Henry opted to try and find Matty Taylor with a pass rather than blasting the ball past Allsop. Taylor who wasn’t expecting the pass was beaten to the ball by Anthony Stewart who got the faintest of touches to steers the ball out for a corner.

The resulting corner was a good one and defender Rob Dickie had a free header, fortunately Allsop was in the perfect position to stop both his first and second attempts from 2 consecutive corners. For all the chances they’d had, Oxford just couldn’t seem to find the back of the net and the feeling that it maybe wasn’t going to be their night was creeping in.

Wycombe’s resilience would be rewards after a long punt forward was chased down by Fred Onyedinma, a lapse of concentration at the back from Oxford saw Onyedinma set 1-on-1 with Eastwood who came rushing out and clattered the Nigerian to give Wycombe a penalty. Wycombe’s set-piece specialist Jacobson, who had missed his most recent penalty in the semi-final against Fleetwood, was trusted with what could be the biggest kick of the ball in Wycombe’s 133 year existence.

The nerves were unimaginable, the little club from South Buckinghamshire who’s mere existence had been under threat just 6 years prior now had the chance to put one foot in the Championship for the first time every. In Jacobson’s 6 years at the club he’d endured heartbreak and ecstasy, after being on the losing side at the national stadium 5 years ago, he could be the man to make sure that he wouldn’t end up in that position again. The Welshman took a deep breath, stepped up and smashed the penalty straight down the middle, beating Eastwood and giving Wycombe a 2-1 lead with just 15 minutes remaining.

All of a sudden the mood changed and the Wycombe players knew they had produce the biggest 15 minutes of their careers to see this through and claim that spot in the Championship. Allsop’s net came under siege again from Taylor and Dickie but the stopper was on hand to gather their attempts. The clock was ticking down and United were running out of time, it was now or never. As the clock hit 90, Wycombe found out they’d have to see out another 6 minutes of stoppage time. Stewart won a free-kick 4 minutes into the 6 to relieve the pressure and allowed Wycombe to get forward. David Wheeler had his shot saved but as the ball was sent long the whistle sounded, Wycombe Wanderers had made the Championship for the first time in their history.

The celebrations were wild and emotional as the team who were written off as relegation fodder had defied expectations once again. It was redemption for Jacobson, who this time wasn’t denied of being the play-off hero for his side like he was 5 years ago with goal and assist in the final which ultimately won his side the game. It was a dream day for anyone connected to the club and it would take a while for what had just occurred to fully sink in.

Jacobson ended the season as top scorer for the Blues with 12 goals in all competitions, 11 of which came in the league making it his best season to date.

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