2nd^ & 3rd tier* Play Off Semi-Final 1st Leg
*Then known as Division Three.
^The team finishing third-bottom of the 2nd tier were given the chance to save themselves from relegation in those days, they joined the third, fourth and fifth placed teams in the 3rd tier to make up the play-off semi-final contestants. Sheffield United were that team but they lost to fifth placed Bristol City in the other Semi-final.

Notts County 1     Walsall 3
Yates 2                                                  Kelly 41, 56
                                                              Shakespeare 47
 

Attendance:- 11,522
Referee:- Keith Hackett (Sheffield)
 

Notts County
Colours:- Black & white striped shirts, Black shorts, Black socks
Final League Position:- 4th/24
Manager:- John Barnwell

1.   Mick Leonard
2.   Willie McStay
3.   Chris Withe
4.   Wayne Fairclough
5.   Dean Yates
6.   Garry Birtles
7.   Gary Mills
8.   Ian McParland *
9.   Gary Lund
10. Geoff Pike
11. Adrian Thorpe

Sub: Paul Barnes *
Sub not used: Paul Smalley
 

Walsall
Colours:- All Yellow
Final League Position:- 3rd/24
Manager:- Tommy Coakley

1.   Fred Barber
2.   Mark Taylor
3.   Richard O'Kelly
4.   Craig Shakespeare
5.   Graeme Forbes
6.   Mark Goodwin
7.   Phil Hawker
8.   Peter Hart
9.   Trevor Christie
10. David Kelly
11. Willie Naughton

Sub not used: ? Jones
Sub not used: Andy Dornan

Video of the match:- Goal reports were shown on local news programmes the following day.

No reports available
 

Up the Maggies footnote:
Quite simply, this was the worst day of my life at Meadow Lane. The afternoon kick-off was scheduled at the slightly later than normal time of 3:30pm because Forest had to play their final re-arranged league fixture with Luton earlier in the day. I remember the Forest fans driving past shouting "Walsall!" from their car windows as we walked up London Road. Notts had held on to an automatic promotion place as late as 3pm on the next-to-last Saturday of the season (and we had a goal difference of +34!), we were away to Walsall that day who were one place behind in 3rd by virtue of a far less impressive goal difference (Brighton were in 4th just one point behind the both of us). Notts were 1-0 up at half-time - a win would have practically killed off Walsall's challenge leaving us to battle it out with Brighton with just two games left to play, but Notts ended up losing the match at Walsall 2-1, devastating. Two days later, on May Day Bank holiday Monday, both Walsall and Brighton had their penultimate fixtures arranged for an afternoon KO whilst we had our final home game arranged for the evening. I remember that afternoon well, I was sat with the radio whilst watching Ceefax - praying with every last cell of my body for Walsall and Brighton to screw up. Incredibly, both did (Brighton only managed a 2-2 draw at Chester whilst Walsall crashed 3-0 at Bristol Rovers). Promotion was now back in our own hands and our opponents that night had nothing left to play for - mid-table Port Vale, but somehow we messed up again. Devastation Part two - Notts 1 Port Vale 2. County still had a remote chance of winning promotion on the final day if we won at Preston and both Walsall and Brighton lost at home. We did win match no.46 at Preston, but Walsall drew 0-0 with Gillingham and Brighton snatched 2nd spot at the death by beating Bristol Rovers 2-1. Notts finished 4th (an unthinkably low final position only weeks earlier) so this was to be the Magpies first time in the Play off's (which had only been introduced the season before). It was a bright sunny Sunday afternoon on 15th May 1988, there was a big crowd and we got off to the perfect start; Dean Yates scored in front of the Kop on 2 minutes. Then came total disaster just before half-time, a fluke goal which came off the back of David Kelly's boot and looped over Mick Leonard for the equaliser, ex-Notts hero Trevor Christie ran into the goalmouth, retrieved the ball from the back of the net and then, as he ran back to the centre circle, aggressively stuck up two fingers and waved them angrily at the County Road standers who had merely chanted "Baldy" at him earlier in the game, the Notts fans were incensed - it was a terrible moment. Walsall scored again shortly after half-time and soon added a third. It was devastation part 3. At the final whistle I felt like somebody in my family had just died, it was the absolute low of lows, worse than relegation, worse than losing to Forest! There was still a 2nd leg to come but I just knew that there was no way back from that. The return match at Fellow's park three days later was drawn and Notts were condemned to a 4th season in the 3rd tier. Gutted, absolutely gutted. Many people felt that this Notts team would have been better suited to a higher division and that it was the most entertaining football County had played for years. We had been particularly strong on the left flank with Withe and Thorpe causing all sorts of problems for opponents, but Manager John Barnwell identified problems at right back and in the centre of defence (Paul Hart had played at centre-back alongside Dean Yates earlier in the season but was clearly past it, then Garry Birtles was moved into defence but that proved to be another mistake). To this day I personally blame that stupid Associate Members Cup competition, we beat Brighton away 5-1 in the last eight but lost our then best player Adrian Thorpe to an injury in that game which kept him out for crucial matches to follow (and he was never the same player when he returned), that AM cup win also left Brighton to concentrate on the league whilst we suffered the distraction of a bruising two-leg encounter with Wolves during the final weeks of the season that shattered our confidence as we lost 4-1 on aggregate. I can still feel the acute pain of missing out on promotion that season right now as I type. England did nothing to lift the spirits in the summer months by losing all three group games in Euro '88 (won by Holland with Gullit and Van Basten), but surely Notts would finally win promotion in 1988/89......

Notts County Season 1987/88
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