I'd agree sky want ad revenue. Teams involved in a post season playoff means more tv coverage plus lets face it in the old system if you were not involved in relegation or able to win the title it meant very little interest in watching a game and less reason for non supporters to watch the games. At least now teams in mid table have meaningful games.

Thanks for that Bilko, those Wire matches you mention were probably my first memories of the Wire. The John Player/Regal trophy was at least one trophy the Wire regularly got to a final until it finished in the 90s.

Another question if you don't mind the Wire were top of the league in 73, what honour/title did that give them? Was it similar to the current league leaders trophy, then the play off would decide the champions?

cheers again

You can't beat a tight play off game and the Grand Final for the publicity of an event the game gets BUT as a fan if given the choice to scrap it and bring back the Regal Trophy and/or Premiership Trophy I'd go for the latter. At least then you'd have four trophies to aim for rather than the current two. But it won't happen because for some reason we won't contemplate midweek games any more.

Yeah once the Lancashire/Yorkshire League Trophies had been scrapped in 1969 a "League Leaders Trophy" was offered till the play offs were scrapped after 1973. So you "won" that although I assume like today it meant little.

This site may be of interest to you - rlwww.wire2wolves.com/index.phprl

Thanks again Bilko