Southend United fans have been quick to buy their tickets for the League One Play-off Semi-Final second leg away at Doncaster. The Shrimpers have already reported ticket sales of 1,069 via the Official club website.
Those were sold to season tickets only, on Tuesday they go on sale to Season Card holders, Team Blues members and Shareholders. They go on general sale on Wenesday
The full away allocation at the Keepmoat Stadium is 3,213 so there are still plenty available and the free coach travel direct to the ground is still on offer.
Lee Barnard to miss Second Leg?
We all await news on the fitness of Lee Barnard, a man still to play in a losing Blues side. Certainly it explained his unusually quiet peformance after a knock in the first half of the first leg. News on the message boards is mixed so lets hope we're singing for the Lord on Friday. We need you mate.
Carlisle take advantage back to the border country
However, young Freeman's 96th minute goal gives everybody's favourite Yorkshire team a lifeline which Phil Hay of the Yorkshire Evening Post believes 'evens' things up a touch! We'll see about that, shame though. Well done Carlisle.
Leeds United 1 Carlisle United 2
An accepted feature of mountains the world over is the certainty that the higher a climber hikes, the harder the summit is to see.
Rarely have Leeds United flinched during their trek from base camp some 15 points away from the foot of League One, but the club's view of the division's plateau was dangerously obscured until Dougie Freedman cleared the blizzard with a ray of sunshine last night.
Trailing by two goals in a scenario where fine margins carry a high price, it was the most elderly member of Gary McAllister's climbing party who held the safety rope fast as United's feet slipped beneath them. Freedman's scuffed shot was United's pick-axe in the ice at the very moment when the ravine seemed to have opened beneath them. Fully 95 minutes had been and gone when the striker did what poachers do and swept up the rebound from a direct and desperate approach to Carlisle's goal.
McAllister argued that a deficit of two goals would not have proved automatically fatal for his players or their season, but it is better for him that he is not asked to find out. The play-offs are notoriously unpredictable and impervious to confidence, and the first leg of the semi-final between Leeds and Carlisle last night was a perfect illustration of a competition which is never a closed shop.
Leeds arrived at kick-off as the form horse, as McAllister likes to put it, while Carlisle's impression of an also-ran was no less convincing, but the concept of form was summarily dismissed by a game which the visitors deservedly won, almost convincingly. Without the instinctive shot which Freedman slipped past Keiren Westwood - the only moment when Leeds were able to better Carlisle's trustworthy goalkeeper - United would present themselves for the return leg at Brunton Park on Thursday night with a noose round their neck and unstable chair beneath their feet.
At an inhospitable ground where 17 clubs have fallen foul this season - Leeds included - the task of negating a 2-0 lead may have been less achievable in reality than it was in McAllister's theory. With only one goal between the teams the tie is as delicately balanced as ever it was.