Charlton's play-off hero celebrated at motorway services after making history
When the end-of-season tightrope walk was launched nearly 40 years ago, Charlton Athletic were the kings of brinkmanship - and Peter Shirtliff delivered the first of manager Lennie Lawrence's celebrated great escapes
Last action hero Peter Shirtliff was Charlton's saviour in the inaugural play-offs - and he celebrated with a plate of warmed-up motorway service station grub. Back in 1987, the Football League's end-of-season tightrope walk required the club finishing fourth from bottom in the top flight to sing for their supper against teams who came between third and fifth in the old Second Division.
And when Charlton's final against Leeds went to a replay - at neutral Birmingham City after reciprocal 1-0 wins over two legs - Shirtliff's two goals in the last seven minutes of extra time saved the Addicks.
Manager Lennie Lawrence was the king of brinkmanship who would have tunnelled his way out of the stalag or hurdled the barbed wire on a motorbike like Steve McQueen if he had landed a part in the Great Escape. He had already pulled a couple of rabbits from the hat by presiding over a 3-0 win at Newcastle and a 2-1 win against QPR on the last day of term to keep Charlton above the dotted line.
Then, after the final against Leeds was deadlocked, the wily old fox refused to toss a coin for the right to stage the replay because didn't want to risk a sequel in the bearpit ambience of Elland Road.
When the circus pitched its big top at St Andrews for the third instalment in six days, centre-back Shirtliff - who only scored 15 goals in more than 500 League appearances - was Charlton's unlikely champion. And he will be forever revered at the Valley as the man who scored the first-ever winner in the play-off for a place in the penthouse.
'It was a bit scary, too close for comfort, but we were on top for most of the game. We were the better side and Leeds scored against the run of play in extra time,' said Shirtliff, now 64. 'We had about 20 minutes to save ourselves and it was backs-to-the-wall stuff, but Lennie knew how to put a team together, that's for sure, and that one at Charlton had grit - bucketloads of grit.
'It was the first of his so-called great escapes and he just had this gift for producing big results when we needed them most. I scored once in a League Cup semi-final for Sheffield Wednesday against Chelsea, but in terms of the magnitude, I probably never scored more important goals than those two against Leeds.
'Our fans were heavily outnumbered in the replay, but the thing I remember most about that night is how much we were all starving after the game. It wasn't like today's football, where trolleys of food or piles of pizza boxes are delivered to the dressing room after the final whistle - we had to pull in at a motorway service station for fish and chips, or whatever they had kept warm, at about 1am.
'There were a few of our fans there, who were probably surprised to see their team desperate for a meal - anything we could lay our hands on - and we didn't get back to the training ground until the small hours. Did I think my goals would be the forerunner to today's Championship play-off final, where the sums of money at stake are absolutely astronomical?
'No chance - a midweek replay at Birmingham bears little relation to the shoot-out for hundreds of millions of pounds at Wembley these days, but I think the EFL have got it about right. I didn't think it was fair that a club could be relegated by a team from a lower division - as happened to Chelsea the year after we won the play-offs.
'Now it's a money-spinner for EFL clubs, especially the ones that go up, and fans love the drama. It's real box office stuff.'
Shirtliff still carries a torch for the Addicks, and does occasional commentary shifts when they visit clubs near his home in the north-west, and he is backing them to beat Leyton Orient in Sunday's League One play-off final.
He said: 'Charlton is a big club with a great history, and if they made it back to the Premier League, they would take huge swathes of south-east London with them. I do fancy them to beat Orient, even though I count myself as a friend of their manager Richie Wellens, who was in charge at Swindon when I was his assistant a few years ago.
'They have been on an upward curve for several months now, they have the momentum and Nathan Jones has done a terrific job since he came in. I know people piled into him on social media after he went through agony and ecstasy on the touchline at the end of the semi-final against Wycombe but, look, it's an emotional game.
'We all do things in the heat of the moment where we might look back and think, 'Oh God, what on earth was I doing there?' But there's so much at stake in the play-offs, with a whole season's work hanging on 90 minutes, that emotion takes over."
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