Welcome to Up Front. I'm Chloe Morgan.

And I'm Rachel Sullivan.

We are at the Valley. You can hear the noise in the background, the home of Charleston Athletic, as we are witnessing history.

The first ever WSL relegation, promotion, playoff. Lester City, he finished bottom of the WSL, have come here to face Charlton, who finished third in the WSL 2.

Charlton obviously have a little bit of a home advantage in the home ground.

Fans everywhere.

I was lucky enough to capture the bus coming in.

The fans were tapping on the side.

They were shouting chance.

It was pretty crazy.

The winner today obviously is going to claim a spot in next season's expanded 14 team women's super league um what do we first think rachel obviously when this kind of new format was announced

it's almost a year ago uh since we got the news that this is going to be coming and it obviously came

as part of the w s football the raft of changes that they made at the top tiers um yeah what

did you think and now to see it all in action well, hopefully our listeners can hear us over the noise because as you touched on, there is a fabulous fan zone. The sun is splitting the stones, Chloe. I'm slightly concerned for my pale Irish skin while I'm shooting pitch side. But no, I mean, a day like this kind of culminating at the end of the season is probably exactly what WSEL football wanted when they brought in this playoff.

I think initially, you know, we had this whole chat about whether they were going to be a closed league.

They were going to stop relegation briefly and everyone lost their minds, rightly so.

I think, you know, we want that jeopardy.

We want that, you know, competition at the bottom of the league so when

this idea came in at the playoff it's a really good way of expanding initially the WSL2 into

WSL and a really good way of getting the two teams up and then having that playoff between third and

bottom so obviously next season we're going to have 13th against second in WSL2 so we're retaining that playoff between third and bottom. So obviously next season we're going to have 13th against second in WSL2. So we're retaining that playoff. And, you know, we've kept relegation. So I really like the playoff idea. I think it gives another WSL2 team a chance to get up. And it brings in a little bit more jeopardy, which is always exciting. I think it's the drama that it creates. Like we're literally sitting in the fans there. You've got DJ Luckin'E MC NEET. There's a absolutely whole host of blue and red supporters everywhere. The music's blasting. There's a bakery. There's a bar. There's Mercedes everywhere. Because obviously they're big sponsors of this particular game. You've got the grill house. You've got all this kind of fun engagement. The sun is out. The vibes are flowing. And I think this is what what this is the kind of atmosphere that I'd like to see it the majority of game so I love the fact that we've kind of created this end of the season moment when you kind of think it's wrapped up and then they think it's all over they think it's all over but the players have still got three more weeks to train we've obviously all felt that the season the WSL2-2 has been fuelled by the unique amount of promotion spots.

How important do we think it was to open up this kind of second route?

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