A club record crowd of more than 6,000 is set to watch Bristol City ’s penultimate league clash against Charlton Athletic on Sunday at Ashton Gate, breaking the previous record of 5,752 set last season.
Such a teeming audience is more than appropriate for an occasion brimming with huge potential for Lauren Smith’s side. Victory over Charlton, who sit fourth in the table, would secure Bristol City’s return to the Women’s Super League and crown them champions of the Barclay’s Women’s Championship with a match to spare.
That version of events is far more palatable for Smith and co., who currently sit six points clear of London City Lionesses at the top of the table. But a final-day match-up with Birmingham City, who sit second in the league after winning their game in-hand over Durham, poses an arduous task, and any dropped points on Sunday could prove devastating to the Robin’s promotion push on the final day.
It’s been a potent Championship promotion race this season, and while more than once Smith’s side were touted as the favourites to emerge on the right side of the heady battle, the guile and know-how of London City Lionesses posed a constant threat to those ambitions, as did the tenacity of Birmingham City, whose recent dogged form has cast them as earnest contenders for promotion after London City and Bristol City’s dropped points.
For a neutral, the trio’s fight provides precisely the type of tantalising final affair that every engrossing league requires and as women’s football builds in popularity and notoriety, the Championship’s latest season arrives as a compelling advert for the women’s leagues below the glamour of the WSL.
Bristol City head into Sunday’s clash off the back of an emphatic 5-0 win over lower-table Sunderland. The win not only marked the Robins’ biggest league win of the season but profoundly eradicated from memory their shock 1-0 loss to Sheffield United, their second loss across three matches which saw the league leaders nab just one goal while conceding three.
For Smith, last weekend’s victory promises to arrive as an ideal antidote to the whispered suggestion of fallibility aimed at her side in the season’s tail-end. Promotion still rests firmly in Bristol City’s hands, but mental lapses across the back end of the season have deeply tested that faculty and Sunday will represent one of the biggest mental challenges of the team’s season.
Bristol City set the Championship’s record attendance last season with 5,752 at Ashton Gate when they fell to a 4-2 loss against champions Liverpool. Sheffield United smashed the record this season as 11,137 fans showed up to see them host London City at Bramall Lane.
And while another league record is not poised to be set on Sunday, the club’s own record is on course to be usurped.
Bristol City kick-off to Charlton Athletic at 3pm on Sunday at Ashton Gate.
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