Callum O'Hare hopes it's third time lucky as Sheffield United head into £200m Wembley showdown

Callum O'Hare has landed on the wrong side of desperately fine margins at Wembley two years running and he’s hoping to make it third time lucky.

Confined to the bench by injury, O’Hare was a helpless spectator as in the Championship play-off final in 2023 - and his best mate Fankaty Dabo missed the decisive spot-kick.

Last season he scored against in the semi-final before the by a VAR decision so close that nobody has ever proved conclusively it was the right call. And if O’Hare feels he’s due a kinder hand from the poker gods, this might be his fifth street.

Sheffield United’s £200million promotion shoot-out with hands the club with the worst modern play-offs record in the country (nine attempts, nine topples off the high wire) a chance to rewrite history.

In fact, the Blades did beat Accrington Stanley 1-0 in April 1893 at Trent Bridge in a Test match - as play-offs were known 132 years ago - to reach the First Division, so their pursuit of promotion in games of who-blinks-first is not without successful precedent.

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But they are overdue an even break - and O’Hare is due some respite from all the hard-luck stories.

“These games are why you play football, they are the best days, and if it goes our way it's something we'll remember for the rest of our lives,” said O’Hare, who scored off the bench in both legs of the semi-final demolition of Bristol City. "People say it's 100 years since Sheffield United won at Wembley - none of us has been part of that, but I know it’s a horrible place to lose.

“The semi-final last year was so tough - everyone thought we'd won, but we weren't used to VAR, so to lose after VAR intervened was heartbreaking.”

Coventry, 3-0 down against United, had clawed their way back to 3-3 with O’Hare’s deflected effort part of the rally, when Victor Torp appeared to have sealed a sensational comeback win in the dying seconds until the fun police intervened.

Although none of the lines on VAR Peter Bankes’ geometry set appeared to prove anyone was offside, United survived - and shattered O’Hare then saw his penalty saved by Andre Onana in the shoot-out.

"We scored and I was so tired I could barely celebrate,” he said. “Then we went back to the centre circle and it was normal for them to check it, but we weren't used to it and it was gutting.

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"At the time I thought they'd got it right - I was the one that played the ball for the offside goal. But it's even more heartbreaking now when you see the picture back. I thought they paused it at the wrong time. No one could ever see that with the naked eye, but you've just to go with it.”

With the stakes so high, VAR will be used for the final and both teams will be nervous about the prefects at Stockley Park poking their noses in.

O’Hare said: ”It's got its plusses and its negatives. Sometimes it might take too long but I feel like it's the right thing in this game because if they (referees) get it wrong, they can fix it.”

He hasn’t managed to get Coventry’s shoot-out agony in 2023 out of his system, either.

"That was the worst one for me, just watching the game. When you're on the pitch you're not nervous but when you're watching you're hoping and praying. It's been tough the last two years. If we were on the right side of those results it could have been incredible. But the disappointment only makes you stronger.

"We've had a few penalty practices in training but it's so hard to replicate the real thing. I ran 17km in that semi-final and you're trying to kick the ball with no energy in your legs. Let's hope it doesn't go to penalties this time.”

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