Key events
GOAL! Charlton Athletic 1-1 Derby County (Jones 61). A cross comes in from the left. Lloyd Jones leaps highest and slams a downward header into the net. The hosts level!
GOAL! Middlesbrough 1-1 Lincoln City (Lankshear 62). Leo Castledine shoots from a tight angle on the left. Will Lankshear, the £10m signing from Spurs, turns it home from a couple of yards.
Bristol City 0-2 Millwall. It should be three, and game, set and match. Josh Coburn, with two goals to his name, turns provider, powering down the right and crossing low. Taïryk Arconte can’t miss from a couple of yards, surely … but he does, slamming his shot against the base of the left-hand post. That is a preposterous blunder.
Middlesbrough 0-1 Lincoln City. Will Lankshear tears clear down the inside-right channel, but his diagonal riser, intended for the top left, is met by George Wickens at full stretch. Boro were knocking on the door just before the break, and they’ve picked up where they left off.
GOAL! Bristol City 0-2 Millwall (Coburn 50). A cross looped in from the right. Josh Coburn rises highest in the middle, six yards out, and steers a header into the bottom right. City keeper Sam Tickle rooted to the spot.
As we wait for the second halves to get underway, why not take our Football League quiz? Clockwatch will still be here when you get back.
Here’s the first edition of our Football League roundup. Includes news of Bolton’s first win over Preston for 25 years, and Luton’s Homeric comeback at Reading.
Championship half-times
Bristol City 0-1 Millwall
Charlton Athletic 0-1 Derby County
Middlesbrough 0-1 Lincoln City
Norwich City 0-0 West Bromwich Albion
Portsmouth 1-3 Queens Park Rangers
Stoke City 1-1 Swansea City
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-3 QPR (Chair 45+2). Amadou Mbengue sends a low cross in from the right. Ilias Chair meets it, dinking elegantly over the keeper and in.
Middlesbrough 0-1 Lincoln City. Kyle Joseph flicks a first-time effort towards the top left from ten yards and draws a fine response from George Wickens. Boro finally testing the Lincoln keeper, who instinctively stuck out a strong arm.
GOAL! Bristol City 0-1 Millwall (Coburn 41). Josh Coburn meets a cutback from the right, flicking home from close range. The ten men of Bristol City now properly up against it.
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-2 QPR (Saito 40). Koki Saito advances down the inside-left channel and his deflected shot from the edge of the box completes the turnaround for Rangers.
RED CARD: Adam Randell (Bristol City). Two yellow cards in 36 minutes, the second for a cynical tug on Millwall striker Josh Coburn, who was in the process of spinning into space on the counter.
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-1 QPR (Chair 33). A ball floated into the box from the inside-right channel. Pompey keeper Nicolas Schmid should claim, but hesitates, allowing Ilias Chair to nip in and glance home.
Bristol City 0-0 Millwall. Femi Azeez, who scored 11 times last season for the Lions and was named the Championship player of the month in February, goes down clutching his hamstring. He’s replaced by Kyrell Lisbie, son of erstwhile Millwall star Kevin.
GOAL! Stoke City 1-1 Swansea City (Opoku 23). Joseph Opoku marks his Swansea debut with a goal, meeting a deep cross from the left with a volley that’s deflected into the bottom right.
GOAL! Charlton Athletic 0-1 Derby County (Szmodics 23). Sammy Szmodics has a dig from the edge of the box. The keeper dives over the ball and that’s that.
Bristol City 0-0 Millwall. Millwall striker Josh Coburn, through on goal, should round City keeper Sam Tickle and score, but elects to flop over Tickle’s outstretched arm instead. Daft idea. He’s booked for simulation.
GOAL! Portsmouth 1-0 QPR (Devlin 15). Terry Devlin sizes things up from the best part of 30 yards. He’s not closed down. He takes a touch before welting a rising shot towards the right-hand portion of the net and in. Should QPR keeper Pierce Charles have done better? Having made a mistake that led to a goal in the League Cup against Millwall last weekend, it’s been a rocky start to his time with the Rs.
GOAL! Middlesbrough 0-1 Lincoln City (Reach 12). Adam Reach strides in from the left, meeting his captain Tendayi Darikwa’s cutback from the right, and pearls a shot into the bottom right! That was worth the 65-year wait!
GOAL! Stoke City 1-0 Swansea City (Bocat 10). Eric Bocat swivels around on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box, before launching an unstoppable shot into the net.
Norwich City 0-0 West Bromwich Albion. Kenny McLean one-twos his way down the right with Anis Ben Slimane and bursts into the box, but can’t steer a shot into the bottom left. Lovely move by the Scotland international, though, the sort of thing that’ll catch the eye of Sébastien Pocognoli.
GOAL! Cambridge United 1-0 Wigan Athletic (Watts 3). Let’s mark the first goal of the 3pm season. Kell Watts pings a volley into the bottom left, and that’ll please one of our star columnists.
Middlesbrough 0-0 Lincoln City. Nearly a nightmare start for Lincoln, playing in the second tier for the first time since 1961. Luke Ayling whistles a long-range effort inches wide of the bottom-left corner.
Here we go, then!
In a few minutes, Lincoln City will play second-tier football for the first time in 65 years. To put that in some sort of context, the season they last played in the old Second Division, Alf Ramsey led Ipswich Town to promotion, Bill Shankly had just completed his first full campaign at Liverpool, and Brian Clough was leading the line at Middlesbrough. And now …
Scotland have qualified for three of the last four major tournaments, only to forget to turn up for any of them. Time to take a different tack … and the SFA appear to be doing that all right. Anyone see this coming?
Early results
Championship
Bolton Wanderers 2-1 Preston North End
League One
Notts County 1-1 Leicester City
Oxford United 2-2 MK Dons
Reading 3-4 Luton Town
League Two
Newport County 3-0 Rochdale
Oldham Athletic 2-0 Port Vale
FULL TIME: Reading 3-4 Luton Town. Luton celebrate a remarkable comeback from two goals down at the break! Too early to stake a claim for match of the season?
FULL TIME: Notts County 1-1 Leicester City. No flying start for Russell Martin and his League One Foxes.
GOAL! Reading 3-4 Luton Town (Kodua 90+6). Gideon Kodua completes the comeback for Luton! He comes in from the left and crashes a shot off the crossbar. The ball rebounds and bagatelles awhile, before Kodua has a second go, and slots from six yards! Luton were 3-1 down at the break!
FULL TIME: Bolton Wanderers 2-1 Preston North End. Bolton hold on for their first win over Preston since the glory days of Sam Allardyce.
GOAL! Notts County 1-1 Leicester City (Grant 81). Leicester may not have bottomed out quite yet. Conor Grant levels for the hosts at Meadow Lane.
GOAL! Bolton Wanderers 2-1 Preston North End (Erabi 86). Jusef Erabi heads home with time running out, and Preston’s long unbeaten run against Bolton, stretching back to 2001, isn’t snapped just yet.
The 3pm teamsheets
Bristol City: Tickle, Tanner, Dickie, Eissat, Atkinson, Knight, Randell, Hirakawa, Ballard, Greenwood, Tolaj.
Subs: Collins, Cardines, Williams, Yah, Wallace, Eile, Twine, Bell, Jakobsen.
Millwall: Jensen, Leonard, Taylor, Cooper, Sturge, De Norre, Metcalfe, Azeez, Neghli, Arconte, Coburn.
Subs: Crocombe, Baggott, Dykes, Kelly, Sykes, Lisbie, Batth, Cundle, Bangura-Williams.
Charlton Athletic: Mannion, McNamara, Jones, Koumetio, Bell, Coventry, Chalobah, Campbell, Carey, Ahearne-Grant, Godden.
Subs: Brooks, Knibbs, Leaburn, Mesik, Alli, Rankin-Costello, Sichenje, Apter, Nwamba.
Derby County: Zetterstrom, Langas, Sanderson, Taylor, Ward, Clark, Travis, Fraulo, Forsyth, Szmodics, Morris.
Subs: Vickers, Brewster, Bilbija, Salvesen, Mowatt, Johnston, Nyambe, Blackett-Taylor, Eames.
Middlesbrough: Vitek, Brittain, Ayling, Malanda, Borges, Kante, Berhalter, Whittaker, Castledine, Lankshear, Joseph.
Subs: Brynn, Jones, McGree, Peart-Harris, Sarmiento, Arfsten, Edmundson, Ibeh, Cartwright.
Lincoln City: Wickens, Darikwa, Hamer, Towler, Elerewe, Reach, Jefferies, McGrandles, Varfolomeyev, Draper, House.
Subs: Gauci, Coubis, Hackett, Bayliss, Melia, Street, Olaofe, Honohan, Elder.
Norwich City: Kovacevic, Fisher, Darling, Cordoba, Chrisene, Mattsson, McLean, Brooks, Ben Slimane, Maghoma, Toure.
Subs: Grimshaw, Stacey, McConville, Wright, Diallo, Field, Bruno Alves, Schwartau, Kvistgaarden.
West Bromwich Albion: O’Leary, Galves, Phillips, Campbell, Styles, Whitwell, Diakite, Myhre, Price, Heggebo, Morgan.
Subs: Ingram, Williams, Mepham, Bielik, Townsend, Johnston, Molumby, Stewart, Nzingoula.
Portsmouth: Schmid, Devlin, Poole, Shaughnessy, Swanson, Segecic, Adams, Shein, Brooke-Smith, Bishop, Kamara.
Subs: Bielica, Arthur, Dia, Swift, Le Roux, Bailey, Murphy, Milovanovic, Kavuma-McQueen.
Queens Park Rangers: Charles, Mbengue, Dunne, Clarke-Salter, Kemper, Vale, Edwards, Poku, Chair, Burrell, Saito.
Subs: Ward, Adamson, Morrison, Smyth, Lloyd, Kamara, Kone, Varane, Alemayehu.
Stoke City: Johansson, Wilmot, Lawal, Graham, Bocat, Galbraith, Ingelsson, Manhoef, Rigo, Thomas, Gallagher.
Subs: Griffiths, Pearson, Bozenik, Bae, Gibson, Soumare, Talovierov, Anderson, Martin.
Swansea City: Vigouroux, Lissah, Cabango, Welsh, Tymon, Fulton, Stamenic, Opoku, Just, Yeo, Vipotnik.
Subs: Fisher, Key, Widell, Eom, Parente, Walta, Idah, Ronald, Heywood.
The 2015-16 Premier League champions Leicester City are now slumming it in League One, having suffered successive relegations. Now they’ve got Russell Martin as manager, and things have to bottom out at some point, so having been seriously examined by Notts County during the first half at Meadow Lane, the Foxes have taken the lead thanks to Jayden Joseph. Ten years, though.
Down in League One, there’s a real humdinger going on at the Madejski Stadium. Reading were 3-1 up against Luton Town at the break, thanks to a Jack Marriott hat-trick – Jake Richards had given the Hatters an early lead, as well – but since the break, the visitors have hit back hard. Two goals in as many minutes from Kasey Palmer, and it’s 3-3 with more than half-an-hour still to play. I was going to while away the time until the 3pms with the Preston-Bolton game, but plans change. The big M4-M1 showdown it is.
During that aforementioned – well, alluded-to – first season of the Football League, Preston had the measure of their county rivals Bolton. They won 3-1 at home, and 5-2 away. But it’s not going so well for them today. First-half goals from Sam Dalby (14) and Thierry Gale (25) have seen the Trotters bolt out of the gate, and as it stands, Steven Schumacher’s newly-promoted side are top of the Championship. Too early to go with the table? Ah, let’s start as we mean to go on.
Preamble
The 2026-27 Championship race started dramatically last night …
… but it really gets going now. Bolton Wanderers and Preston North End are already partying like it’s 1888-89, having kicked off an hour ago, and we’ll have more of that Victorian-adjacent malarkey in a minute. But! Wait!! Here’s the 3pm card!!!
Bristol City v Millwall
Charlton Athletic v Derby County
Middlesbrough v Lincoln City
Norwich City v West Bromwich Albion
Portsmouth v Queens Park Rangers
Stoke City v Swansea City
Other important news from elsewhere will be mentioned*, as a new season opens out before us, to a world of possibilities. It’s on!
* not necessarily