James Perch isn’t allowed to forget the night he was on a losing side against QPR.
At every Loftus Road team talk, the players fetch off to a room where pictures of Hoops beating Wigan at the Championship play-off semi-final in May 2014 adorn the walls.
There is early scorer Perch in the thick of things in Latics black, and there is the reminder of the 2-1 scoreline that eventually took Hoops to the Promised Land, aka Premier League.
For all that, the right-back would take your arm off for the chance to get third time lucky this season.
Wigan and Perch was a second taste of near yet so far after he got to the semi-final with Nottingham Forest in 2010.
Even so, the play-offs are a two-edged sword, as he readily admits.
“It’s a tough one,” he said.”You stay in the season longer than other teams and then you get beaten - it’s such tough one to take, and I imagine losing in the final is even worse.
“We came so close with Wigan and we should have gone on to win. In the players box at Loftus Road where we go pre-match there are pictures of that play-off match and me in the Wigan kit, and I can’t get away from it.”
QPR were given a timely reminder of just how tough it can be to even get in the top six after a 3-1 thumping by Fulham on Saturday.
Perch agrees time is running out.
“People say we’ve got no chance, but there’s alway a team with one late charge and hopefully that might be us.”
