SAM Allardyce has a powerful motivation for leading his team and the town to success in the promotion play-offs.

The Reebok boss has looked into the future and he does not like what he sees.

For while a return to the promised land will see Wanderers feeding at the richly-laden banquet table of the Premiership, he fears another season in Division One could send the club spinning into a downward spiral.

And he could not have found a better occasion to illustrate his point than last week's trip to Molineux, where the once-mighty Wolves were coming to the end of yet another season in oblivion.

Fifteen years of trying and failing to reach the top flight, nine managers paying the ultimate penalty for the club's constant striving to recapture their former glories, only to be consumed by the twin ogres of high expectation and under-achievement.

A Black Country man himself, Allardyce is worried that Wanderers could be heading the same way if they don't get their just desserts for the efforts and achievements of a quite remarkable season.

Being honest as well as realistic, the manager will readily admit he did not for one minute envisage Wanderers being in this position when he scratched around for bodies to make up the numbers last August. On the very eve of the season when Bo Hansen was his only fit and available striker, he just managed to persuade Bradford to let him borrow Isaiah Rankine and had the foresight to register Ian Marshall, who was at a loose end and was training at Euxton just to keep fit!

Feared the worst

In truth, Allardyce feared the worst and, consequently, made no rash promises as the season got under way. Any manager forced to sell his best players and replace them with young hopefuls and journeymen professionals - "other people's cast-offs" as he refers to some who have played their part - would have been a fool to have made pledges he knew he could not keep.

But, having worked the oracle last season when he took a team that was heading nowhere to two major cup semi-finals and the very brink of promotion, his ability to organise, inspire and get the best out of a willing squad kept them in the top six all season and, for 16 encouraging weeks, cemented in runners-up spot.

Challenge

On his way to winning the Manager of the Month award for January, having narrowly missed out on the December award, there was even talk of mounting a challenge to Fulham's dominance, if Wanderers could maintain the momentum.

But they couldn't. The injury that ended Jussi Jaaskelainen's season caused instability as Steve Banks, Tommy Wright, Jurgen Sommer and finally Matt Clarke tried to fill the void left by the Finn who, third in the pecking order the previous year, had blossomed into one of the most highly-rated young keepers in the country.

The promotion train was thrown off the rails, the Reebok ceased to offer home comforts; Blackburn saw the opportunity and came steaming through.

Yet those who say Rovers have the bigger and more talented squad, greater resources and a much better chance of establishing a foothold in the Premiership, ought to remember that, but for an inexplicable winless home run, in which they could only manage draws against Grimsby, Huddersfield, Gillingham and Stockport - all teams in the lower reaches of the division - it would have been Allardyce, not Souness, who would have been popping the champagne corks last week.

Every team in every division in every league in the world can come up with excuses and hard luck stories; it's the nature of the game. But Wanderers have more reason than most to be kicking themselves and wondering what might have been.

Sandwiched

Their worst sequence of the season - and lowest position in the league - came in October when they lost narrowly at Stockport and Watford, results sandwiched between home draws against Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace. But, while the pessimists and critics predicted a slide, they responded magnificently, winning 12, drawing four and losing just two of their next 18 games.

All they needed was an average return in the final third of the season and neither Blackburn nor anyone else would have caught them.

But that home run did for them. In 13 games, they managed just three wins - all away from home.

That they still managed to take the race to the last week of the season is a tribute to the man who once again defied the odds, refused to be consumed by the severe financial constraints he has worked under in the first 18 months of his reign and given fans real hope.

For while the consequences of failure for the third successive year in the play-offs might be unpalatable, Wanderers have done enough all season and in recent weeks to confirm their status as the third best team in the division. And, no matter what reservations the manager might have about the format of the end of season "lottery", they remain the most formidable of the four contenders.