2003 Football League First Division play-off Final
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| Date | 26 May 2003 | ||||||
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| Venue | Millennium Stadium, Cardiff | ||||||
| Man of the Match | Matt Murray (Wolves) | ||||||
| Referee | Steve Bennett (Kent) | ||||||
| Attendance | 69,473 | ||||||
| Weather | Mostly cloudy 14 °C (57 °F) |
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The 2003 Football League First Division playoff final was a football match played at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on 26 May 2003 at the end of the 2002–03 season. The match determined the third and final team to gain promotion from the First Division to the Premier League, and was contested by Sheffield United and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Wolves won the match 3–0, with three first-half goals, taking them back to the top flight for the first time in nineteen years.
Sheffield United finished the season in third place in the First Division, twelve points behind the runaway top two Portsmouth and Leicester City. They had enjoyed a successful season, being positioned in the play-off zone almost throughout and reaching the semi-finals of both the FA Cup and League Cup.
Wolves had had an inconsistent first half to the campaign after the disappointment of their late slump in form during the previous season which had lost them promotion to local rivals West Bromwich Albion. A stronger run of form in the closing months however, earned them a second successive place in the play-offs with a fifth-place finish, four points behind their opponents.
Both clubs had confirmed their play-off place with games to spare, before meeting in their penultimate league match - a 3–3 draw at Bramall Lane. In their first meeting of the season Sheffield United had won 3–1 at Molineux.
In the play-off semi-finals, Sheffield United drew at sixth-placed Nottingham Forest 1–1 in the first leg, before a thrilling 4–3 extra time victory at Bramall Lane took them to the final.
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