Bristol Rovers v Barnsley FC: Why Nicky Cadden and his family want to avoid the play-offs and a 'cup final' at all costs

The Cadden family had their fill of cup final heartache and would be forgiven for thinking they are cursed in that regard.The portents did not look good ahead of Barnsley's League One showpiece with Sheffield Wednesday in late May in truth.The Barnsley defender's brother Chris, right-back at Hibernian, was due to be in among the Reds contingent supporting his sibling.Instead, he was having surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles sustained two days earlier.Events at Wembley then left the family feeling even more sorry, just as they did when Hibs lost in cup finals in 2020-21 and 2021-22 and during the full-back's time at Motherwell, when they lost twice.Reds player Cadden, who has won titles on two occasions with Forest Green and Livingston, said: "My brother ended up not going because he ruptured his Achilles and had to get surgery the next day.

"We had his stag do the week after as well, so he couldn't go to that. It was a shame for him.

"Wembley was hard. It was just because of the circumstances and everything. I think you'd have rather just lost on penalties. It was hard to take and it took a wee while to sink in. But we need to look forward now.

"It (automatic promotion) would be a lot better. The thing is if you could guarantee it (promotion), it would be play-offs all day because of the occasion and everything leading up to it.

"But if you finish top two, you get an extra month or something."We obviously want to go one better and hopefully we can start off the season better. We gave teams a head-start last year and were chasing our tails. If we'd sorted out those first ten games, then we'd have challenged the top two, definitely."

Barnsley certainly got off to the perfect start under Neill Collins by virtue of last weekend's 7-0 drubbing of Port Vale.

It was the biggest victory for any side in their opening game of a Football League campaign since Wolves hammered Manchester City 8-1 in 1962-63.

In its own way, it has also helped in the Oakwell outfit starting to draw a line under the Michael Duff era and write a new chapter under Collins.

The Scot is his own man, but won't be reinventing the wheel. For his part, Cadden spies footballing similarities between the pair.

He continued: "I have been impressed with what he wants to do this year. I think he can do really well and be successful and he seems a really nice guy as well. It could work for us this year.

"The intensity and pressing, he wants to do the same thing. Different managers have different ideas, so it's been a few tweaks. But apart from that, it's pretty much the same."

On Duff's exit, he said: "It was part of football. He did so well last year and there was obviously going to be interest.

"You look on Twitter and you see it's near enough done, so by the time it was done, you weren't surprised. You were shocked probably a few weeks before and once it took a wee while, it happened.

"I wish him all the best, he was brilliant for us and me personally as well. He wasn't just a good manager, but a good person as well and you were able to talk to him about things."