Walsall were 12 points clear at the top of the table at one stage, 15 points clear of fourth place – but a 13-game winless run cost them automatic promotion.
How it unfolded on the final day was even more agonising, as they were denied third spot by a 96th-minute Bradford City winner against Fleetwood Town.
“We would never have thought we’d be in the position we are now, at the start of January,” Gordon said. “But that’s what football throws at you.
“It’s obviously disappointing not to go up automatically. But we’re in a fantastic position a lot of people didn’t think we would be in at the start of the season and this is still a great opportunity.”
That was the message delivered by Gordon’s fellow defender Taylor Allen at Walsall’s end-of-season awards.
Allen’s father Carl, a former Midlands boxing champion, died aged 54 last September.
Yet the 24-year-old used his father’s words as inspiration to produce the best season of his career, scoring 11 goals and adding seven assists as a set-piece taking, forward-roaming inverted centre-back.
“My old man used to say to me all the time, ‘You’re better than what you are,’ and I never used to believe him,” Allen told his team-mates.
“Then he got ill, I got a fire in my belly, and I realised I hadn’t got many chances left to show him what he was saying was right.
“When some things happen in life, sometimes you don’t get another chance, and this is one of those seasons, boys, where we won’t get another chance like this.”
His emotional speech went viral and helped inspire Walsall to coast past Chesterfield over two semi-final legs.
“I was trying to pick the boys back up,” Allen told BBC WM. “Football’s not the be-all and end-all in life and I’ve realised that quite young. It was just about trying to transfer that to the boys.”
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