Soccer-Race for the promised land enters key stage

By Martyn Herman LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Should modest Bournemouth win this year's English Championship they will receive 50,000 pounds ($75,100) in prize money -- just about enough to pay a Premier League player for a week. By way of comparison Cardiff City received a 1.2 million pounds reward for finishing bottom of the top flight last year, plus the 55 million they banked from TV payments and the 60 million they will get in parachute payments over four years. The Premier League's new 5.14 billion pounds domestic TV deal, kicking off in 2016-17, will only widen the chasm between the elite at the top of the pyramid and the rest. Of course, the real prize is access to those eye-watering riches at the top of English's football's pyramid which is why the final weeks of the battle for the two automatic promotion places and four playoff spots provides such compelling drama. This season's plot is one of the thickest ever and not only because the top four -- Bournemouth, Derby County, Watford and Middlesbrough -- all have 66 points. Seaside club Bournemouth have emerged from almost losing their league status and near bankruptcy to sustain a promotion bid on gates of around 10,000. They have never graced the top echelon while Brentford, the humble London club alongside the M4 motorway and underneath the Heathrow flight path, were last alongside the big boys in 1947. Brentford are sixth on 62 points, below Norwich City (65) and with Ipswich Town and Wolverhampton Wanderers on their tail. "We're on the home stretch now, the last 10 games," Brentford's manager Mark Warburton, said. PROMISED LAND With the stakes for promotion almost surreal, the run-in promises to be as compelling as the Premier League's, yet to suggest the Championship exists purely as a gateway to the promised land is unfair. While the Premier League rules supreme, the Football League's showpiece is established as one of the best-supported in Europe with total attendances superior to Italy's Serie A. Seven clubs averaged more than 20,000 fans per home game last season and this season's average of 17,659 is seven percent higher than last year. The presence of well-supported big city clubs like Leeds United, Derby, Sheffield Wednesday and Nottingham Forest help, but so too does the quality of football. The days when the second tier was a no-go zone for expansive, passing football, when brawn was preferable to brain, have gone and teams, made up mainly of home-grown talent, can now play their way to promotion. Bournemouth, under the astute eye of young Englishman Eddie Howe, thrashed Fulham, relegated from the Premier League last season, 5-1 on Friday and there was hardly a long ball in sight. Likewise, Middlesbrough handed out a football lesson to Premier League champions Manchester City in the FA Cup in January while humble west Londoners Brentford have stayed true to their footballing principles. Unpredictability remains one of its best selling points. Bournemouth host bottom club Blackpool this weekend while Watford take on third bottom Wigan, fixtures ripe for surprises given previous experience. Middlesbrough host Ipswich and Norwich face Derby this weekend, the first of numerous clashes between the leading pack that could determine who will snatch the top flight membership estimated to be worth 150 million pounds. Howe believes there will be plenty of twists and turns. "The lead has changed so many times that it has almost become the tag that nobody wants," he said. "It is the team now which can be the most consistent and back-to-back wins are so important at this stage." Alex Neil, charged with restoring Norwich to the Premier League after relegation last year, put it more bluntly. "If we come up short, then I have not done my job, my players have not done their job and we have had a terrible season," he said. ($1 = 0.6660 British Pounds) (Reporting by Martyn Herman)