 The match was played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. | |||||||
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| Date | 30 May 2005 | ||||||
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| Venue | Millennium Stadium, Cardiff | ||||||
| Referee | Mike Riley | ||||||
| Attendance | 70,275 | ||||||
The 2005 Football League Championship play-off final was an association football match which was played on 30 May 2005 at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, between Preston North End and West Ham United. The match was to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football, to the FA Premier League. The top two teams of the 2004–05 Football League Championship season gained automatic promotion to the Premier League, while the clubs placed from third to sixth place in the table took part in play-off semi-finals; Preston ended the season in fifth position while West Ham finished sixth. The winners of these semi-finals competed for the final place for the 2005–06 season in the Premier League. Ipswich Town and Derby County were the losing semi-finalists. Winning the final was estimated to be worth up to £31 million to the successful team.
The 2005 final was refereed by Mike Riley and was watched by a crowd of 70,275. West Ham won the match 1–0 with the only goal of the game coming from Bobby Zamora in the second half, and were promoted back to the Premier League after an absence of two years. His teammate Matthew Etherington was named man of the match.
West Ham finished their following season in ninth place in the Premier League. Preston's next season saw them finish in fourth place in the Championship, and qualify for the play-offs, where they lost 3–1 on aggregate to Leeds United in the semi-final.