Kingdom Come

Through gritted teeth, Foul Play would like to extend his heartiest congratulations to Kerry for their astonishing All-Ireland triumph, achieved in positively Rasputin-like fashion.

Anyone who’d witnessed the Kingdom labouring horrendously through the summer skirmishes would have felt entirely justified in writing their obituary there and then.
It’s a well-established sporting fact that over a knock-out championship campaign, a team should pace itself and prime itself to peak at the right time, ideally doing just about enough to negotiate the early hurdles before bursting into full bloom in time to ambush opponents who may have shot their metaphorical load in the earlier exchanges. (Think Italy in the last World Cup). But Kerry’s midsummer form wasn’t merely below-par, it was horrendous.
Well and truly massacred by their dear neighbours in the Munster semi, they limped past Longford in desperately unconvincing fashion, and would have been dumped on their collective ear by Sligo had it not been for the minor detail of a missed penalty. Their dismissal of Antrim was scarcely any more impressive. The Dublin match…no, I can’t go there. But you get the point.
Cork, on the other hand, had steamrollered past all comers in imperious style, their imposing physique and merciless tackling allied to crafty, intelligent movement, to the extent that those of us who’d plunged at 13/2 back in May had ample justification (on all known form) for viewing Sunday’s encounter as a sort of formality to sit back and savour before sauntering in to collect the loot. This conviction hardened as the Rebels raced into an early 1-3 to 0-1 lead. The rest is history.
While Kerry deserve all due credit for their powers of escapology, it’s undeniable that Cork beat themselves. They have something of a phobia of the sight of green-and-gold (a fairly understandable reaction to decades of rarely-interrupted inferiority) and certainly carved out more than enough chances in the second half to have won the day, had it not been for some unbelievably dreadful finishing (The warning signs had been manifest during the second-half of the semi-final against Tyrone).
Still, fair fucks to the Kingdom, whose path to glory had all the elements of a classic back-from-the-dead cinematic narrative. The match rounded off a breathlessly wonderful Sabbath of sporting entertainment, with the Manchester derby having been one of the most compelling 90-minute spectacles in top-flight English football history.
Alex Ferguson’s incessant terrorising of referees has long been one of his least appealing traits, and the red-nosed one’s infamous stopwatch again made the difference on Sunday, putting paid (at least temporarily) to a City challenge which very clearly has him worried (his comment about ‘noisy neighbours’ was a dead giveway there).
It is, of course, possible that Manchester City’s financial windfall may eventually lead to monolithic domination of English and European club football. As a City fan, I wouldn’t entirely welcome such a development, any more than I enjoyed the years of weekly humiliations at the hands of people like Bury and Stockport.
There’s a sense in which pride in following a ‘real’ team has enabled supporters of non-filthy-stinking-rich clubs (in my case, City and more so Hibs, since the age of seven) to occupy the high moral ground and look down our noses at the legions of unimaginative sad twats who pledge allegiance to United and Liverpool, in much the same way as Sonic Youth devotees sneer at Chris De Burgh or Simply Red fans.
It is entirely accurate to point out that Man United have basically ‘bought’ the title for years by virtue of having a more powerful marketing machine than everyone else, flogging zillions of replica shirts to people uncool enough to buy them, and then using the proceeds to hoover up the best players.
Which explains why I always found it deeply pathetic to watch their ‘fans’ going apeshit in celebration of their countless triumphs (especially since very few of them ‘came out’ until 1993 when they started actually winning things).
And Chelsea’s rise to power under the odious Abramovich was and is, quite rightly, perceived by most football people as a hollow triumph, for the simple reason that it’s been entirely based on spending power.
So the undeniable excitement City fans feel at the sudden prospect of being able to afford to meaningfully compete at the highest level is undermined by a vague unease that it somehow means we’ve stooped to their level, with the gnawing feeling that it’s somehow shameful, and means we’re no longer proper football fans following a proper football club.
Friends of many years’ standing phone me to talk football at great length (after the perfunctory how’s-the-wife-and-kids stuff, which usually takes about two minutes) and assume that I’ll be in a state of delirious excitement at City’s new world of infinite possibilities. The truth is, I feel a bit distanced. Inverse snobbery, maybe? I don’t know.
But none of these misgivings will stop the heartbeat racing when they take the field, and for the time being, the Sheikhs’ largesse has had the perverse effect of making this season’s title race one of the most intriguing in years.
All the evidence of the last month indicates that City now have to be taken seriously as a potentially title-winning force. Losing 4-3 at Old Trafford in the 45326th minute of Fergie Stoppage Time doesn’t weaken that conviction, it strengthens it.
Even Spurs look like a side capable of joining (if not winning) the title chase, once they realise how talented they are, toughen up mentally, and eradicate their tendency to implode the minute a significant refereeing decision goes against them.
United and Arsenal can produce football of breathtaking quality, as we all know. Liverpool don’t do breathtaking, but they have fantastic spirit and resilience. Chelsea have a combination of all those things which renders them not far short of flawless, and for that reason, they are by far the most likely winners.
One way or another, it should be fun finding out.