All To Play For In Title Thriller

The drama never stops. With three games left, it’s effectively neck-and-neck again in the Premiership, in what must qualify as the most compelling title race since Blackburn and Man United slugged it out to the death in 1995. The Scholes/Giggs/Neville obituaries of a few weeks ago are beginning to look somewhat premature, while Paddy Power’s decision to pay out on Chelsea winning the title was clearly an act of colossal, gob-smacking presumptuousness, irrespective of how it turns out in the end.

Chelsea, having appeared to accomplish the hard part by winning at Old Trafford, are now doing their level best to implode. By rights, they should have lost at home to Bolton Wanderers (which is quite a difficult thing to do), and Harry Redknapp’s Spurs (still high on the improbability of their first North London derby win since the Bronze Age) gave them an almighty tonking at the weekend.
Meanwhile, Man United’s Rasputin-like qualities have yet again come to the fore, with the increasingly ancient – but still brilliant – Paul Scholes managing to maintain recent Manchester derby tradition by applying the killer blow to City deep into stoppage time, a strike which caused at least half-a-dozen of my colleagues to leap into the air and scream like lunatics while yours truly was left to sit there in stupefied disbelief, not for the first time this season. Being good lads, they didn’t rub it in too much, but I could see what they were thinking.
As local rivalries go, the Manchester derby has a curious dynamic: the fear, loathing, bitterness and venom is entirely one-sided. In other words, we envy and despise them, but they don’t seem to mind us at all, the prevailing attitude being one of good-natured if patronising condescension. It will probably stay that way until such time as City actually start winning things and beating United on a semi-regular basis. From a City perspective, this one (while undeniably irksome) wasn’t quite as painful as the 4-3 reverse at Old Trafford a few months ago. Managing to equalise three times and still being beaten in the 97th minute is truly soul-destroying, whereas at least on this occasion City emerged from the game with exactly what they deserved: nothing.
The enduring image of the day, though, was the sight of Paul Scholes and Gary Neville embracing and kissing one another passionately in full view of 47,000 fans and countless million TV viewers, a truly horrifying spectacle which I’m still trying to exorcise from my mind. When people speak of ‘the ugly side of the beautiful game’, they’re usually referring to a Joey Barton two-footed lunge or a Rory Delap throw-in or any match involving Blackburn Rovers, but this surely re-defined the phrase. Thankfully Wayne Rooney wasn’t there to join in, having been brought off a few minutes previously. But Scholes and Neville... one shudders. They will never be mistaken for Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt, and they should really keep such displays of affection behind closed doors in future.
With the winning post now within touching distance, and one point separating the teams, it would appear to boil down to the Man U-Tottenham and Liverpool-Chelsea fixtures. The latter is a real curiosity: I think it’s safe to say that every single Liverpool fan I know will be passionately rooting for Chelsea. Given that the relationship between Rafa Benitez and Alex Ferguson is not exactly a warm one, would it be excessively cynical to speculate that the Pool may be disinclined to go flat-out to do United a favour, especially since they stand to overtake Liverpool’s all-time English record of 18 League titles, perhaps permanently? We shall see.
Switching focus northwards for a minute, Foul Play would like to extend warmest congratulations and best wishes to Ross County, who have preposterously managed to reach the Scottish Cup final. Their 2-0 dismissal of an admittedly abysmal Celtic was no fluke: they could easily have won by more. The Highlands town of Dingwall, from which they hail, was by all accounts almost deserted on the day of the semi-final, a sizeable chunk of the town’s 5,000 inhabitants having made the lengthy trek to Glasgow for the big outing.
Their route to the Final against a bang in-form Dundee United has been absolute Roy of the Rovers stuff: they knocked Hibs out in stoppage time in the quarters (thus ensuring that our statistically incredible 108-year Cup drought will be prolonged for at least another year), a development which I admit didn’t exactly fill me with joy at the time. But this is a truly wonderful story, and it deserves to be crowned with a fitting finish. The match unfortunately clashes with Chelsea-Portsmouth in the English FA Cup Final, but I know which one I’ll be watching. Good luck, lads.