The Sunday Times May 22, 2022 11Today isn’t for neutrals –
we’ll all choose a side
(even if it’s not our own)And so the Premier League goes into
the final day with two teams still in
with a shout of winning the title. It’s
great when this happens. Pressure
does strange things to people,
especially in sport. I know that I
sound like a physicist here but it can
bend the shape of everything in
football. Teams that should be
romping home comfortably are
suddenly seized by fear.
The two that I remember most
vividly are the Arsenal title victory of
1989 — recently made into a brilliant
documentary called 89 — and the
2012 “Agüeerrrroo” moment of
Manchester City’s first top-flight title
since 1968.
The Arsenal success was arguably
even more significant in that it was
achieved after a match between the
two teams fighting to be crowned
champions. It was played out on a
warm, balmy night at Anfield when it
seemed that a great Liverpool side
would win a momentous double in a
season during which they had been
cruelly struck by tragedy.
The Hillsborough disaster was six
weeks before and the original game
had been postponed out of respectand rescheduled for May 26.
Remarkably though, with the city
almost paralysed with grief, the
Liverpool team had somehow beaten
Nottingham Forest in the rearranged
FA Cup semi-final and then their
great rivals from across Stanley Park,
Everton, in the final at Wembley.
It now seemed their destiny to pick
up another title and double, but
George Graham’s Arsenal had clung
on in the race when it seemed they
had blown their own chance after
being so far ahead.
It’s been interesting recently that a
minor row broke out when Pep
Guardiola claimed that everyone
supported Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp
seemed quite bemused and said he
felt that they were mostly met with
hostility. Like most things in life, the
truth is somewhere in between.
There’s no doubt that, growing up
in the Seventies and Eighties, a lot of
your classmates would have
supported Liverpool. As I
understand, it was Manchester‘I do it in shoot-outs.
Two sides that I have
no real interest in
and yet I’ll always
want one to win’EXTRA
TIME
with
Jonny
Owen
United in the Nineties. It’s natural for
some kids to gravitate towards the
most successful team. Human nature.
Meanwhile, others take an almost
perverse delight in supporting their
local team (regardless of how bad
they are). While one set of fans bask
as they win the trophies, the other
forever take pride in supporting their
own town or city and not being seen
— and this is the universal term, it
seems — as a plastic. This also meant
that you always, always supported
whoever Liverpool or United were
playing against.
It was against this background that
I watched that electric Liverpool-
Arsenal game in a hot, sweaty,
packed pub in Merthyr Tydfil at the
age of 18. It was literally half and half
in there and as the Manchester
house-music boom echoed across the
UK, the crowd at Anfield, as in the
pub, were a vista of tie-dye colour,
flared jeans, with the obligatory
curtain haircuts in abundance.
As the game wore on you could see
Liverpool psychologically doing the
unthinkable and sitting deeper and
deeper at home — at Anfield. It was
like seeing something really strange,
at odds with the world you knew,
developing before your unbelieving
eyes. Arsenal, needing to win by two
goals, smelt blood and remarkably in
one of the most compelling moments
in football I’ve ever seen, Michael
Thomas scored in stoppage time to
make it 2-0. One half of the pub
exploded. Beer in the air and people
hugging and I’d estimate barely a few
were actually Arsenal fans.
Isn’t football so strange like that?
That you’ll always seem to pick a
team to support and once you do,
you can often abandon yourself to
them. I do it in penalty shoot-outs.
Two sides that I have no real interest
in and yet I’ll always seem to want
one to win when they start striking
the ball from the spot.
It would be great if today is as
exciting as that night more than 30
years ago. Or the legendary
Manchester City-Queens Park
Rangers game I mentioned above.
Those are the moments that make
such seasons the most memorable.
Who will you be supporting out of the
two? Trust me, it’ll always be one.Pritchard went close with a free kick.
There did not seem to be a threat
when Pritchard picked the ball up in
his own half. However, Embleton —
surprisingly in the starting line-up
instead of Jack Clarke — took it on
from inside the centre circle and
charged at the Wycombe defence. As
they backed off, Embleton unleashed
a fierce shot from about 25 yards
which flew in the direction of the
Wycombe goalkeeper, David
Stockdale. The ball moved a little in
the air, but Stockdale should have
done better than flap at it as it flew
past him and into the net. He knew as
much, slumping to the ground with
his arms outstretched.
Pritchard was controlling the game
in midfield and cleverly set up
Embleton, who almost deceived
Stockdale again with a cross-cum-
shot that he just about managed to tip
over. The goalkeeper then made a
good save from a curling effort by
Stewart as Wycombe again failed to
close down their opponents properly.
For their part, Wycombe — trying
to trouble Sunderland via their
favoured direct route — failed to
mount a serious threat on Anthony
Patterson’s goal in the first half, and it
was more of the same early in the
second, as Pritchard’s cross in the
52nd minute was headed just wide by
Stewart, who should have scored.
Alarm bells rang shortly after
when Bailey Wright allowed Garath
McCleary’s cross to bounce over him
in a rare Wycombe attack, but
Patterson reacted to block Sam Vokes.
The breathing space came in the
80th minute when Pritchard again
bamboozled the Wycombe defence
and Stewart’s shot from the edge of
the area went through the legs of
Anthony Stewart and into the net.
Roberts or Clarke, on as a substitute
for Embleton, should have added a
third, while Wycombe sent on their
cult hero of a striker, 40-year-old
Adebayo Akinfenwa, for his final
game as a professional footballer. But
it made no difference to the outcome.
Three years after losing this final at
this stadium in the 94th minute to
Charlton Athletic, Sunderland had
finally come through the play-offs at
the seventh time of asking — much to
the delight of their fanatical support.Captain Corry
Evans lifts the
silverware that
confirms
Sunderland’s
promotion back to
the ChampionshipEDDIE KEOGHMay 21 League One
Sunderland 2
Wycombe 0
May 28 League Two
Mansfield Town v Port
Vale (4pm)
May 29 Championship
Huddersfield v Nott’m
Forest (4.30pm)
EFL PLAY-OFF FINALS