CHAMPIONS!

 

(Image taken from Manutd.com)

 

We'd been here before, back in '03. I was in South Bank Halls of Residence at the time, no Sky so I wound up watching the Soccernet text coverage on the Saturday. We faced Charlton at Old Trafford knowing that a win would leave Arsenal with a do-or-die the following day. Well Becks opened the scoring before Charlton equalised through Claus Jensen and then the Ruud boy hit a hat-trick. Mission accomplished our end, now the Gunners had to sweat.

This time round the game was always going to be more interested, City and the City of Manchester stadium has to be one of the ultimate banana skins for any United side even if we did beat them 3-1 at Old Trafford earlier this season. Brown was back at right back, Rio and Vidic in central defence, Ronaldo right mid, Carrick and Scholesey central midfield, Giggsy left mid, Rooney and Smith up front. Our strongest lineup in ages and one to put the title to bed.

Well an early order of business turned out to be a dirty City challenge but that wasn't going to stop United even if it was the Blues that had the first serious shot on goal. United started to get a slight edge and then Ronaldo responded to City's dirtiness the only way he knows how. In the 34th minute he surged into the box where he got hacked before scorching in the resulting penalty. City had some decent chances late on but couldn't do much with them.

Most of the second half was really pretty uneventful. United were just cruising through things and inviting City on to us which on Blue turf tends to be asking for trouble. Sure enough, United dodged a clip's worth of Blue bullets as Fergie's motto for the rest of the game was "what we have we hold". This attitude was summed up with our ending the game with no recognisable out-and out strikers with the team fairly knackered. Credit for City for getting a late pennalty, no credit to Darius Vassell for blowing it. Mission accomplished at our end.

In '03, it wasn't till the day after the Charlton game that we won the title, thanks to Leeds of all teams beating Arsenal 3-2 at Highbury! Four years is long enough for Leeds to get relegated without trace, Arsenal to move stadiums and them get superseeded by Chelsea as our main rivals. Some things never change though and once again the Gunners hosted the match that could decide the title when Chelsea came to the Millenium stadium, and Arsenal proved usefull allies. Gilberto Silva hitting a penalty to give the Blues a mountain to climb. Michael Essian equalised but the Blues couldn't quite find a winner.

This meant one thing. Eight point gap, two games to go! CHAMPIONS! And to give you an idea of what that word means, try this for size. Edwin van de Saar, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, Gabriel Heinze, Christiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Louis Saha, Ji Sung Park, Alan Smith, Michael Carrick. These will be their first ever Premiership winners medals. All have surely earned them. This'll certainly be the last ever Alex Ferguson created United team, but he's done it again!

North of the border though, Aberdeen had to go to Tynecastle to face Hearts in the SPL, their only remaining rivals for a UEFA Cup spot. The Edinburgh side opened the scoring through Andrius Velicka though the Dons had no plans to lay down and the game swung end to end as a result with the Reds forcing the home side into some desperate defending. In the second half, they simply turned up the heat even more and eventually Barry NIcholson got a last minute equaliser, even if he got sent off before the final whistle.

The draw maintained the Dons' four point gap ahead of Hearts to make third place with it's UEFA Cup spot increasingly secure with only two games to go. The chance for a Champions League spot has gone for good though. Rangers faced Celtic in the last Old Firm derby of the season at Ibrox. Kris Boyd and Chris Adam secured bragging rights over the champions to wrap up second place in the SPL with a ten point gap and re-establish the Old Firm's dominance north of the border.

Back south of the border and down a level and the Championship title race was being contested by two teams whose managers had been on the same United team in the mid 90s! It was Roy Keane who got the bragging rights after his Sunderland team slaughtered Luton 5-0 at Kenilworth Stadium! Steve Bruce's Birmingham lost 1-0 to Preston at Deepdale to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Amazing work by Keano in his first season of managership anywhere!

Going down another level and this season has indeed been a complete disaster for my old local team Brentford. Having lost quality gaffer Martin Allen to the MK Dons they were never able to find a suitably good replacement and with most of their classy players from last season having gone elsewhere, the Bees never found any form whatsoever! No form whatsoever gets you relegated. Having said that, the Bees have hired Terry Butcher as manager for their 2007/08 campaign in League Two so it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

The honour guard of Stamford Bridge awaits.

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