1) Race for second spot between traditional rivals ManU and Liverpool (to ensure direct qualification into the Champions league for next season)
2) Race for fourth spot (thus a place in qualifying stages of Champion's League for the next season) between bitter North London rivals Arsenal and Spurs
There was this third one that kept coming up.....turned out that Arsenal's season ending game would be the final game played at Highbury, Arsenal's home ground for the past godforsaken number of years. As I watched the preview shows, every single Arsenal player/fan seemed to use the occasion to reminisce and worse, gloat about the wonderful occasions that the ground had witnessed, thus conveniently forgetting the 30 point difference between the winners of the Premiership and their very own team. Obviously, this did not go down well with me and I berated and cursed every time I heard something that I did not want to.
After the day's action, with ManU sealing second spot and Arsenal sealing fourth spot, almost all the talk was about the events of the day at Highbury. I just could not see why they would not shut up, or better, talk about the 4-0 mauling that ManU gave Charlton. Talk of crowds exceeding 38,000 at Highbury was met in mid-air by "70,000 Red Devils' fans every single home game" chant from my side. The rest of the day passed by peacefully...
Today, as I finished up with work and checked out BBC Sport, I noticed that ROY KEANE had bumped 'any random' England World Cup news off the headlines. For a moment, I lost sight, lost my reading ability and comtemplated about what RK could have possibly done to cause such a monumental event. Anyway, that one second passed, and I realised that RK was staring at me from a picture taken today, at his testimonial match played at Old Trafford. RK, after 12 years of unmatched service, had left ManU earlier this year and moved on to join Celtics of the Scottish Premier League.
Anyway, I did not have a clue that this match was coming up and my reaction to the news was that of unbridled joy, enthusiasm and a little sadness at the passage of time. Did some reminiscing myself and and also conjured up a scenario where the RK of '99 was fit and raring to tackle the challenges of '06-'07. Arsenal's/Liverpool's/Chelsea's combined nightmare come true!
Already shaking with excitement, I started reading. So, the match was between Celtic (RK's current team) and ManU. RK played for the Celtics and the game was nil-nil at half-time. As the players came out for the second half, RK, came out as well, dressed a little differently. In place of the green and white horizontal striped jersey was one that was RED in colour. It bore the number 16!
Some moments transcend description! MAYBE, Highbury deserved it's farewell...
No comments:
Post a Comment