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SCENES
While the conspicuous non-arrival of the world’s most daily email into your inbox/spam folder yesterday was technically down to the fact that Monday was the May Day bank holiday in the UK, Football Daily didn’t actually spend the day drinking cider and dancing with ribbons around a village green before crowning a May Queen. In truth, our brain was so frazzled from football-related goings-on at home and further afield over the weekend, we spent most of Monday lying in a dark room, enjoying the soothing caress of a wet flannel on our forehead as we tried to make sense of it all. The ups, the downs, the delight, the heartbreak and the sight of a tired and emotional Harry Kane celebrating his first-ever winner’s medal by murdering a Queen song after Bayern Munich’s title win was finally confirmed on Sunday. “We’ve had a long journey together,” warbled Kane, whose first instinct upon realising he would not go down in history as one of sport’s most high profile trophy-dodgers was to hug his teammate Eric Dier and spark up a big fat cigar. “It was just something special. I’ve been playing football for a very long time and it’s taken a while but it’s just a great feeling and I’m proud of everyone who was involved.”
Hardcore Leeds fans who marched on together in the direction of Plymouth on Saturday were rewarded for their long journey by getting to see their team crowned Championship winners courtesy of a 2-1 victory over an Argyle side whose relegation was confirmed. The real celebrations took place in Leeds city centre on Monday, when upwards of 150,000 fans packed the streets and City Square to cheer on Daniel Farke’s “fire beasts”. Parading along Boar Lane to the Corn Exchange, up past the market and on to The Headrow and the Town Hall on a couple of open-top buses, in the kind of scenes not witnessed since Welcome To Yorkshire were forced to scrap their sightseeing tours in 2012 due to a lack of cash, yellow bucket hats were in abundance. The German and his players basked in the adulation of locals who are unlikely to be in such a good mood when their team has acquired just seven points from their opening 15 Premier League fixtures next season.
There were no such scenes of celebration in Walsall, where the local football team and one-time runaway leaders of League Two thought their first win in 14 games would be enough to earn a place in League One without having to endure the hell of the playoffs. Having beaten Crewe away, the Saddlers’ excited players were left standing around, waiting on good news from Valley Parade, where anything other than a late, late, deflected Bradford winner against Fleetwood would guarantee their promotion. Cue: a late, late, deflected Bradford winner against Fleetwood six minutes into added time which prompted desolation among the assembled Walsall fans and a mass pitch-invasion incorporating many of the astonishing 24,000-strong crowd who had turned up to cheer on their beloved Bantams. “I don’t think I have got the words right now,” sobbed Walsall manager Mat Sadler, before summoning the words. “I am not going to try and babble stuff. We are all disappointed. It is cruel for us and absolute ecstasy for the Bradford players.”
Further up the pyramid in League One, low-spending, impoverished church mice Birmingham City completed their fairytale return to the Championship by rounding off their campaign by beating already-relegated Cambridge United to end the season with a record points tally. Having probably spent more money on striker Jay Stansfield than every other club in the division has spent in transfer fees combined throughout their combined history, the Blues finished the season on 111 points, a score that is considered unlucky in cricket. As a certain in-no-way bitter Cambridge United-supporting Football Weekly podcast presenter was heard to opine, superstitious Blues fans may wish to follow the lead of the late, great umpire David Shepherd and spend the off-season hopping on one foot in order to ward off any potential misfortune as their players prepare for their triumphant return to the second tier.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
When I was older, I asked my dad why he never said I played well. He said he didn’t want me thinking I was the best, getting cocky. He thought he was keeping me from losing my head. He always got angry with me after matches. He didn’t want anyone else to tell me I was good either. He even wanted to control my friends. My old man and me have always got on well then badly, then well again: good, bad, good, bad, good, bad … we pissed each other off but he’s my dad and I’m going to love him the same” – Sergio Agüero gets his chat on with Sid Lowe about his strict upbringing in Argentina, the heart troubles that ended his career and that Manchester City goal.
It’s great to see now that yo-yo club Leeds United (not that I’m a bitter Sheffield Wednesday fan) have got promoted, they are already vowing to ‘become one of the best clubs in Europe’. Of course, elder members of the Football Daily parish will remember the last time that Leeds United were ‘ready to join Europe’s elite’. Cue this and then another one for good measure. As the great Georg Hegel used to say: ‘The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history’” – Noble Francis.
My foreign language skills aren’t very strong, but if I take pleasure in Manchester United’s latest defeat, particularly conceding two goals to Brentford’s German goalscorer, is that called ‘Schadefreude’?” – R Reisman.
The note from the scientists at the University of Liverpool (Friday’s Football Daily, full email edition) put me to mind of the seismographs in Lima going off when Peru topped New Zealand 2-0 to earn the final spot in the 2018 World Cup. Seems the energy generated by 60,000 fans plus everyone watching on TV activated Sismo Detector, an early warning system, when Jefferson Farfan put Peru ahead in the 27th minute. The detector’s [social media disgrace] feed called off any warnings when it confirmed above-normal readings at the moment of the goal. Try as I might, I could not find a Richter Scale reading, so perhaps the denizens of Anfield truly made seismic history” – Dave Shelles.
Football Daily often follows clubs in various competitions, so may I be the first (maybe only?) pedant to offer support to Franklampardscoventry. I want to see a new and fresh club in the Premier League, not a bounce-back team who would be ticketed for relegation three seconds after winning at Wembley. Yes, I’m looking at you, Sheffield United” — JJ Zucal.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Dave Shelles. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.
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It’s David Squires on … Arsenal and Spurs acclimatising for their challenging European expeditions this week.
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