English domestic season proves stressful for football fans in run-up to World Cup
THE FORTHCOMING World Cup will ensure that running water rather than football will be in short supply but, as many fans will agree, the fortunes of their clubs will have caused enough stress over the past seven months or so to be able to delight in a break of at least a couple of weeks from the national game.
The real excitement in domestic football takes place from about fourteenth place in the Premiership downwards. Chelsea’s name may as well have been engraved on the Premiership back in October and, while Arsenal and Tottenham’s final day of the season fight for the final Champions League place was the highlight in the top half of the table, it was a somewhat unedifying spectaclewitnessing two clubs fight for merely fourth place.
So the Premiership says farewell to Sunderland, West Brom and Birmingham, who can consider themselves unlucky that Portsmouth somehow clawed their way out of trouble.
With the Football League play-offs resolved, Reading and Sheffield United and Watford have gained promotion into the Premiership. Of the three, Reading would seem most likely to stave off relegation. Manager Steve Coppell has the Berkshire club playing outstanding football and has strong financial backing..
Sheffield United’s survival prospects look bleaker, but in manager Neil Warnock the Premiership has a controversial figure to rival Jose Mourinho.
Brighton, Millwall and Crewe are relegated from the Championship and head into League One, a division that Nottingham Forest will probably start as favourites for next season. This term Southend and Colchester are celebrating promotion to the Championship. Three of the relegated teams from League One would all appear to be clubs in free-fall. Walsall drop into League Two on the back of a season in which they started, under Paul Merson, as promotion contenders. Swindon Town have suffered a similar fall, and are joined by the MK Dons and Hartlepool.
The story of League Two was undoubtedly the dramatic last day of the season, where eight clubs were embroiled in a battle to avoid relegation to the Conference. With Rushden and Diamonds already down, Oxford United lost to Leyton Orient and thus ended their forty-four year stay in the Football League. The cruelty of football never proves to be far away though, and the scene at Oxford’s impressive Kassam Stadium was a scene of celebration as well, as Orient secured automatic promotion to League One. Carlisle and Northampton took up the other two automatic places.
English domestic season proves stressful for football fans in run-up to World Cupue having won the Conference after a forty-four year absence. Halifax or Hereford will join them in leaving a division that, next season.
A domestic season that ended in the best FA Cup final in living memory will fizzle out over the coming week leaving fans with the World Cup. Avid fans will only have to wait until 12 August for club football to take centre stage again.
By Ben Masters
SPORTS CORRESPONDENT
