THIS TIME the Premiership has reached one of its messier endings. Fixture congestion and the demands of television look like depriving it of a decent climax.
Sky viewers, of course, are treated to a climax roughly once every four minutes but it is beginning to look as if the actual moment at which the championship is won will, at best, be a foregone conclusion. Or it could turn out to be a mere afterthought, a recorded highlight.
In its efforts to capture the dash to the finishing line, Sky will be covering this morning's game between Leicester City and Manchester United at Filbert Street, followed by Liverpool's early evening encounter with Tottenham at Anfield. That such crucial fixtures on the first Saturday in May should be kicking off at 11.15 a.m. and 6.15 p.m. respectively is utter nonsense but an inevitable consequence of doing Faustian deals with television.
In fact Arsenal's match against Newcastle at Highbury this afternoon could turn out to be the most significant of the three games, since it will nave a considerable bearing on who comes second and enters the qualifying round for next season's Champions League. Either way the now established practice of completing the Premiership on a Sunday looks like bringing Sky nothing more dramatic tomorrow week than the stray ends of the relegation struggle.
What an absurd situation has been reached when, if United win this morning, they will have to wait until mid evening to discover whether their fourth Premiership title in five seasons still awaits confirmation. At the moment United require five points, but this target will reduce if neither Newcastle nor Liverpool win later in the day.
The likelihood is that Old Trafford's latest celebrations will be delayed until Monday's home match against Middlesbrough, which was due to have been played the following evening but has now been brought forward with a noon start, or Newcastle's visit to Old Trafford on Thursday, by which time United's live support will be looking even more red eyed than usual.
Even in the days before regular live TV coverage, league championships were not always settled on Saturday afternoons, far from it. Two of the tighter finishes, Arsenal's winning of the initial half of the double in 1971 and Leeds's failure to complete it the following season, took place on Monday evenings. And the closest race of all, in 1989, was decided on a Friday night at Anfield by Michael Thomas's last second goal for Arsenal.
Over the last two seasons in the Premiership the concluding Sundays have produced neat endings and avoided staggered finishes. This format is not in question now. It is the confusing conglomeration of games over the next few days, when many of the vital issues of Champions League and UEFA Cup places, not to mention Premiership survival, will he decided, which represents such an unacceptable mishmash.
An overcrowded fixture list is responsible for this state of affairs rather than Sky, which needs to keep faith with its subscribers. But the casualness with which dates and starting times are being consistently switched around pays scant regard to those who want to watch their teams from seats in the stands rather than the lounge or saloon bar.
West Ham's home match against Everton a fortnight ago was the first Premiership fixture this year to be played at Upton Park on a Saturday. That cannot be right.
All credit to the Nationwide League, then, for refusing to bow to Sky's request to put this afternoon's game between Hereford United and Brighton and Hove Albion, which will decide whether one or the other will be playing in the Vauxhall Conference next season, back to tomorrow.
About 3,800 Albion supporters are due to make the tortuous journey to Edgar Street for an occasion which, while the football may be dire, has the fascination of one of those dance marathons which inspired the film They Shoot Horses Don't They? Disturbing the South Coast fans travelling arrangements would have been the last straw in a troubled season.
As a straw in the wind, the Football Writers' Association's election of Gianfranco Zola as Footballer of the Year is charged with significance. It is the third year running that the award has gone to a foreign player, Jurgen Klinsmann and Eric Cantona having won it in 1995 and 1996.
Mind you, one correspondent did risk confusion by telephoning his vote for "the little man at Chelsea." But it was presumed he did not mean Dennis Wise.
