Has football lost its soul? Tell that to Jane Osterholm, one of the tens of thousands of Portsmouth fans who celebrated their team’s 1-0 victory in the FA Cup at Wembley. It was the first time Portsmouth had won the cup since 1939, and a proper old-fashioned knees-up ensued at the stadium, in the streets, on the coaches and on the trains heading back to the south coast. “I never thought,” she said, “this would happen in my lifetime.”
Before Portsmouth’s last game of the season at the weekend a trestle table was
carefully carried out, sagging under the weight of enough player of the year
awards to fill even a pair of mantelpieces. All had been voted for by
various supporters’ clubs, and each went to David James. Then another award
was announced, the players’ player of the year. That went to Sylvain Distin.
Whatever unfolds under the Old Trafford floodlights tomorrow, whether it is
Manchester United or Arsenal who claim a place in the quarter-finals of the
FA Cup, or whether their fifth-round tie lives on to be settled in north
London, there is a history of confrontation between these two great clubs
worthy of the Earp brothers and the Clanton gang.