Best match ever, greatest comeback ever, greatest save ever, blah blah blah. Naturally there have been much better games, games with more excitement or passion or skill or whatever, but this one was fairly amazing. I suspect that if Tottenham vs Manchester City in the FA Cup had been a Saturday game, rather than one of two attractions on an otherwise barren evening* the superlatives may have been tempered. I watched the game on the radio because there was nothing on the telly last night. Even with all the goals it didn’t seem to have the blood or the thunder which the scoreline suggests.
Three things though, stick in the mind:
1. A paragraph of classic McCarra in the Guardian: “We have let ourselves down and the supporters will be gutted,” said the Spurs manager David Pleat, speaking from that depth of suffering in which people communicate solely through numb phrases.”
2. The Five Live commentator losing his voice as Macken slotted the fourth City goal in, and letting out little more than a squawk of disbelief which said so much more than one of those awful, rehearsed Jonathan Pearce pat lines.
3. At least three separate death metaphors: Macken scored ‘at the death’ according to (I think) Lineker on MotD; City ‘looked dead and buried at half time’ according to Hansen on the same programme; and Keegan came out with a Keggy classic ‘long after we’re dead and six feet under or’ or cremated or whatever we decide to do with ourselves, they’ll be talking about this game”
We all know that the old Shankley ‘it’s more important than that’ is nonsense, of course we do. Don’t we?
*Barren? When Exeter beat the mighty Kings Lynn to progress in the FA Trophy? What am I saying?