Prepare for end of the Alex Ferguson era
Not only turkeys' heads roll
The man who changed the game
There is a pattern to this referee abuse
Keegan deserved a happier ending
How Crazy Horse galloped to glory
Most Popular from this writer
Dying from a brain tumour is a rotten way for anyone to go. For a professional sports person, it is a particularly unkind exit. For Emlyn Hughes, it was the lousiest trick of fate. Hughes was a self-made footballer with ambition. To limited ability he added an unlimited zest.
In football, messiahs should never reach middle age. Far better that they suffer martyrdom young or fall under a bus before their 40s. Otherwise they become mere mortals. This is what has happened to Kevin Keegan, whose final exit from the game at 54, which his departure from Manchester City surely is, has been his least dramatic.
No sooner had Arsenal first equalled and then broken Nottingham Forest's 26-year-old record of going 42 league matches without defeat, than doubts were being expressed about the likelihood of such an achievement ever being repeated. The longer the present run lasts the stronger this feeling will become.
Christmas can often be a cruel time for managers and the January transfer window has merely exacerbated the fact.
Ferguson cannot go on forever and the fact that his birthday coincided with the end of another year somehow increases its significance.
Dying from a brain tumour is a rotten way for anyone to go. For a professional sports person, it is a particularly unkind exit. For Emlyn Hughes, it was the lousiest trick of fate. Hughes was a self-made footballer with ambition. To limited ability he added an unlimited zest.
In football, messiahs should never reach middle age. Far better that they suffer martyrdom young or fall under a bus before their 40s. Otherwise they become mere mortals. This is what has happened to Kevin Keegan, whose final exit from the game at 54, which his departure from Manchester City surely is, has been his least dramatic.
No sooner had Arsenal first equalled and then broken Nottingham Forest's 26-year-old record of going 42 league matches without defeat, than doubts were being expressed about the likelihood of such an achievement ever being repeated. The longer the present run lasts the stronger this feeling will become.
