A controversial 2-1 defeat at Bolton dropped CSTB faves Queens Park Rangers to 22nd in the EPL, and if the season were to end today, the Stupor Hoops would find themselves relegated to the Championship next season. Of course, the season won’t end today, and that’s the crux of Guardian scribe Martin Kelner’s argument, that the BBC’s Match Of The Day, “may have gone a little too early with its annual Agony of Relegation from the Premier League show.
In the match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers, there were rather too many cutaways of Wolves fans in the stands, looking depressed and anxious, biting nails and so on, followed by the obligatory shot of fans trooping disconsolately out of the ground five minutes from the end. We also had a short sequence of angry fans outside the ground voicing their discontent with the owners. This stuff should be left till the last day.
MOTD will have nowhere to go, when relegation actually occurs, unless they are fortunate enough to get the money shot: a male fan, too heartbroken to move, sitting head bowed, in an empty stand, his girlfriend extending a consolatory arm around his shoulders. It also works the other way around: a weeping female fan, her quivering boyfriend trying to stay strong for her. Extra points for the director if either is attractive. I should like to think we are not too far away from the Brokeback version of this scene, a civil ceremony if you like: two men lovingly consoling each other – not in an alcohol-fuelled-I-bloody-love-you-mate way – on relegation day. That could be a giant step towards ridding our national sport of homophobia.