Losing with such dignity a lesson to big four

Her agitation was misplaced. This was not Manchester besieged by Scottish marauders. These were not the mutual hatred societies from Old Trafford and Anfield come to spew bile, throw punches and spit venom at each other on a May Saturday in London.

Family affair: Cardiff fans welcome the team home

This was the throwback final, a reminder of a more civilised age. There was no swearing, no shouting, just animated conversation between two sets of supporters about the sporting event they had just witnessed and the great day out they were enjoying.

When the train pulled into Marylebone Station a man of Cardiff helped the old lady with her bag and her walking stick, while two lads from Portsmouth steadied her descent to the platform. As she thanked them, they all shook hands before heading off into the West End for their celebrations.

As of late yesterday there were no reports of Piccadilly, unlike its Manchester namesake last Wednesday, being reduced to rubble. Nor any word of policemen being hunted down by drunken packs of wolfmen and kicked senseless in gutters awash with urine.

For a few days at least — until we observe how the followers of Manchester United and Chelsea comport themselves in Moscow — this Anglo-Welsh reunion has reclaimed the moral high ground in the battle against football hooliganism.

That had been occupied by the Scots through the years since they came to their spontaneous consensus to shame the rioting English by behaving decently on their travels abroad. That image has been broken by the drunken violence which erupted in Manchester city centre as 100,000 Rangers fanatics came from Glasgow, many of them in the manner of Vikings on the pillage.

The knockdown effects of that invasion extend beyond the copper who feared he would be killed. If United beat Chelsea in Wednesday's Champions League Final they will have to wait a month for their open-top bus tour while the police regroup and re-examine their crowd control procedures.

Spare a thought, also, for manager Walter Smith, his assistant Ally McCoist and their Rangers players. There was more disgrace in those street scenes than in that UEFA Cup Final defeat. So we have to consider that it was an ensuing weariness of the spirit — as much as fatigue of the body — which resulted in the draw at Motherwell on Saturday which is likely to let Celtic knock the Scottish championship leg out from under their collapsing bid for the quadruple.

Meanwhile, we English should be wary of pointing too many selfrighteous fingers northwards. Football here remains in dangerous denial of the hooligan undercurrent which still menaces the game.

Those of us who lived and agonised through the dark-age years which culminated in the fatal tragedies of Heysel and Hillsborough despair at the repetitive dismissal of each fresh outbreak of violence as the work of 'a small minority of thugs'.

As one Manchester police spokesperson unwittingly gave the game away last week: "This was a mindless minority of only several thousand Glasgow supporters."

As this country plummets into a swamp of stabbings, shootings and muggings in which booze-sodden girls participate as eagerly as feral gangs of young men, it is no surprise when football mirrors our society. As not just several thousand, but tens of thousands, of Chelsea and United fans head for Moscow they protest against plans to herd them from their planes into alcohol-free holding pens near the stadium for several hours before kick-off, then bussed back to the airports in the dead of Wednesday night.

And woe betide any who defy the riot police by breaking out and getting plastered in and around Red Square. No giant screens there, working or not. Given what the Russian authorities witnessed — the stabbing of one of their nationals included — when their team from St Petersburg beat Rangers in Manchester, who can blame them for their zero-tolerance approach? They are not hosting an Olde Curiosity Shoppe Final.

Not that Saturday was quite that quaint. The Pompey end booed the Cardiff singing of Land Of Our Fathers. The Welsh retaliated by whistling throughout God Save The Queen. Those blemishes apart, the atmosphere was so rich in sportsmanship and courteous in its enthusiasm as to be nigh-on Corinthian. Not until the commercial suits ran on to the pitch at the end, outnumbering players, did we remember that this was the final of 2008, not 1939. Even then, the Cardiff congregation remained in communion with guest of honour Sir Bobby Robson as they applauded both laps of honour. The Big Four should have been here after all, to see how to lose with dignity.

The least Cardiff deserved was extra-time. The team assembled on a shoestring by David Jones attacked from kick-off and were fitter and hungrier throughout.

Mid-Premier League class made it 'Arry's Day in the end — but only with the help of Peter Enckelman's butterfingers teeing up Kanu for the winner. This season, Calamity has been transferred from David James to keepers at the other end.

Nostalgia visited this new stadium as Pompey's chimes rang out, yet even in their manager's happiest hour it was not impossible to believe that Harry Redknapp really had contemplated retirement. Nothing is more certain than a major European club inviting the gifted Lassana Diarra — the real co-man of the match along with Cardiff centre back Roger Johnson — to exercise his getaway clause.

Had Sol Campbell been caught out of position by a quality finisher as often as he was by Paul Parry, Portsmouth would have lost . . . and the captain is not alone in feeling Father Time tapping on his shoulder.

For the moment, though, Portsmouth, like Cardiff, can content themselves with our thanks for a charming occasion which restored our faith not only in the dear old FA Cup but also in football itself. The gratitude of a sweet old lady on a train included.

Drug war lords deserve apology

THE Labour party, in line with their anti-toff smear campaign in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, were infuriated when Tory peers Lord Coe and Lord Moynihan were given joint control of Britain's Olympic future as head of London 2012 and chairman of the British Olympic Association, respectively.

Now, if they truly are against drugs in sport, those members of government who were most prejudiced against those appointments should send their apologies.

Colin Moynihan is vowing to fight in the High Court, no matter what the cost, to uphold the ban preventing convicted drugs cheat Dwain Chambers from sprinting at the Beijing Games, no matter how many unsavoury beans he spills.

Seb Coe has persuaded the IAAF not to say anything which might undermine that position, even though the ruling body of world athletics does not endorse this country's by-law which imposes lifetime suspensions from the Olympics.

No or Yes, Prime Minister, to the war on drugs?

Justine's pain game

FIVE years ago we chanced upon an even more elfin Justine Henin as she slaved away at the tennis game which would eventually wrest seven Grand Slam titles from the heavy grasp of the lady boomers of the Centre Courts.

Forget the image of the dour, intense Belgian. My son was one of several boys from his school attending a coaching course at Henin's base in Florida. After several hours of trying to belt that amazing backhand ever harder, she still invited him on court to hit with her. Later, a true tomboy, she joined the lads in an impromptu football game.

Justine also talked about the immense physical stress to which it was necessary to subject her slender 5ft 5in frame if she was to build up her power sufficiently to challenge the Williams sisters and the other Amazons of women's tennis.

So take it from us, when Ms Henin retired abruptly last week, at only 25 years of age, it was not because she is a spoiled little rich girl nor, even, as a result of her difficult family history. Physically, although the defence of her championship on the claycourts of her spiritual home in Paris is imminent, she cannot take any more. It is not her age which is tender, it is every muscle and bone in her body.

SO Kevin Pietersen, having abandoned his native South Africa for the green and richer playing fields of England, is now forcing the ECB to let him earn a fortune in India's Bollywood Twenty20 League, next Ashes series or no Ashes series. No mercenary our Kevin, then.

THE onus is always on an independent chairman to demonstrate his knowledge of the subject. Thus we wait for Lord Triesman, the new head honcho of the Football Association, to speak up in support of UEFA president Michel Platini's campaign to put an end to cradlesnatching by requiring the young prodigies of the game to sign their first professional contracts with the clubs who teach and develop them. That, of course, will require Triesman to upset the most powerful clubs, Arsene Wenger's Arsenal notable among them, who get even richer by poaching kids like Cesc Fabregas. Over to you, your Lordship.

AT last, a shaft of sanity in high places. In the case of the Blade Runner, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has come to the blindingly obvious conclusion that a man with no legs does not hold an advantage over athletes blessed with both legs.

So Oscar Pistorius, after being banned from able-bodied competition, can get back qualifying to run the 400metres for South Africa in the Beijing Olympics on his prosthetic limbs.

And handicapped heroes everywhere are further encouraged to achieve feats which the more fortunate of us can only watch in humble admiration.