Derby fallers have hardest landing

What's it all about Alfie?

It's all about the United match, he replied.

That was a month ago, Alfie continued. All they've been asking about for the past three or four weeks is the derby game, he said.

Alfie Haaland, sometimes verbose captain of Manchester City, was speaking last week. Alfie was trying to encapsulate for the uninitiated what derby-day football means to players, clubs and, most of all, supporters.

Alfie got it wrong on Friday with his lame attempt at riling Roy Keane over his prawn sandwich comment, and Keane got his revenge by shaking hands with the City mascot rather than the opposition captain before kick-off. But Alfie got it right when he mentioned the length of time people in Manchester had had their thoughts on Saturday morning's renewal of the Mancunian derby.

Anyone who has spent any time in Manchester, or Sunderland or Newcastle for that matter, over the past few weeks has witnessed the helium rising in the big bouncy balloon known as the local derby. It is a football phenomenon, a heart-based fuel.

It may even be the greenest in the world, but while the planet hurtles alarmingly toward atmospheric oblivion you won't hear complaints from football fans unless it interferes with our little stratosphere. Well, at least not until the derby's over. It's what it's all about, isn't it Alfie?

And now it is over, in Manchester, and Sunderland and Newcastle, even if just for a little while. But elsewhere balloons are rising. In Glasgow next Sunday Rangers host Celtic in a fixture that has not been undermined by its relative frequency when compared to the famous derbies in England. When the singing starts, it will not matter what Messrs O'Neill and Advocaat have said.

And when the Glasgow skirmish ends the derby magnet will drift south again. To Sheffield where soon United will entertain Wednesday, and to Bristol. Also before Christmas Arsenal will visit George Graham at White Hart Lane and on the day Manchester United play Liverpool at Old Trafford, in another part of Lancashire one of the most fierce rivalries of them all will be enacted when Blackburn Rovers travel to Burnley. That's a hard hat kind of day.

Burnley is a strange town, once memorably described by the poet John Cooper Clarke as: "The kind of place where people still point at aeroplanes." He was not wrong. Having on occasion socialised with members of the Burnley supporters' club, it can be confirmed that Burnley fans do indeed refer to their neighbours as Bastard Rovers. And only that. Blackburn is 10 miles from Burnley - on the traffic signs in both towns the "1" is permanently erased. It's football's nil by mouth.

Burnley's potential is enormous and with both sides going well in the First Division you can bet they will already be planning the day's "entertainment" in Burnley's bleak town centre. It will be the pair's first league meeting since 1982.

Burnley's rise and Blackburn's fall has made it possible just as Wednesday's decline is responsible for their derby return. Similarly Port Vale's relegation last season saw them re-acquainted with neighbours Stoke City. It's a sort of concrete cushion for the fallen.

Alfie Haaland and Alan Shearer may well have shared one on Saturday night. Haaland's foul led to the free-kick that David Beckham swerved into Manchester City's top corner. Shearer, who said watching the corresponding game with Sunderland last season from the bench was: "The worst moment of my career," could well have been reviewing that opinion when striking a late penalty too close to Thomas Sorensen.

"Shearer, Shearer," sang the Sunderland fans mockingly as scuffles broke out around the stadium. Beckham, meanwhile, was counting the pound coins City's cowardly fans had thrown at him. Two England captains, two very different derby days.

Joe Royle got it about right when saying that City supporters probably felt relief at not being routed but Bobby Robson had no such consolation. Saturday was the 67-yearold's first Tyne-Wear derby and after it Bobby went into a sparse monologue that would have depressed TS Eliot.

"I'm as happy as Larry," said wor Bobby, his face sagging into his suit. "I'm feeling very sad." Big sigh. "I'm very low about it." Bigger sigh. "I feel miserable, yeah, absolutely miserable. You think this is tea, don't you?" He stared into his cup. "It's the uncertainty. But it's not the end of our season. We're still in the FA Cup."

So are Man City. On derby day, that's the sort of rope the losers reach for. Give 'em enough.