Best Title Race Ever? Klopp Forgets Huddersfield’s Battle with Cardiff

Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
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Best Title Race Ever? Klopp Forgets Huddersfield’s Battle with Cardiff

Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)
Sergio Aguero celebrates a goal for Manchester City against Liverpool in the Premier League in January. (Reuters)

“It is,” Jürgen Klopp said, “the most exciting season for years.” We’ll be the judge of that, sunshine. The strangest thing about Klopp’s assertion, leaving its veracity to one side for the moment, was that he said it at the start of November, when every team in the Premier League still had 28 games to play. It was like declaring a fresh if vigorous shoot in the vegetable patch the finest carrot in the land, when it might still fail to flourish or be consumed by pests – and there remains an outside chance that it’s a parsnip.

Five months later teams seem to have taken control of the title races in three of the four divisions of the English league, and two have already been relegated from the top flight. One domestic cup final was goalless and in the other one Manchester City will play a side they routinely, reliably and predictably beat. But for as long as the key battle at the top of the Premier League remains undecided, the season remains undefined. It may yet come to be remembered as a good season, perhaps even a great one. The all-time title, however, is already taken.

Precisely 95 years ago a match was played that was to decide the tightest title chase of all time, a match still talked about today – mainly by certain history-obsessed Cardiff City fans, but nevertheless. It says something about the changes seen to the world of sporting journalism over the last near-century that the Guardian’s report on this game ran to precisely 70 words, just over a ninth of the space dedicated that day to lacrosse. The Times gave it 77 words, not quite the same as the ones in the Guardian but suspiciously similar, in a page dominated by a lengthy report on the first day’s play at the Public Schools Rackets Championship.

On this weekend in 1924, as this year Cardiff played Burnley on the Saturday. Unlike this year they were playing not to avoid relegation but for ultimate glory, and they had to play again on the Monday against the team with which they were destined to end the season tied at the top of the table. “It was an exciting game,” we reported, “but the importance of the occasion overcame the forwards when they got within shooting range with the result that nothing was scored.” Or, as the Times had it, “It was a hard-fought game, in which it was apparent that the players realized its importance, with the result that there was too much eagerness shown, especially near goal.”

There was, inevitably, a little more to it than that. The Western Mail declared it “probably the most momentous league match every to be played at Ninian Park”, but crucially the Cardiff forward pairing of Jimmy Gill and Len Davies failed to rise to the occasion. Each had one golden chance, and spurned it. Davies “seemed undecided what to do, and then half-heartedly drove in a left-foot shot which went at least two yards wide,” wrote the Western Mail, while Gill “appeared to lose all self-control and timidly shot for goal”.

The Welsh newspaper declared “that the City were the better side is beyond dispute”. Leeds Mercury, based a little closer to Huddersfield, said that “Huddersfield, after more than holding their own, deserved a point”, while the Yorkshire Post said that “Huddersfield’s defense was perfect … their work was more methodical in every department and it would be hard to find one weak spot”.

The result left Huddersfield and Cardiff level on points, but the Terriers had two games in hand. The Western Mail wrote that it would “require all the optimism their supporters can command to believe that the City have not thrown away their last chance of securing the title”. As it turned out, however, they would have the chance to throw away one more.

Huddersfield having profoundly fluffed those games in hand on the final day, Cardiff traveled to Birmingham knowing they would win the league if they at least matched the Terriers’ result. “It is no exaggeration to remark that seldom have the closing stages of a season produced more excitement,” gushed the Observer. “Cardiff’s 11th-hour recovery has placed them well in the running again, until now it might almost be said that they will be just a little unlucky to lose.”

By the time the final whistle sounded there could be no doubt about it. During the second half at St. Andrew’s, the scores still level, Gill headed a corner towards goal and the Birmingham goalkeeper was stranded. The ball soared towards the net, nothing now standing between Cardiff and victory – except the Birmingham full-back Eli Ashurst, who dived full length to punch it clear. It was cheating of the cruelest kind. Davies’ penalty was saved, and the only genuine chance of the league title that Cardiff have ever had went with it. Huddersfield won 3-0 and pipped their rivals to the title by virtue of a goal average superior by 0.024 of a goal – had they scored just one goal fewer all season, or Cardiff one goal more, all would have been different. And it wasn’t even the most closely-contested significant league position of the season, or even the day.

That afternoon in Derby, the home side knew they had to beat Leicester by five goals to vault Bury, whose season was already over, and steal promotion to the top flight. They were three up at half-time but could muster only one more and thus missed out, their goal average inferior by 0.015.

This February, with at least 11 matches remaining, Robbie Fowler called the battle between Liverpool and Manchester City “the best title race in living memory”. That is a lot of title races to dismiss with one sweeping and almost certainly under-researched generalization, but the current campaign does have one thing in its favor that no other season in sporting history can claim: we don’t know how it ends yet.

The Guardian Sport



Lando Norris Wins, Nico Hulkenberg Makes History at British GP

McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain celebrates winning the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the at the Silverstone Circuit racetrack, Britain, 06 July 2025.  EPA/PETER POWELL .
McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain celebrates winning the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the at the Silverstone Circuit racetrack, Britain, 06 July 2025. EPA/PETER POWELL .
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Lando Norris Wins, Nico Hulkenberg Makes History at British GP

McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain celebrates winning the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the at the Silverstone Circuit racetrack, Britain, 06 July 2025.  EPA/PETER POWELL .
McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain celebrates winning the Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the at the Silverstone Circuit racetrack, Britain, 06 July 2025. EPA/PETER POWELL .

McLaren's Lando Norris won his first British Grand Prix -- his home-country event -- in a race that had no shortage of twists and turns.

Beginning under dry skies that soon turned rainy at Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire, England, the race also saw Germany's Nico Hulkenberg finish third. For the 37-year-old Kick Sauber driver, it was his first podium in 239 Formula One starts.

And the second-place finisher, McLaren's Oscar Piastri, put himself in great position when he passed polesitter Max Verstappen of Red Bull, but that all changed when Piastri was penalized 10 seconds for coming out of a safety car restart too slowly.

And for Brit Lewis Hamilton, the defending champion, it was a fourth-place finish at his home grand prix. It marked his first finish off the podium after 12 consecutive podiums at the event, with his late push falling short, Reuters reported.

Verstappen finished fifth, falling out of the top three following a spin off the course.

Norris won in one hour, 37 minutes and 15.735 seconds, finishing 6.812 seconds ahead of his Australian McLaren teammate.

Hulkenberg held off Hamilton by just over five seconds.

As expected, two of the top three finishers were overjoyed in their post-match comments -- with one not so much.

"It is beautiful. Apart from a championship, this is as good as it gets in terms of feelings," Norris said of the win in England. "Incredible race, stressful as always but the support from the fans made the difference so I have to thank them.

"The main thing is don't it up, that is rule number one. It might never happen again. Hope it does, but these are memories I'll have forever."

Hulkenberg was equally jubilant, especially since he started 19th on the grid.
"It's been a long time coming hasn't it?! What a race, coming from virtually last. ... Crazy conditions, survival mode all race. We were really on it, no mistakes," he said.

"Today, I was in denial until the last pit stop and then I heard we gapped Lewis so I thought OK, breathing space but then he was closing. The pressure was there, intense race but we didn't crack."

Piastri declined to go into details after the penalty, which he served at a pit.
"I'm not going to say much, I'll get myself in trouble," he said. "Congrats to Nico, that's the story.

"Apparently you can't brake behind the safety car anymore. I had done it for five laps before but I'm not going to say more, I'm going to get myself in trouble. I still like Silverstone even if I don't like it today."