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



Sinner Gets Out of Jail to Reach Last Eight as Dimitrov Retires at Wimbledon

Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 7, 2025 Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov leaves the court with Italy's Jannik Sinner after he retires injured from their round of 16 match. (Reuters)
Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 7, 2025 Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov leaves the court with Italy's Jannik Sinner after he retires injured from their round of 16 match. (Reuters)
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Sinner Gets Out of Jail to Reach Last Eight as Dimitrov Retires at Wimbledon

Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 7, 2025 Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov leaves the court with Italy's Jannik Sinner after he retires injured from their round of 16 match. (Reuters)
Wimbledon - All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, Britain - July 7, 2025 Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov leaves the court with Italy's Jannik Sinner after he retires injured from their round of 16 match. (Reuters)

Top seed Jannik Sinner struggled with an elbow problem and was given an almighty scare before advancing to the quarter-finals of Wimbledon after a cruel twist of fate for his 19th-seeded opponent Grigor Dimitrov who retired injured at two sets up.

Novak Djokovic continued his quest for Grand Slam glory at the All England Club with a battling victory over Alex de Minaur while five-times major champion Iga Swiatek found her grasscourt wings to fly past Clara Tauson.

The drama was reserved for the evening clash on Centre Court as Dimitrov, who had pulled out injured in his last four majors, played exquisite tennis to go up 6-3 7-5 2-2 but then crashed to the ground after a big ace to hold serve.

Sinner, who had been hampered for much of the contest by a right elbow issue after slipping and falling to the turf early on, was left feeling sorry for his opponent who threw in the towel after a short assessment by a doctor.

"I don't know what to say because he's an incredible player. I think we all saw this today," said Sinner, who was by a tearful Dimitrov's side while the Bulgarian was attended to.

"He's been so unlucky in the past couple of years. He's an incredible player, a good friend of mine also, and we understand each other very well off the court too.

"Seeing him in this position... if there would be a chance that he could play in the next round, he would deserve it. Now I hope he has a speedy recovery. Very, very unlucky from his side.

"I don't take this as a win at all... just an unfortunate moment to witness for all of us."

Sinner later told reporters he would have an MRI scan to check his own injury.

"It happened very early in the match, first game. It was quite an unfortunate fall. We checked the videos a bit, and it didn't seem a tough one, but I still felt it quite a lot, especially serve and forehand," he added.

"So let's see... tomorrow we are going to check with MRI to see if there's something serious and then we try to adjust it."

Sinner next faces American 10th seed Ben Shelton, who beat another Italian in Lorenzo Sonego 3-6 6-1 7-6(1) 7-5 to advance to the quarter-finals at Wimbledon for the first time, as did Flavio Cobolli, who downed Marin Cilic 6-4 6-4 6-7(4) 7-6(3).

ROCKY ROAD

Djokovic marched into the Wimbledon last eight for the 16th time but the Serbian trod a rocky road before defeating De Minaur 1-6 6-4 6-4 6-4 to keep alive his quest for a 25th major title to surpass Margaret Court.

Watched from the Royal Box by another great in Roger Federer, the man whose record eight All England Club trophies Djokovic is trying to equal, the sixth seed surrendered the first set in 31 minutes before roaring back to win.

"We did catch up very shortly," Djokovic said of his meeting with Federer afterwards.

"We greeted each other. He congratulated me and said it was a great match. That's all. It was a very short greeting, but it was really nice to have him around.

"He's one of the greatest legends of our game. So it always is extra special when he's on the stands. I'm glad to break the curse and win in front of him. It's a big relief."

Federer's fellow Swiss and former doubles partner Belinda Bencic made her first Wimbledon quarter-final in nine attempts after dismissing 18th-seeded Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-6(4) 6-4 in a little under two hours on a breezy Court One.

The 28-year-old Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion shed tears of joy after she finally broke the fourth-round barrier 15 months since giving birth to her daughter Bella and she said she was surprised at her high level.

"I'm really happy about it. Of course, I try not to think about it. I feel great on the practice court. When I was coming back, that's why I felt like I came back earlier than expected, than I expected for myself," Bencic said.

"I'm also surprised about how fast the results are coming."

She will need all her battling qualities when she takes on seventh seed Mirra Andreeva, the Russian teenager who made short work of American 10th seed Emma Navarro 6-2 6-3 on her Centre Court debut with her idol Federer still in attendance.

Swiatek shrugged off a slow start to beat Danish 23rd seed Tauson 6-4 6-1 and set up a meeting with Liudmila Samsonova, who saw off Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 7-5 7-5.