Grease Me Up Woman!

I just cleaned my kitchen. Hands and knees kind of stuff, scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing. Ugh, still not spotless.

Anyway, to things that matter. Last day of play in the English Premiership. That's their football league. That would be soccer. All 20 teams are going at it. Chelsea have already clinched the title, but it is the battle for fourth that makes this a cracking day. Tottenham Hotspur are one point ahead of Arsenal. Both these teams are from North London, they hate each other. Fourth place is the last spot for the Champions League, Europe's premier footie comp, big bucks, best teams in Europe playing each other. Here's the current scenario...

Tottenham win Arsenal win 4th for Tottenham
Tottenham win Arsenal draw 4th for Tottenham
Tottenham win Arsenal lose 4th for Tottenham
Tottenham draw Arsenal win 4th for Arsenal
Tottenham draw Arsenal draw 4th for Tottenham
Tottenham draw Arsenal lose 4th for Tottenham
Tottenham lose Arsenal win 4th for Arsenal
Tottenham lose Arsenal draw 4th for Arsenal
Tottenham lose Arsenal lose 4th for Tottenham

So Tottenham is obviously in the driver's seat. But there are yet more wrinkles. Tottenham is playing West Ham, a team from East London that is playing in the FA Cup final soon, yet another competition English footie teams are involved in. West Ham has nothing to play for in the league and everything to play for in the cup final. They have said they may rest key players for the cup, fielding a weaker team against Tottenham. Advantage Totts. But Arsenal is playing in this year's Champions League final, against Barcelona in Paris. Whoever wins the CL automatically gets a spot in next year's competition. Not only that, if the winning team would not have automatically qualified for next year's CL based on domestic league play, said team takes the spot of the lowest team to qualify from the same domestic league, which would be Totteham if Arsenal doesn't get fourth and the automatic league spot. Advantage the Arse.

You want more drama? This is the last game at Highbury, Arsenal's venerable North London stadium. They have played there since 1913. It is smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood, surrounded by houses. Expansion would have been impossible, so the club decided to move down the road to a new, larger stadium. It doesn't come close, but think of this as game seven of the World Series, Yankees versus Mets, in the last game to be played at Yankee Stadium. Emotional stuff there.

In other news, the battle for second place is also up for grabs between old rivals Manchester United and Liverpool. MUFC is one point ahead of LFC. Second place means automatic qualification for the Champions League while third place means you qualify for the preliminary CL rounds. Win those and you're in the CL proper.

So here are your up to the minute halftime English footie updates, home team listed first...
North London's Arsenal FC 2-2 northwest England's Wigan Athletic FC
East London's West Ham United FC 1-1 North London's Tottenham Hotspur FC
southern England's Portsmouth FC 0-0 northwest England's Liverpool FC
northwest England's Manchester United FC 3-0 South London's Charlton Athletic FC

all in all, a cracking day of footie