The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 229

www.observer.co.uksport 12 May 2002 The Observer MmmsMinig tonacM takes Stolk imp 0 2 Iwelumo, the ball fell kindly for Burton, whose shot on the turn took a deflection on its way in. On the stroke of half-time, a low, curling free-kick into the goalmouth by the manager's son, Bjarni Gudjonsson, took two deflections, the second a decisive one off Burgess to give Stoke much-needed breathing space. Burgess, whose prolific, season-long partnership with Owusu never really prospered here, had earlier driven over a chance to give Brentford the lead after excellent work by Stephen Hunt, and his miserable afternoon was completed by a 70th-minute substitution that brought the introduction of Mark McCam-mon. A McCammon header which Neil Cutler scrambled away, tame finishes by Evans and Owusu, and some moments when the Stoke area resembled a pinball machine undermined Brentford's second-half supremacy. These misses enabled Stoke to become the first side to return to that south dressing room as winners, an achievement doubly satisfying after their victory over Cardiff City at Ninian Park that took them through to the final.

Coppell said: 'We gave away two terrible goals. Dealing with set pieces has been one of the keys to our success this season. But none of our players can feel disappointed by what they have done. If one of our chances had gone in, it could have been a different story because we were on the front foot and they were on the back Thordarson added: 'I have sympathy for Steve and his team. We have twice gone close and know how much it hurts.

But we stayed firm and focused at the back when they were coming forward at us and I have to give credit to my defenders and goalkeeper. Brentford's response to going behind came from Steve Sidwell, whose waist-high volley from the edge of the penalty box was a foot too high. An equally commendable effort was delivered by Gunnlaugsson, who shook off Evans and cut inside before firing just over the angle of crossbar and post. There was little to choose between the teams until the own goal by Burgess, which left Brentford with a mountain to climb. That they made every effort in the second half was an indication of how Brentford had more than matched clubs with far greater resources throughout the campaign.

Whether they go on to build on that or slip back into mid-table mediocrity remains to be seen. Brentford: Smith Anderson, Ingimarsson, Powell, DDbson, Evans, Rowlands (K O'Connor 78), Hunt, Sidwell, Owusu, Burgess (McCammon 70). Subs not used: Gottskalks-son, Boxall, Theobald. Stoke: Cutler, Clarke, Handyside, Shtaniuk, Thomas, Gudjonsson, O'Connor, Dinning (Brightweil 85), Gunnlaugsson (Vandeurzen 74), Burton, Iwelumo (Cooke 57). Subs not used: Oulane, Wander.

Referee: Laws (Whitley Bay). Brentford Stoke City Burton 16, Burgess 45og att: 42,523 Stuart Barnes at The Millennium Stadium FOR STOKE, THE First Division place their status, stadium and support deserves. For homespun Brentford, a disappointing end to a rousing season in which they exceeded all expectations by going so far. Deon Burton's deflected opener followed by an own goal by the unfortunate Ben Burgess at a particularly crucial time settled a play-off final after which Steve Coppell's side can claim, with some justification, that it was never going to be their day. Stoke rode their good fortune to wipe away memories of two successive semifinal defeats and end the curse of the Millennium Stadium's south dressing room in a lively game matched by some no-nonsense comments from Coppell and his opposite number Gudjon Thordarson about their respective futures.

You would expect the uncertainty over Thordarson to have been lifted by this victory. But the impression gained from listening to him afterwards was that things were just as clouded and confused. 'I would love to stay with Stoke, but things need to Division One: be sorted out he said. 'If I get the right contract in front of me, I will sign it. If not, I tell you I will not be out of a job for long.

I have delivered and I have nothing to prove. My players have delivered and made me a proud man. Now they the owners must Coppell, who has been linked to the manager's job at Brighton vacated by Peter Taylor, insisted that his future 'was not an issue for today', but in a direct reference to the direction in which Ron Noades and his board are now planning to take Brentford, he declared: 'I will see what they are going to do. I would like to be part of a club that is Leading scorer Lloyd Owusu and the captain Paul Evans could also be on the move, with new Wales cap Evans declaring last night: 'I have given my all for Brentford and if I move on somewhere higher, the fans will respect Coppell and Evans both argued that the bounce of the ball in vital areas inevitably favoured Stoke and it was hard to disagree with them. When Arnar Gunnlaugsson's corner was flicked on by Chris Crucial blow: Stoke's second, an own goal from Brentford's Ben Burgess, shortly before half-time.

Photograph by Stu FosterGetty Images Hunger for success evident at the two clubs vying for a Premiership place Delia's Bruce's blue-chip stock pays dividends wiiuim Jason Tomas says the manager's work ethic has boosted Birmingham City recipe Delia Smith is more into Norwich City than cooking. She tells Will Buckley why in today's play through injury, have also owed much to other central defenders Darren Purse and the extravagantly gifted Olivier Tebily, bought by Bruce from Celtic in March for 700,000. In the 1-0 semi-final play-off win at Millwall, Tebily, pushed into a midfield man-for-man marking job on Tim Cahill, caught the eye more than Vickers did in his duel with Dion Dublin. But Bruce does seem to feel a special affinity with the veteran. Birmingham's coach, Mark Bowen, who also worked with Bruce at Palace and is one of four ex-Norwich City players Birmingham Norwich ITVl, 3.30pm Match odds: Birmingham 4-6 Norwich 11-10 This Norwich Orl Birmingham Birmingham 4rQ Norwich Barber (Tring) at St Andrew's (apart from Bruce, the others are general manager John Benson and reserve-team coach Keith Bertschin), says: 'Steve Vickers is a tremendous professional.

As far as his performances are concerned, you know that you are going to get seven out of 10 from him week in, week out. Also, he lives and trains in the right way. If there is any messing around on the training field, you can bet that he will be one of the first to sort it That in itself is enough to make Bruce and Vickers kindred spirits. 'One reason why the players have responded to the manager concerns his standards in off in Cardiff Bowen says. 'Players do feel more comfortable when they are told what to do and when to do it.

If things get slack, and there are too many grey areas, they don't like As an example of the hard work they have put in under Bruce's management, Bowen adds: 'When the gaffer and I came here, the average fat content among our players was 14 per cent Now, with the help of a nutritionist, it is 10.8 per It could be argued that a psychologist in the dressing room would also come in handy for Birmingham today. After all, the pressure on them to start punching their weight after so long in the doldrums is now more intense than ever following their defeats in the promotion play-off semi-finals in each of the past three seasons. IT IS A pressure that Bruce seems to relish. 'There's always been something inside me driving me he says. 'I don't know what it is, but I have never stopped wanting to be a This, indeed, was first mirrored by his uncompromising leadership as captain of Norwich's successful team in the mid-1980s.

Norwich's much-maligned ex-chairman Robert Chase once claimed that his unpopular decision to sack manager Ken Brown stemmed partly from a conversation he overheard between Brown and Bruce. According to Chase, a run of bad results was followed by Bruce suggesting to Brown that he could not be relied upon to pinpoint the problems. Chase interpreted this as evidence of the manager having 'lost his way'. Brown was one of the most popular figures in the game and his 'nice guy' image was one that Bruce can hardly be said to have matched, at least among Crystal Palace supporters. But, of course, the encouraging thought in all this for Birmingham today is that old adage about 'nice guys' not finishing first.

STEVE BRUCE, THE Birmingham City manager who is still sensitive about the public perception of him as a result of his walk-out at Crystal Palace, says: "Now is not the time to give my side of the story, but I think I will one Still, whatever the truth behind Bruce's acrimonious departure from Selhurst Park, it already represents a Palace horror story and one that will inevitably become almost intolerable if Birmingham clinch a Premiership place. The pain for Palace followers since Bruce's change of clubs has not been caused just by him. Someone else who could be said to have a lot to answer for is Steve Vickers -the 34-year-old centre-half who was with Bruce at Palace, on loan from Middlesbrough, and who is reckoned to have been the catalyst in the manager's relationship with the chairman, Simon Jordan, reaching breaking point. Bruce, pinpointing Vickers as the figure who could only enhance Palace's promotion chances, wanted to buy him when his loan spell ended, but Jordan baulked at Middlesbrough's 400,000 asking price. Bruce persuaded Birmingham to secure Vickers's services, and it has paid off.

Birmingham looked shaky at the back when Vickers arrived in November, and his first match was a 4-0 defeat by Sheffield United. But Vickers soon helped put things right. Only seven goals were conceded in his next 12 League games, which yielded seven Birmingham wins and three draws and provided the basis for their stirring rise from the middle of the table. Birmingham, with Vickers having recently spent around two months out of action VMwJ L4IA 3 LAST NIGHT DELIA SMITH enjoyed a 'girlie evening' in an Italian restaurant in Cardiff with 24 footballers' wives from her club, Norwich City. 'They are all very beautiful and says Smith.

It's a programme format you could build a Saturday-night schedule around: How to Cook meets Footballers' Wives. The country's most popular cookery writer dispenses foodie tips while two dozen Chardonnays glam about knocking back the Pinot Grigio. A lazy listings writer might bill the programme as Mother Hen or, rather, Mother Turkey-Hen we're talking Norfolk, after all eats out with the chicks. But such a billing would be misleading. All the attempts to portray Smith as the apogee of bland don't really stack up.

'We'd like to become a modern club, like Charlton' Anthony Worrall Thompson described her as the Volvo of cooking because she was reliable but dull. But then Worrall Thompson being unreliable but dull is the stock car of cooking. Gary Rhodes had a pop at her for having the temerity to teach people how to boil an egg but the only time I ate in one of Rhodes's restaurants, it transpired after a long 90 minutes that his stand-in chef couldn't break an egg to make an omelette. With enemies like the Ken Bates and Nigel Kennedy of telly-chefdom you're bound to make friends. Smith's popularity has soared, the others are reduced to hassling their agents to see if there's a slot on Weakest Link Celebrity Chefs Special.

She will not be drawn, however, into commenting on her 'ritir s. limit ing herself to say-int sin1' 'quite fond of Anihony Wurmll Thompson'. That, one suspects, is similar to the Queen professing to be 'quite fond' of Fergie. Tonight, Smith will celebrate Norwich reaching the play-off final by 'taking the whole football club every member of staff to have a big party. Whatever the result'.

Win or lose, Delia's on the booze. And why not? Norwich sneaking round the back into the play-offs has been one of the pleasant surprises to a predictable end to the season. 'It's very, very says Smith. 'I haven't quite caught up with it. We've had ten years of failure and disappointment and this sudden switch to success has gone a bit ahead of She sounds more ditzy than dreary.

Smith started watching football 'when we won the World Cup in 1966. I met Michael Wynn Jones, her husband in 1969 and the first live match we went to was a home international and I saw the England World Cup team and George Best. The second live match was at the River End at She became a season-ticket holder 14 years ago. Four years later, 'when we were finally relegated, every single player of any talent had to be sold to pay off the debts incurred building the stands, and the youth development scheme was totally shut down. We were on the brink of bankruptcy.

It was so serious that the club might have closed. One of the directors asked us for a She was offered a seat on the board for half a million and parlayed it up to two seats for a million, one for her and one for husband Michael. Since then they have invested a further 5 million in the club. Norwich remain 8 million in debt. Some of these revenues have been generated by Smith taking over the catering, which includes five restaurants exclusively serving Smith recipes for 1,500 covers on match days.

Carrow Road comes with an 11-acre site attached, has big plans for Norwich City but first they must overcome play-oft this afternoon. Photograph by Andrew ParsonPA Wimbledon fans stage vigil Promotion on the menu: Delia Smith Birmingham City in the Division One which is already being developed. 'We've got outline planning permission for a residential river area, a leisure centre and a Smith says. Schemes that should 'eventually' provide Norwich with long-term security. THERE IS A chance, therefore, that should they beat Birmingham they will not be relegated next season.

'We'd like to become a modern football club like Charlton. We've long had Charlton as our she says. Whatever befalls the club, Smith is likely to spend more time on football than cooking. 'I'm now at the end of my cookery career and I enjoy the challenge of the football club. I'm still close to food but instead of writing recipes I'm feeding thousands.

'I don't get recognised in the street but I do at football clubs because they are expecting me and always give me a lovely welcome. Is there anything nicer than sitting around and talking about Had she accepted Tony Blair's offer of a peerage, she could have been doing her talking in the House of Lords and leading the campaign against Carlton and Granada. 'The poor have been persecuted in this by two very rich she says. She declined the offer, however, 'because I was doing three books of How to Cook, a time-consuming project which lasted for five years and they wanted working peers who could work three nights a week, so it wasn't physically possible. I would have enjoyed it, but I don't think the House of Lords is quite for Despite converting to Catholicism at the age of 22, she doesn't hang on to any lucky superstitions.

'If you start it never ends and you're on a road to nowhere. They are all irrelevant. I've seen it happen to people and it just goes beyond a joke. They are lifting up their trouser legs and showing you their lucky socks. And then the team loses.

But I have been tempted. You always get tempted. I wore a yellow rose once and we won. One of the nice things about Norwich is that it is famous for the mystic Julian who was brought up in the Carrow district. Her writings are very profound and Julian is famous for being the first woman to write a hook in English.

It was initially published towards the end of the fourteenth century and, unlike Delia's works, has yet to sell 15 million copies. WIMBLEDON FANS ARE to stage a vigil at the Football Association's Soho Square headquarters on Tuesday as a meeting inside decides whether the club are to go out of business on the anniversary of their 1988 FA Cup final success against Liverpool. An FA commission are to rule on whether Wimbledon, who are losing 20,000 a day, can relocate to Milton Keynes. Charles Koppel, the Wimbledon chairman, says the club will go under if permission is refused. The Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association want fans of all clubs to join the vigil, starting at 9am on Tuesday and continuing each day until a decision is reached, they say.

Wimbledon insist they have to end their ground-sharing arrangement with Crystal Palace and move to a new 30 million stadium in Milton Keynes, which the local council has offered to build. But most of the club's supporters believe the move will create a new club at Wimbledon's expense and that they should move back to their former home in Plough Lane, Merton. Wimbledon's season has been overshadowed by supporters' protests..