The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 25

The Guardian Monday May 31 1999 5 Sport iBiiiiiitliilli Nationwide play-offs Royle finale puts Manchester's Blue brigade up while Watford and Bolton wait in wings FircaDwaiyfoir Turnip to get back to top tixiomltosB DIM amos Roy Collins 5Q MtLOinTDI a manager, "which is something I feel I'm half-decent at, anyway." At Watford he is not Taylor, or Turnip Head, but plain Graham. "When I came back, it was 'Graham will sort itout, Graham will get it right'. It's nice that people thought that but I wanted to prove that I wasn't coming back to draw my pension. If Graham hadn't got it right, that is how it would have looked." Taylor led Watford from the old Fourth Division to the First in five seasons between 1977 and 1982, but three of those, he points out, were spent in the Second, where players of the ability of John Barnes, Nigel Callaghan and Jackett hardened themselves for life at the top. It would be a miracle if the current side could repeat their feat of going up and finishing runners-up to Liverpool in their first season.

In any case, the way Liverpool have been playing, finishing behind them might not guarantee staying in the Premiership. A football manager friend has advised Taylor that, if Watford win today, he should walk into the press conference, offer a Liam Gallagher finger salute, announce his retirement and walk out. It is not his way. He says: "I have to live with the failure to get England to the 1994 World Cup finals and at times that is difficult. You ask yourself, why did I get that wrong, how the hell did I get that wrong? Only I know what that is like." Today will be his first trip down Wembley Way as a manager since his final England game in September 1993, a 3-0 win over Poland.

There will be no ghosts, and certainly no fly-on-the-wall team in the dressing-room. He says: "There are two ways to go to Wembley. You either go as Watford did against Everton for the 1984 FA Cup final, just happy to be there. Or you go to win. In the days before Wembley, you're chasing your arses to, sort out your ticket allocation and get measured for your suits and before you know it the day is over and you've lost." Cynics will say that today's losers will save themselves from the humiliation of relegation next season.

Taylor admits that staying in the top flight is the hardest task in the game. "Even so, if Barnsley and Charlton and Watford don't have a chance of getting there, even if they become cannon fodder, then we are moving to a situation where football is a certainty." And even life is always 6-4 against. Live on Sky Sports 2 from 2pm. Highlights on ITV 1 1 phase of their return from ridicule and obscurity. "Of course there will be a blue party tonight, but it won't be that big," he said.

"We have to keep everything in perspective and remember that a club this size should never be in this division. Coming out of it is great but the celebration will be greater when we are back in the Premiership." So it was Gillingham who led their followers to the edge of the promised land only to leave them feeling empty. Although City passed the ball skilfully at times and relentlessly pushed the men from Kent deeper and deeper, Gillingham always looked capable of causing trouble on the break. So it transpired, shortly after Shaun Goater had struck the foot of an upright, that they countered quickly through Andy Hessenthaler and his midfield colleague Paul Smith. Carl Asaba, sweeping into the area, joined the attack for the second time and hit a rising shot beyond Nick Weaver.

When Asaba's backheel paved the way for Taylor to beat the goalkeeper at his near post it looked certain that Gillingham's first Wembley visit would end with a place in the top two divisions after a wait of 106 years. When Horiock put away his chance it was received with suppressed enthusiasm but five minutes later Gerard Wiekens's long punt was helped on by both Horiock and Goater for Dickov to keep a cool head and shoot past Vince Bartram, afor-mer team-mate at Arsenal and his best man to boot. Ultimately the best men on the day belonged to Manchester but it was a desperately close thing and your heart went out to Gillingham, whose manager Tony Pulis could not hide his disappointment at the decision to play those decisive extra 300 seconds. "Maybe a referee has affected a game of football again," he said, "but I would query the way we defended for their two goals. I'm upset for my players who gave everything but we have enough character in the club to bounce back next season." Manchester City (4-4-2): Weaver; Crooks (Taylor, 86rain), Morrison (Vaughan, 63), Wiekens, Edghill; Cooke, Brown (Bishop, 63), Whitley, Horiock; Dickov, Goater.

Gillingham (5-3-21: Bartram; Patterson (Hodge, 106), Ashby, Pennock, Butters, Soutfiall; Hessenthaler, Smith, Galloway (Saunders, 57); Asaba (Carr, 87), Taylor. Referee: Halsey (Welwyn Garden City). Joy and relief City's goalkeeper Nick Weaver celebrates after his second save in the shoot out Photograph: John Sibley makes Iron hearts Seeing that Watford manager Graham Taylor believes elitism is killing football, there was no small irony in his choice of venue for his final training session before today's First Division play-off final against Bolton. This was the grounds of Merchant Taylors' school (no relation), where parents of boarding boys pay 12,000 a year and from which Titus Oates was famously expelled. At first, there was neither sight nor sound of the overgrown schoolboys of Watford FC.

But then some 500 yards from the single football pitch rugger is more the game at Merchant Taylor's familiar ringing Northern tones gave away their position. Clearly fully recovered from the recent throat problem that reduced him to muteness, he is back in the environment that he loves best, encouraging young players into believing that they are only a heartbeat from competing against David Beckham and Dennis Bergkamp on equal terms. That is why, whatever happens at Wembley, Watford will continue to open their dressing-room door to kids who believe that, unlike at clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal, their first-team chance will come. It is an article of faith with Taylor, who says: "What I cannot allow to happen for the sake of greed is to bring in players for nine and 10 million pounds, find that they don't do it and that I've destroyed my youth policy. "By spending big, you might get something for a year.

But after that you get a big downward spiral and the kids saying, "What's the point of joining We've got to resist that and if that means we get into the Premiership and go lose, lose, lose, you need people around you who understand what this club is, who understand this club's place." At Watford, says Taylor, you need people who care club. That is why Luther Blissett, Kenny Jackett and Jimmy Gilli-gan, all players when Watford reached the First Division in 1982, are now working behind the scenes. And why Taylor is back, happy and rehabilitated after the pain and humiliation he suffered when he parted from England in 1993. The chairman Elton John persuaded him to return by telling him that "he felt I needed to get back into a situation where people would love me a little bit." But for all the love bites in his year as general manager, he re-alisedthathe still wanted to be Hi soar drive of the teenager Gareth Sheldon, who supplied an expert assist for Calvo-Garcia, meant that Scunthorpe always carried the' threat of further goals; But one proved enough. Leyton Orient did not start playing until the second half, when a sustained assault was denied for the want of a lucky break, and the assured hands of Tom Evans.

Their hopes had centred on the former French international Amara Simba, but like the rest of the team he was upstaged by a Spaniard of little previous renown. Leyton Orient (4-4-2): Barrett; Joseph, Smith, Hicks (Maskell, 46min), Clark; Richards (Ingjethorpe, 46), Ling, Beal, Lockwood; Watts, Simba. Scunthorpe (3-4-3): Evans; Wilcox, Logan, Hope; Harsley, Walker, Calvo-Garcia (Housham, 76), Dawson; Sheldon, Forrester (Bull, 85), Gayle (Stamp 78). Referee: Wilkes (Gloucester). Nine of Calvo-Garcia's teammates are now out of contract, ensuring their manager a busy couple of days around the negotiating table when all he really wants is to continue eel- i ebrating.

"I don't see many players leaving a club after they have achieved promotion unltss they are pushed out, so this result gives us hope of persuading them to stay with us," said Laws, whose success in his days with Nottingham Forest seems to have carried over now to Scunthorpe, whose four previous play-off attempts all ended in failure. The most likely departure from the squad is Jamie Forrester, who has been linked with a move to Coventry. His nimble footwork, and the what the future held when his agent told him he had fixed up atrialatGlanfordPark. Unable to secure a new contract with Real Sociedad, the midfielder had expressedsa; wish to move abroad. "I had not heard of Scunthorpe before but the people there have made both me and my girlfriend very happy, and to clinch promotion at Wembley, you cannot ask for anything more than that." To cap a sublime day, his parents were making their first visit to England, his mother Mari Carmen overcoming a fear of flying to buy an airline ticket for the first time.

"I am so pleased for him," said Laws. "He didn't come to England for money, and isn't that refreshing." Trevor Haylett at Wembley Manchester City 2 Horiock 90, Dickov 90 Gillingham 2 Asaba 81, Taylor 87 (after extra-time, 2-2 at 90mln, Manchester City win 3-1 on penalties) For more blue moons than they care to remember, Manchester City had yearned for the opportunity to say to United: "Anything you can do, we can do just as well." Yesterday their moment came as they retrieved a lost cause before going on to win promotion through a penalty shoot-out. It was an exhilarating conclusion to normal time that took breathless onlookers back four days to Barcelona when Manchester's Reds had triumphed in the European Cup. City's challenge was even more daunting with three minutes left Robert Taylor had just driven Gillingham into a seemingly unassailable 2-0 lead. Seats emptied at the end previously filled with Mancunians who had travelled in hope and expectation but now reluctantly accepting a return to the shadow of their great rivals.

Yet if parallels with the Treble winners were not always apparent it can be said with certaintythat yesterday City were bonded by the same refusal to give way. On the stroke of 90 minutes Kevin Horiock gave them a glimmer of hope and then as the referee Mark Halsey found five extra minutes, Paul Dickov plundered the equaliser. Those last 14 minutes of playing time had produced four goals. Once more every emotion had been wrung out of City's long-suffering support but now they had to fancy their team to win arid, by comparison, the penalty climax was a nerve-free stroll. Gillingham's players met a deafening din as one by one they stepped up to the spot.

Unsurprisingly, three of their team who had given everything failed the ultimate test and City were home. "It seems there are two teams in Manchester that go for 90 minutes," said Joe Royle as he savoured the moment of steering this once great institution back into the First Division a year after their ignominious descent. However, even in the midst of this rare success, the manager made it plain that they have only completed the first Britain flex muscle by securing two early gold medals Rowing Christopher Dodd in Hazewinkel Britain led after the first round of the World Cup with 11 crews amassing 50 points in the stifling heat of Flanders yesterday, including golds for the men's four and women's pair. The 1998 world champions James Cracknell, Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, with Ed Coode in the seat previously occupied by Tim Foster, had an easy ride. Speculation about when, or if, Foster di splaces Coode after his recovery from a back operation will continue for at least three weeks, when the crew will meet stiffer opposition in Vienna, Dot Blackie and Cath Bishop continued where they left off as world silver medal winners last year, leading the pairs throughout.

Silver medals came from Stephen Williams and Simon Dennis in the cox-less pairs and the men's eight, who not only fought off determined pushes by the Netherlands Olympic champion crew but found a storming finish to overhaul the Russians and close to within two seconds of the Romanians. The new women's quadruple scullers, stroked by Guin Batten, finished fourth after hitting a buoy 35 seconds into their raceThe world champions Miriam Batten-Luke and Gillian Lindsay were a disappointing fourth in the double sculls while the lightweight double scullers Tracy Lang-lands and Jane Hall were in fifth place. Spaniard Trevor Haylett at Wembley Up to the podium of unlikely Wembley winners stepped a southern European who, three years ago, decided that home could not offer nearly as much as South Humberside. In Spain, or beneath the twin towers, itwas not abad day to be Alex Calvo-Garcia. After only six minutes he swooped to conquer with a finely angled header and Scunthorpe, perpetual underachieves and always fall-guys in the play-offs until now, had a place in the Second Division.

When their owner-manager Brian Laws says this town of 60,000 souls is in a "scratch-off-and-sniff area of the map it is small wonder that Calvo-Garcia was a little uncertain is fresh to the professional ranks this year with the US Postal Service team, but he managed to outspeed more seasoned opposition in the second stage at Portsmouth and in Saturday's closing circuit race in Edinburgh. The other talent revealed on the final day was British. The 26-year old Rob Hayles, the Wauters domestique has his day on the podium Wauf ers sparkles but youth bubbles finishing speed to squeeze past O'Grady on Princes Street. The trio effectively assured Wauters's victory: their presence in the front meant Joachim stood no chance of taking time bonuses en route and at the finish; Wouters merely had to keep an eye on the Luxembourger. The Belgian is no young discovery: at 30, this is his biggest win andit is unlikelytogive him pretensions of grandeur.

Having shown well in Paris-Nice this year, Wauters's stage-race ability is not in doubt, but he prefers to put it to the use of others. He owed his victory to the fact that one of his Rabobank team had to be in the escape on the road to Bristol; eventually, the move proved to be decisive. "Normally I work for the team; this week I've been able to enjoy having them working for me," he said on Saturday. A case of the domestique having his day. should run the 5,000 or at the World Championships in Seville in August was probably made for her as her lack of a potent finishing kick was once again exposed.

The Briton was pushed into third in the by Germany's Irina Mikitenko, a woman she had beaten by nearly a minute over last month. Radcliffe burst from the pack with 200m left, but ran out of steam in the final few strides as Mikitenko and Ethiopia's Ay-elech Worku, her pacemaker at Loughborough a week earlier, both passed her. A blanket could have been thrown over the first four with Mikitenko clocking 14. 54.32 and Radcliffe 14.54.61. protege of the double world pursuit champion Tony Doyle, was hitherto regarded as a promising track star, with a silver medal in last year's Commonwealth Games to his credit, and Chris Boardman's successor as British 25-mile time-trial champion.

But his victory on Saturday morning's stage from Carlisle to Edinburgh was superbly taken against O'Grady and another man who has worn the yellow jersey and won a stage in the Tour de France, the Frenchman Pascal Lino. The trio broke away early, held a healthy lead all day, and settled the stage between them. On paper Hayles, riding for the Great Britain team, stood no chance against two men with a common interest in denying an amateur victory. But he replied with exuberance to every attempt they made to escape him, and then had the training in California last month, where the temperatures had been up in the eighties. While there, the Commonwealth 200 metres champion posted a highly encouraging 20.20sec.

But here he was beaten into second by Patrick Stevens, a 31-year-old Belgian ranked 80 places lower than him in the world last summer. Under the watchful eye of his manager, Linford Christie, Golding led coming off the bend but was beaten by two-hundredths of a second as Stevens came through to win in 20.66. It was hardly the warm-up Golding wanted for racing against Michael Johnson in New York next week. the decision facing Paula Radcliffe about whether she Cycling William Fotheringham The PruTour last year marked Stuart O'Grady's transition into a mature rider capable of shining in the Tour de France; it may well be that this year's race, won by the Belgian Marc Wauters in Edinburgh on Saturday, will be a similar turning point in other young careers. It is too soon to tell whether the young Luxembourger Benoit Joachim will emulate his country's greatest rider, Charly Gaul, the "angel of the mountains" who climbed to victory in the 1958 Tour de France.

However, his stage victory in Bristol, taken alone on the toughest day of the race, indicates that he is a young man heading for far better things. In a similar vein, this PruTour brought to the fof the speed of the New Zealander Julian Dean. Like Joachim, he Cold and the Athletics Duncan Mackay in Hengelo Haile Gebrselassie's biggest opponent finally managed a rare moment of revenge over him at the Adriaan Paulen Memorial meeting in the Fanny Blankers Koen Stadion here last night. The clock is normally the loser when the Ethiopian takes it on, but over two miles it turned out to have his measure as he failed to break the Kenyan Daniel Komen's world record of7min58.61sec. In conditions so cold that many of the sprinters wore tights when racing, the man from the hot plains of Addis Ababa was on pace for only three laps before falling away.

He finished in 8.01.86, more clock beat Gebrselassie than three seconds outside Komen's record and not even a personal best for Gebrselassie. It was a notable failure by a man who had set world records in four of his last five appearances in this tiny stadium named after Holland's greatest ever Olympian, and 15 in all during his incredible career. "Sometimes you fail, but I don't think it was likely to happen today in these conditions," said Gebrselassie. "Daniel's record is a very special one." The meeting also provided an opportunity for many of Britain's athletes to give their legs an early-season stretch. For Julian Golding the cold and wet conditions he faced could not have been more different from those he experienced while ZAFIRA.

A work of genius. OVAUXHALL Raising the Standard.