A Letter to the Church at Springfield

Whether we wish to believe it or not, these are serious, nay critical, times in the Episcopal Church. The proceedings from our 74th General Convention in 2003 have stirred debate and dissension that are not going to go away, no matter how fervently we may wish for it. We have seen already extraordinary responses from the other prelates of our Anglican Communion, the sad spectacle of American and Canadian bishops read the Riot Act because of their stand on the issues of same-sex marriages and homosexuals in the Episcopate. Many in our denomination continue to be perplexed by these issues. And yet here at Redeemer, they have gone largely unaddressed, as if it were someone else’s business, someone else’s problem. I believe it is high time—indeed, beyond high time—that these issues be openly considered. That is the rationale behind this letter.

To begin, it is my belief that the election of the Rev. Canon V. Gene Robinson to the Episcopate and the approval of a motion to bless same-sex marriages are not, as their defenders claim, manifestations of the Holy Spirit, calling us to greater honesty, openness and tolerance. Nor, as their critics insist, are they last straw in what must become the eventual dissolution of the Anglican Communion. What they are is little more than the logical and inevitable results of a way of thinking among the Church’s hierarchy, lay and clerical, that has been going on for some four decades, and which, in and of itself, has brought the Episcopal Church to the pretty pass at which it now finds itself.

Forty Years of Good Intentions. The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, founded in 1789, achieved the largest membership in its history—just over 3.4 million souls—in 1965. 1965. Some of you surely will remember that church: a mix of “high,” “low” and “broad” parishes, where Holy Communion was a once-a-month phenomenon; an authoritarian church with a strong moral code; demanding doctrines (try getting a divorce in that church); dignified if aloof ministers. It is, obviously, not the Church we attend now, yet it was not without its attractions: between 1955 and 1965, the number of Episcopalians grew 22 per cent.

The politically charged 1960s were not kind to that church. The Episcopalians did not have a “good” Viet Nam War. Like the Church of England in World War I, the Episcopal Church did not distinguish itself ministering to the troops in the field (I know, I was there). Rather, back on the home front, high-profile Episcopalians, most notably New York bishop Paul Moore, were instead turning out in the streets to support the protestors. It made wonderful newspaper copy: “Anglican Bishop Sides with Hippies and Freaks” was the original “man bites dog” story, but it was clearly dangerous and mistaken conduct on two significant counts. And, forgive me, but they bear explanation.

First off, there was nothing morally superior about church-led or church-influenced opposition to the Viet Nam War, whether it was Quakers counseling draft evaders, Catholic priests, such as the Berrigan brothers, committing their rosary of felonies, or the Episcopal bishop of New York haranguing student protestors through a bullhorn. If anyone, it was the Johnson Administration who had better claim to the moral high ground in Indochina; it wasn’t Lyndon’s GI’s or the indolent army of Cambodia’s Lon Nol, or even the troops of Generals Khanh, Minh, Ky and Thieu who were rounding up people and putting bullets in the back of their necks just because they were teachers, or small landowners, or union activists or members of any other arbitrary list of “class enemies”; it was the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese who did that. Was the opposition then politically superior? Perhaps. In the end, it proved to be. But it was, first and foremost and forever, political. And therein lies the second mistake.

The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, had labored mightily to build a wall between Church and State. The 1960s proved how miserably they had failed, for there was no wall. It was more of a dike, and it was leaky. The Negro civil-rights movement (essentially a phenomenon of the 1950s, but still a headline-making force in the Johnson years) washed right over the dike. Church-led and speaking the language of religion in ways no other mass political movement in America had done since Abolutionism, the civil-rights movement was perceived as morally superior (which it was). But in splashing over the dike, and slopping around on the Church’s side of things, the civil-rights movement caused irreparable harm. Every “good” cause that followed in its wake, beginning with Viet Nam, but well after Viet Nam had run its sorry course, quickly found its clerical champions. In the 1970s, the Deeply Committed at every Church House in the Republic would be speaking out prayerfully for or against—well, what you got? Everything from abortion & apartheid to welfare rights & women’s lib—found its champions in the Episcopalian pulpits.

All of them worthy causes? Sure, if you say so. But all of them of a pattern. All of them with the same premise: white men had been and continue to be bad by denying us our basic liberties. All of them with the same lesson to teach: you can get anything you want out of the white men who run this country, if…you can portray yourself as an oppressed minority; you organize; you make sure you get a lot of publicity; and you have absolutely no scruples.

The womyn were first. And we all know how that’s turned out. The Indians had a nice run there in the ‘70s and wound up with the casinos. The handicapped forced local governments to spend a king’s ransom on new sidewalks. Illegal aliens (oh, sorry, “undocumented” aliens) got the right to a free public-paid-for education. Even other species had their moments—remember the snail darter? Best and last of these rights movements (at least so far) is that of the homosexuals.

But it is important to keep in mind that all of these “rights” movements are and have been secular movements. On the surface, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the practice of Christianity. Civil rights was relatively easy for a practicing Christian to advocate. The Bible does not endorse racism. Indeed, it has nothing whatsoever to say on the subject. [The so-called “Curse of Ham” (Gen. 9.20-27) has been used by some as an apology for Negro slavery because Cush, one of Ham’s sons, is supposedly the founder of the black race; and because another of Ham’s sons, Canaan, was cursed by Ham’s father, Noah, and pronounced a slave to his brothers, it is hence assumed that the Bible condones Negro slavery. In fact, the curse is directed neither at Ham nor Cush, but at Canaan, and can be seen most simply as an ex post facto, allegorical explanation for and defense of Israel’s subsequent subjugation of the Holy Land. Any reference to Cush or black people is totally extra-Biblical.]

But I digress. The question we must ask ourselves is: What Does Any of This Have to Do with the Practice of Anglican Christianity? In 1973, the Gallup Organization reported that church attendance in the U.S., which it had been surveying since 1955, had hit an all-time low. In 1955, 49 per cent of church members attended in an average week. By ’73, only 40 per cent were actually in the pews. Episcopalian attendance was right on the average, but the number of Episcopalians on the rolls had shrunk to 3.1 million, a drop-off of nearly 10 per cent in less than a decade. The next year, 1974, came the crisis over women priests.

The decision to acquiesce in the ordination of women is particularly illustrative of the political and secular impulses that had taken control, not just among Episcopalians, but among all the Mainline Protestants. A little background: Women had been admitted to the Episcopal diaconate in 1970. In July 1974, right here in Philadelphia, four Episcopalian bishops not affiliated with the Bishop of Pennsylvania officiated at a ceremony in which 11 women were ordained priests—an action that was promptly condemned by the General Convention at the time assembled. The next General Convention, just two years later in 1976, raised only token objection and the ordination of women promptly carried the day.

An Idea Whose Time Had Come. Despite its more outrageous demands (or perhaps because of them, the “right kind” of orgasms, for instance), the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s was ineffably the decade’s the good cause. Forget the fact that its basic premise was to repeal Nature by an Act of Congress. No well-meaning person could dispute the second-class status of women in the workplace, the schools, the professions. (And though Baby’s come a long way since 1974, the glass ceilings and unequal-pay complaints continue to ring true.) The question to be considered here is not was it politically correct to admit women to the priesthood, but was it necessary?

There is nothing in Scripture that says you can’t ordain women. The Old Testament tells of Deborah, who is both a judge (i.e., a war leader) and a prophet. Acts and Paul both testify to women in leadership positions in the Apostolic Church, and women seem to have been (in some of the more remote areas of the Empire) administering sacraments in the Byzantine Church until as late as the 8th century. The arguments against ordaining women spring entirely from tradition. The evidence of the early Fathers is that women held positions of authority in many of the Gnostic churches and were certainly serving as priests in the most popular of the 4th-century heterodox sects, Montanism. Indeed, from the time of the Council of Nicaea onwards, women priests are synonymous with heterodoxy and heresy. Church doctrine, and hence tradition, from then on held that, as Jesus was a man, so should His senior clergy be men.

So why change now? Well, the Bible is specific that, in times of crisis, when the whole community is in peril, women can and have come to the fore (viz. Deborah). The 1970s, though, were hardly a time of crisis—fecklessness, selfishness and defeatism, surely—but hardly crisis. It is notable that in times of genuine crisis, during the Civil War and the Great Depression, the Episcopal Church did not ordain women. It only ordained them when the political pressure for women’s equality became something the church felt it could no longer ignore. [If further proof is required about the absence of crisis, let me add this: If you are going to throw away 1600-plus years of Apostolic tradition, shouldn’t the women you ordain at least be of singular saintliness? Especially deserving of the honor? I can’t tell you who any of these pioneer priests was, or is; and I have to wonder why eleven of them were singled out. That just seems like a very large number. There were only 13 people at the Last Supper…]

To a disinterested observer, it would seem that tradition having been overthrown in the matter of the women priests, tradition itself had become the enemy (although Goodness knows to what). How else to explain the divisive—and totally unnecessary—decision to revise The Book of Common Prayer? The 1928 revision had been done with an airbrush to take out only the most obscure of Cranmer’s Tudorisms; the new book sticks us with one of the sillier liturgies and some of the most mundane language anywhere. Or how else to explain the two most recent revisions of the Hymnal? Now we have songs that sound as if Joan Baez at her most maudlin had been run through a Mr. Coffee machine, while Healey Willan, Ralph Vaughan Williams and “Jerusalem” are consigned to the dustbin of musical history.

Ah, but what did you expect? Remember: in February 1975, a man named Vaughan Booker had been ordained a deacon in this church. At the time of his ordination, Booker just happened to be in Greaterford Prison serving a life sentence for murdering his wife. Which, although it may not seem like it, brings us at last back to V. Gene Robinson.

“We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” The so-called Gay Rights Movement began, in especially tawdry circumstances, with a riot outside a Greenwich Village, New York City, bar called the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. The NYPD had raided the place (again), because it was a public nuisance. But on this occasion, proceedings quickly degenerated: an angry mob of cross-dressers began to throw rocks, bottles—and a single high-heeled pump—at the policemen, who barricaded themselves inside the Stonewall, which the rioters then tried to burn down before order was restored. The (remarkably) unforeseen upshot of this was a sudden swelling in gay pride, and—although it took more than 30 years—a marvelously well-crafted agit-prop campaign that, for better or worse, has now led to the repeal of every anti-sodomy law in America. Pari passu, it has also led to increased toleration among most Americans for homosexuals and homosexual behavior. The downside of this homosexual social progress—the careers of Robert Mapplethorpe, Liza Minnelli and Village People, the AIDS plague, the epidemic use of Quaaludes among American teen-agers, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy—will pass here without comment.

The issue before us now is two-fold: the ratification of same-sex marriage and the ordination of avowed homosexuals. And here there is Scriptural guidance. The Bible is specific about sodomy. Leviticus 20.13: [The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel…] If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.”

And this is in conjunction with commandments condemning giving one’s children to Moloch (20.1-5); turning to mediums and wizards; cursing your parents; and sleeping with another man’s wife. It comes in the sequence right after the incest taboo, and right before commandments against sleeping with (a) your mother-in-law and (b) animals.
OK, it’s just the Old Testament, right? The same place where it says we shouldn’t eat shellfish. Well, The Articles of Religion are pretty plain on the teachings in the Old Testament: “No Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called moral.”

The New Testament doesn’t cut homosexuality any breaks, either. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals…” [1 Corinthians 6.9-10] 1 Timothy 1.10 echoes similar thoughts, and Romans 1.24-32 elaborates on both. In no case does Paul endorse sodomy. Even between (among?) consenting adults.

Everywhere it mentions the subject, and there aren’t many places, since there seems to have been little homosexuality in the culture of the Bible, the practice is nevertheless condemned in the most rigorous language. It’s an abomination. I think it is, therefore, safe to say that Scriptural authority proscribes same-sex marriages. According to the Bible, homosexuality is not an “alternate lifestyle.” Nor is it—as the American Psychiatric Association maintained until the 1980s—a mental illness. It is an abomination.

Now I have no intention of making ad hominem attacks on Canon Robinson except to point out what is in the public record, that 13 years ago, while a priest, he left his wife and two children to live openly with another man. I suggest to you that if he had left his family to live with another woman, he would have been (justifiably) defrocked. And not so long ago, whether he was living openly with a woman, a man or a St. Bernard, this church would have characterized Robinson as a “notorious evil-liver” and made him ex-Communicate. How it ever ordained this man is a curiosity: his pre-ordination counseling should have caught him out. How it elevated such a person to the Episcopacy is stupefying (rather like George Bernard Shaw’s description of the Socialist bishop, William Temple—“a realized impossibility.”) No doubt, Mr. Robinson has a great many saintly qualities; but I’ve always followed George Orwell’s advice in this matter: “All saints should be considered guilty until proven innocent.”

In the case of the women priests, the Episcopal Church showed how it can repudiate its own creeds when key segments of it sense that the political winds are blowing strongly enough. The sad thing about the Robinson affair is that there’s no reason why anyone should be amazed that the same influential segments will just as quickly repudiate Scripture. But let’s call things the way they are: For the last 40 years, this church has been shifting its reverence toward worldly things; it has turned from worshipping God to worshipping the secular. And there is a name for that: idolatry. And it is a sin. And in case you’ve forgotten, “sin” is the word we use in English to translate the Greek word άμαρτια (hamartia), which means “offense against God.” It’s the state people find themselves in when they despise God and His commandments, when they rebel against God and violate His laws, and when they injure others (or themselves), both of whom are objects of Divine providence and protection. Hamartia is also the power that separates people from God. The personification of that separation has a name, too: Poneros ( Ό Πονεροσ), the “evil one”—Satan.

What Is to Be Done? Whatever your feelings about the screed you’ve just endured, we all need to educate ourselves more. I believe first off that every concerned Anglican should read the Windsor Report. In its entirety. Yes, it’s tough slogging in places, but its central recommendations, while veiled in irenic rhetoric, are pretty precise. [Check it out, with commentaries, at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/windsor2004/index.cfm ].
Seconding them,
I call upon the Episcopal Church in the United States to cease ordaining unrepentant, practicing homosexuals; to cease and desist from the blessings of same-sex marriages; and to express the regret called for by the Report; specifically:

I call upon Canon Robinson to resign any and all offices, lay or clerical, which he holds in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America;

I call upon the Rt. Rev. Frank Griswold to resign as Presiding Bishop;

I call upon every bishop who voted to approve Robinson’s election, including Charles Bennison, to resign;

And I call upon the Archbishop of Canterbury to proclaim a Day of National Prayer and Mortification for this entire province.

Simply put: Put this matter and put this man behind us. And from there, I humbly propose that we build anew. I believe that it should be the overwhelming priority of the national church and each and every parish to devote ourselves over the next few years to a comprehensive program of prayer, study and renewal. If I had all the details of this, I would be on television or something. But I know there are some things, many things, that we should be doing and doing now. Therefore, I call on the national church and the parishes…

To institute education programs on the history of the Anglican tradition;

To take back that tradition through the occasional use of historically accurate liturgies and church music;

To call the whole church back to a moral code that condemns sin rather than celebrates it;

To preach the True Gospel. Not the Gospel According to the United Way or the Springfield Republican Party. But the Gospel of Christ, “who will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead.”

And all that would be very, very nice. But let’s be realistic. The Powers That Be in this church, in this Diocese, are totally inimical to the solution I propose. None of them is going to resign, because none believes he has offended anyone, because all believe they have received some epiphany, some assurance from God that everything Christians have always believed and been taught are—wrong, overturned, somehow usurped. All of my opponents are men and women of good conscience, who truly believe that what they are recommending as regards tolerance for homosexuality and the consecration of same-sex marriages is God’s Will. (At least I assume that’s so.) They are, however, in error.

And error (or perhaps, Error, capital E) is, in the end, what this letter is all about. In the 19th century, it was Roman Catholic Error that agitated so much of Anglican belief. The entire career of John Henry Newman can be read as a gloss on one single question: Where is the Roman Church truly in error? And I will confess, for Episcopalians like me—former Roman Catholics who have converted—there is, in a crisis such as this, the unconscious pull back to Rome. Newman finally took that route himself, but … But I, despite having been raised a Roman Catholic and become a Communicant in the Catholic Church, have nevertheless accepted the principles that compelled the separation of Church and State in England in 1558, and I cannot go back. [Full Disclosure: I am in many ways a Mel Gibson-type Catholic. I’m an ex-altar boy (duh!) and the last Catholic liturgies I regularly attended were Latin-language Masses celebrated (illicitly and for a very select congregation) by an U.S. Army chaplain in Viet Nam.]

All of that said—and none of this is about me, it’s about you—what are we to do? First. I would pray that you would think about what I’ve been writing about. You’re more than encouraged to disagree, but please! Give what I’ve brought up some thought. This letter has taken me months: to work out, to write, to get the courage to share… This hasn’t been easy, for many, many reasons. I am, for instance, a great believer in Authority. It especially pains me to challenge the authority of my own bishop. I think many of you may feel the same scruples. ……

Robinson is not a litmus test—this church is not doing Jesus’ business if it presumes not to minister to someone because of his or her sexual preference, but—still, these issues cannot be ignored in our search.

I would urge all of us to return to that Reformation staple, Plain reading of the Bible.

I hope many of you will underwrite—subscribe—to the positions I’ve advocated in this letter by forwarding it and the blogsite to other concerned Episcopalians.

I hate meetings, but it may be time for them, enlisting persons of our denomination who have expertise in Deanery and Diocesan procedures. We cannot be sheep; we must act. We must refine and define our positions, and be persuasive….

We’ve come too far in the wrong direction, erred & strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep.
And we need to pray to the Holy Ghost that He will be among us.

All Christians, even Episcopalians, know full well that these are the Last Days. We live in the End Time. The current Dispensation certainly is the Last One. There is not, nor shall there ever be, a Third Testament. It is time to purify this church, to drive the idolators from their palaces and pulpits, and to put on the armor of the righteous. A gay bishop is not the end of the world nor the end of the church. Both will be judged in due time, as shall we all. Let us pray that it is not we who are found wanting.


Art Durbano
January 2004—September 2005

Turn 38

Ahead of this last stage of the season, two meaningless midweek make-up fixtures involving all of the top four. When Manchester United—Chelsea was postponed because of the FA Cup semifinals, there was at least a glimmer of hope that this would be a key matchup. United was 14 points adrift with all of it to do, but Chelsea still had Arsenal to play and a trip to Bolton, and… Well, it didn’t happen. Chelsea got a second draw with Gunners in the ensuing midweek, while United were losing @ Everton, and it would be no championship for Sir Alex Ferguson this year either. But at least, @ Old Trafford and warming up for the FA Cup final, United would achieve a measure of respectability by winning this one, right? Ruud van Nistelrooy was back in the side, and Red Devils opened brightly—with the Dutchman netting on 8’. It was van Nistelrooy’s first League goal since Nov. 27 at the Hawthorns, his first from open play in more than 20 hours of League football, and just his 5th League goal of the season, but it gave United a lead, the only one they’ve had over Chelsea in four meetings this season. That lead lasted 9 minutes, when Tiago’s 30-yard knuckleball of a shot completely bamboozled Roy Carroll. At that point, there was no way United were going to win. A gaffe by Rio Ferdinand that sent Eidur Gudjohnsen through and a converted rebound by Joe Cole guaranteed the loss. It was the first time since the Community Shield that Manchester Utd. had shipped 3 goals in one game (all competitions). … Next day, 4th place Everton went to Highbury looking for (a) revenge (Toffees lost the reverse fixture, 4-1, on Opening Day, and were sent packing in the League Cup by Gunners reserves) and (b) respect (they are, after all, heading for the Champions League this summer). Instead, Arsenal gave Everton the back of their hand. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, and I, for one, am no Nick Hornby, Arsenal in full cry can be a beautiful, beautiful thing. They ran out 7-0 winners, and the scoreline actually flattered Everton. On a night when Dennis Bergkamp may very well have been playing the last home fixture of his 10-year Premiership career, the magical Dutchman assisted on four of the goals, and scored the 6th. Thierry Henry was introduced at the interval, and awarded a thoroughly undeserved penalty. What was neat about it was the committee meeting among Arsenal players that decided that Edu—certainly playing the last home fixture of his EPL career—should take the shot. Of course, it deflected in off the outstretched arm of hapless Richard Wright (an Arsenal old boy getting a less than warm homecoming reception). …
Stage Winner. Duh! Whoever Stays Up, innit? We all know who did stay up, but for those of you who didn’t get all the details, here’s our breathless re-creation of Survival Sunday.
At 3 o’clock British Summer Time, it shaped up like this. Norwich City in 17th place (i.e., Safety) on 33 points were about to kick off @ Fulham; Southampton, in 18th on 32 points, were hosting Manchester United; Crystal Palace, in 19th but also on 32 points, were at Charlton Athletic; and West Bromwich Albion, in 20th on 31 points, were at home to Portsmouth. Remember: 3 points for a win, 1 point for a tie.
10’: Against the run of play, Brian McBride scores for Fulham.
10’+: John O’Shea plays Graeme LeSaux’s corner kick into his own net. Southampton are up 1-0. If the season ends at this moment, Saints are safe.
19’: And they are still safe—if only on goal differential—when Man U’s Darren Fletcher equalizes.
30’: Brian Hughes scores Charlton’s first goal for 400 minutes of League play.
35’: Papa Boupa Diop, Fulham’s MVP this season, rips home a 35-yard free kick that puts Norwich down by two goals. As all four games come to the interval, Southampton are in 17th on 33 pts., Norwich are also on 33, Palace on 32 and West Brom (level 0-0 with Pompey) also on 32, but still in 20th.
54’: Overall, it’s been a bad year for Fulham and their agreeable young gaffer, Chris Coleman. The results just haven’t come, and until the last couple of weeks, there was the distinct possibility that they would be dragged into the relegation fight themselves, instead of being one of the teams that decides it. All week, Coleman promised his team would go all out against Norwich—no favors, no quarter. Zat Knight collected a rebound after two Canaries defenders fell into one another trying to clear their line and ripped it home for his first-ever EPL goal. 3-0 to Fulham, and Queer Street for Norwich. Canaries had not won a single away fixture in the League all season. If they were to stay up now, they would need all of the other three teams to lose.
56’: Dougie Freedman’s first goal since who-knows-when pulls Palace level with Charlton.
58’: Substitute Geoff Horsfield is on the pitch @ The Hawthorns a matter of seconds when a deflection comes right to his feet in the Portsmouth box, and the veteran makes no mistake. West Brom take the lead. Now it’s Baggies on 34, Southampton on 33, Crystal Palace on 33 and Norwich on 33 but bottom on goal difference.
63’: The much-maligned Darren Fletcher, who, after all, is supposed to be David Beckham’s replacement on the right side of midfield, turns provider for Ruud van Nistelrooy. Southampton trail, 2-1.
71’: Every year, just about the time the cherries bloom in Washington, Charlton Athletic makes a hideous metamorphosis from a European hopeful to a mid-table also-ran. Along the way, its players do—well, stupid stuff, like Jon Fortune’s hand ball in the box that gifts a penalty to Palace’s Andy Johnson. Johnson has 20 goals this season, half of them from the spot. And he does not mess this one up. Palace are up 2-1.
72’: Steed Malbranque, who hasn’t featured much for Fulham this season, makes it 4-0 against a defenceless Norwich who have run their legs off. Brian McBride will get his second of the game on 85’ and turn provider for Andy Cole on 90’. Norwich lose 6-0.
75’: Quentin Richardson scores to make it 2-0 to West Brom. Rumors were that Portsmouth were going to relax and let Albion win this game so that it might cause the demotion of their clasico rivals Southampton, but there is no evidence of that on the pitch. West Brom have to win and get help to stay up. At least, they’re going to uphold their end of the bargain. Alas, on 34 points, West Brom are still in the drop zone. Crystal Palace are 17th on 35; then it’s West Brom on 34, Norwich on 33 and Southampton on 32.
82’: Back to The Valley, where just a moment ago, Charlton had a legitimate penalty shout after a foul by Palace’s young defender Leighterwood. It looks like the soccer gods have smiled on Palace’s Iain Dowie. His Eagles are now just eight minutes from safety… And then a Charlton free kick comes swinging into the Palace box. In hindsight, ‘keeper Gabor Kiraly should have come for it. He didn’t—and the goat from 10 minutes ago, Jon Fortune, headed home to level the scores.
85’: Undaunted, Palace resume the attack. As this South London derby heads toward stoppage time, Charlton’s Dean Kiely makes a fine save to deny Dougie Freedman …
90’: The results are coming in now: Southampton loses to Manchester United, and they are down. Norwich are put to the sword @ Fulham, and they are down. At The Hawthorns, where West Bromwich Albion have seen off Portsmouth, 2-0, the crowd holds its collective breath. And then, at last, comes the news from London—Charlton Athletic 2, Crystal Palace 2. West Bromwich Albion, 20th at Christmas—hell, 20th just two hours ago—have beaten the reaper. The celebration that erupts immediately is, I swear, the most emotional seen in the Black Country since V-E Day.
Corner Kicks. With one to play, three teams were still alive for a UEFA Cup berth. Credit Chelsea; Blues’ runaway League form had the other heavyweights paying more attention to the English cup competitions (for a change). Silverware is silverware, after all, even if only a consolation prize. When Chelsea won the League Cup, it opened up the second of England’s three UEFA Cup places to the League’s 6th-place finisher (only the 5th-place side is guaranteed UEFA Cup football). And when Arsenal and Manchester United made it to the final of the FA Cup, it gave England’s last UEFA place to the seventh-place finisher. At kickoff, Middlesbrough was in 7th (on 54 points), and home to 8th-place Manchester City (on 51). All ‘Boro needed was a draw. A win for City, however, would boost them above Middlesbrough on goal difference. Tottenham, also on 51, had the most to do. Spurs needed a City win, plus they had to beat visiting Blackburn and better City’s result by two clear goals. Got it? Well, Spurs couldn’t do either. Backup ‘keeper Radek Cerny had little trouble keeping a clean sheet against offensively challenged Blackburn, but Rovers defensive style—best described as “if it moves, kick it until it stops moving”—never gave Tottenham a whiff of Brad Friedel’s goal, either. That left it up to the boys at the Riverside, where Manchester City started brightly, with Shaun Wright-Phillips going just wide early on. Boro’s Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink made them pay for that, whipping in a Beckhamesque free kick (against the run of play) to put Steve McClaren’s lot back on the road to Europe. Kiki Musampa (one of Kevin Keegan’s better signings) equalized on the spot of halftime, and suddenly there was everything to play for. In the 88th minute, still 1-1, Stuart Pearce, Manager of the Month for April, made his boldest move in May, taking off Claudio Reyna and bringing on reserve goalkeeper Nicky Weaver. Weaver went between the sticks—and David James moved to the outfield! Some switch. Deep in stoppage time, James’s presence in the Boro box lead defender Franck Queudrue to handle the ball: Penalty to Manchester City. If Robbie Fowler could convert, City were in Europe. His PK was beautifully taken, low and hard to Boro keeper Mark Schwarzer’s left. Schwarzer saved it anyway. City fall oh-so-achingly short. … Elsewhere, Arsenal tuned up for Saturday’s FA Cup by giving Robert Pires and Lauren a week off, while welcoming Freddie Ljungberg back into the side for the trip to Birmingham. Walter Pandiani, who was not exactly the goal-scoring machine Steve Bruce envisioned when he brought the feisty Uruguayan to St. Andrews, put City ahead; Dennis Bergkamp leveled—and Emile Heskey hit a late winner to give Birmingham City the points. … Tim Cahill scored a brilliant chileno for Everton, but 10-man Bolton won the game, anyway. … Djibril Cisse netted a brace as Liverpool saw off Aston Villa. Villa’s season just ran out of gas; one wonders, though, how much better Scousers’ campaign would have been with Cisse healthy all season….
Yellow Jersey: Chelsea finished up with a draw @ Newcastle, ending the season with 29 wins, 95 points, 15 goals conceded, and a goal differential of plus 57—all Premiership records.
For What It’s Worth: Notes on Relegation. If the Bottom Four had been a league unto themselves, Norwich City would have won it. Canaries took 9 points (of a possible 18) from their fellow strugglers. West Bromwich Albion managed just 4 draws against this lot. Their 34 points were the least ever for a Premiership survivor. … Baggies are the first team since Bradford in 2000 to climb out of the relegation zone on the last day of the season. Coventry City were in 19th on the last day in 1997 and escaped; West Brom are the only team in EPL history to climb off the bottom into safety on the last day. … Norwich City were the first D1 champions from the season before to be sent right back down since Nottingham Forest in 1999. They did it with their defense, which yielded a league-high 77 goals. Canaries were also the only top-flight side this season without an away win. … Southampton’s run in the top flight ends after 27 seasons. Only the powerhouses—Man Utd., Arsenal, Everton & Liverpool—have been in the top flight longer. … Those four, plus Aston Villa, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, are the only sides from the first year of the EPL who have never been relegated from it. Season 14 begins in August.