Thank God for TV. How else could you be in two different places at once this afternoon? And great TV it was, too. I was flicking between Sky Sports 1 and 3 with the dexterity of a Roger Federer top-spin lob (candidate for worst sports metaphor of all time).

One image summed up the afternoon; Sheffield United boss Neil Warnock trying to get through the ruck of Wigan backroom staff celebrating wildly their great escape in order to shake the hand of Paul Jewell. Warnock was not voted Yorkshire Sports Personality of the Year for nothing, you know.

A true-grit character in the mould of the 1960s cinema realite which brought us the likes of This Sporting Life, The L-Shaped Room,  A Kind of Loving and Kes, Warnock is your archetypal pit lad who came up for air and went on t’manage them Blades while they were swiggin’ champagne with rich southern types. My heart really went out to him, especially when Wigan chairman Dave Whelan (himself a rugged full-back for Blackburn Rovers before making a fortune in sports shoes) said he thought it was unfair that West Ham stayed up.

The lawyers will be kerchunging for the next few weeks in the hope that the High Court will dock some points off the Hammers and thus save the Blades. But for me, as a football-crazy neutral, I think the Hammers deserved to stay up. Sure, Manchester United were not going at it hammer and tongs (again, excuse the pun), but to win at the Theatre of Dreams is commendable whatever the circumstances.

The last few minutes of Sheffield v Wigan made for compulsive viewing. Wigan fans will be relieved but they may want to know why hero-of-the-hour Emil Heskey cannot turn on a show like today’s every week. I know the good Lord was not concentrating fully when he handed out brains to footballers, but if there is one lesson that players and managers can learn from final-day issues year after year, it is that what happens in the last 90 minutes of the season is irrelevant to the thousands of minutes which precede them.

That’s why West Ham deserved to stay up. Mid-February the media had them looking at maps of Scunthorpe but with a fully-fit squad, Alan Curbishley somehow contrived to get results at places where points are usually only given for driving through red lights. Yes, if there are 10 games left, then there are 30 points for grabs, and with Senor Tevez in inspired form, he comfortably escaped the drop come 4.50pm Sunday.

It gives me no pleasure saying this, especially as a born-and-bred Yorkshireman who spent many happy hours at Bramall Lane watching cricket in the '60s, but it’s better for football that West Ham stayed up; they may be absurdly niave at the back but they have produced some exciting, creative football. The Blades, for their part, are no-nonsense battlers who reflect their boss’s passion and enthusiasm for the game, but who lack the finesse to rightfully claim a place among the elite.

It’s been an interesting campaign, and in the end, what today proved was that class has outwitted the humdrum. Manchester United played better football than Chelsea, as did West Ham over Sheffield United. Watford and Charlton will have no complaints, they were simply out of their depth and Warnock, despite this setback, is a strong man who can take the Blades back next season.

And if only for the wonderful sporting gesture at the end of the game today, when his whole world had crumpled before him, he and his club and fans deserve nothing less.

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