Brucey gives special bonus as Good Old Days here again

THERE’S something about a double-act that fascinates in any walk of life.

In football’s Good Old Days, when “one-up” was a pleasingly unknown phrase, you’d talk knowledgeably about tandems of strikers operating in the box — until some coach unfortunately discovered something called “the hole”, down which one half of them were duly pushed. Similarly midfields have become too tactically variable to have an old skool central pairing like Macari ‘n’ McIlroy; so we are now just left with the apparently imperishable centre-back pairing.

We’ve had some crackers at United down the years and I always felt you could tell a lot about a Red by his choice of favourite; for me, it was Buchan over Greenhoff, McGrath over Moran, Vidic over Rio and — hardest of all — Pallister over Bruce.

Ah, Stevie Bruce, once more hero of the hour. Once again he has stunningly popped up in the most improbable fashion during injury time to hand United a title, or so it would seem. At Easter 1993, he created the most exciting moment any Red had experienced in years against Sheffield Wednesday; now, on Monday night, his Wigan side have done us proud.

Brucey may not have actually scored the killer last-gasp goal this time — ironic thanks to the oft-derided Emile Heskey, whom we have so often serenaded as a useless lump — but Steve’s guiding spirit was there alright.

And what’s even more chucklesome is that by the time we have to play the resurgent pie-eaters, it’s probable neither team will need the points, and we can all have a cavorting afternoon of Lancastrian jolly-making.

Back in 1993, the equally unlikely coup de grace to our then-rivals Aston Villa was also applied by a Manchester satellite, in the shape of Oldham Athletic, whose utterly unexpected 0-0 draw in Brum one Sunday handed Fergie the title whilst he was on the golf course. And this Saturday evening, a third such local outpost provides a key venue in the shape of Blackburn, which surely constitutes the last serious obstacle in our way. Opponents also managed, of course, by another OT legend, Stevie B’s team mate (though, infamously, not real mate) Mark Hughes.

Victory there would almost certainly mean we could even lose at Chelsea and not care a jot; suddenly, we potentially have that luxury in our grasp of being able to focus on Barcelona — and possibly Moscow — knowing that the league will now likely take care of itself. Obviously, if Chelsea pick up at Everton and we lose at Ewood, all bets are off: but it’s there to be had now, which only three days ago seemed barely conceivable.

Fergie, you might feel, knew what was coming. In his Friday press conference, he was extraordinarily nice about Arsene Wenger and Arsenal: jaws duly dropped. A couple of weeks ago, a silly season story suggested Fergie might have been using Botox, a drug which a week later was linked to possibly brain-altering reactions by EU researchers. Wagsters may well point to this as an explanation for Friday’s solar-eclipsean rarity.

Fergie congratulated Wenger for their Anfield brilliance, sympathised with their small-squad exhaustion, and all but exonerated Arsenal in advance for any imminent OT defeat on account of their having so many key players out. “You can’t win big games without your best team, not at this level,” he gently warned (And after the match, he was even photographed stroking Arsene’s bottom. No, really).

Yet despite those handicaps, they had a decent enough go at it? Indeed, I can’t recall the last time a visiting side made so many good chances, and we certainly played poorly — Evra and Van Der Sar excepted. And yet, at 1-0 down, as Rio’s blundering, bulleting back-shot forced a sensational one-handed save from VDS, calm suddenly flooded over me.

“The Rio Syndrome is clearly in force — and how! Stick your house on us winning this, and thereafter the League,” I almost finished texting, had I not already started leaping up and down for the subsequent penalty.

Sure enough Rio, as always, survived his two mistakes to play on much better; we’d thus survived the loss of Vidic; and the rest, it seems, could soon be history. 2008? — it’s the new 1999. Maybe…

Richard Kurt’s classic ‘Red Army Years’ is now reissued, only via [e-mail].