By Dan Warren BBC Sport at The Crucible

There was a real buzz in the media centre at The Crucible during the afternoon but, for once, snooker was not taking centre stage.

As the dramatic events unfolded at Highbury, where Arsenal's defeat handed Manchester United the Premiership title, the journalists found their attention drawn away from the action in the auditorium.

At one point, with five minutes remaining of the game, an Arsenal cross across the six-yard box drew gasps and shouts from all the reporters who were watching on television.

"What was that for? He only potted a red," exclaimed the one hack left watching the snooker, to universal derision.

Davis could re-enter the charts at number 11

It may be more than a decade since his reign as the world number one, but it looks like we have not seen the end of Steve Davis quite yet.

The six-times world champion spends as much time as a BBC pundit as he does at the practice table these days - but it has not done his game any harm.

The official rankings for the 2003-04 season are issued on Tuesday, and 'Interesting' is tipped to regain his place in the top 16.

Davis had suffered the ignominy of failing to qualify for the Crucible in 2001 and 2002 but made it this year, losing to eventual semi-finalist Stephen Lee.

That came on the back of a semi-final spot in the LG Cup and his run is likely to take him back to number 11 in the rankings.

Soccer may have taken precedence during Sunday afternoon in the media room, but the viewing public are giving snooker the thumbs-up in a big way.

A peak viewing audience of 4.6m tuned in to the BBC to watch Ken Doherty's thrilling 17-16 win over Paul Hunter in the semi-finals.

That was the biggest TV audience of the tournament so far and some way up on last year's stats.

And if everyone who was watching joined hands to spell out 'Cliff Thorburn', each letter would be the size of the Isle of Man. Probably.