Gorse Hill Sunset’s Fine – Manchester, 16th December 2016

“Busted flush”, “Jose hates Manchester and is miserable”, “City are going to romp the league”, “it’s our year”, which came ad-nauseum from the scousers and this, was all before bells of October tolled for Manchester United. We were finished, an empire crumbling with all the drama of Rome in 476AD and writing this just before Christmas, it has to be admitted that United have had some disappointing results since August. Drawing at home to Stoke City, Burnley and conceding stupid late equalisers against Arsenal and Everton Continue reading Gorse Hill Sunset’s Fine – Manchester, 16th December 2016

Oh The Simple Pleasures – Manchester, 17th May 2016

The recent fiasco at Old Trafford summed up United’s season in one very handy microcosm. A farce of comical proportions occurred when a mobile phone with wires hanging off it was found taped to a pipe in one of the executive suites. I can understand the worry when first seeing something like that and I don’t blame whoever it was for alerting the authorities. However, anybody who has ever tried using a mobile phone in Old Trafford will tell you, it would’ve been impossible to detonate due to the abysmal signal in the ground. If it was a real bomb and somebody would’ve tried setting it off, it would’ve gone straight to voicemail.

Every blue household, “LOOK, LOOK, EMPTY SEATS AT OLD TRAFFORD”…*logs onto Facebook*

The evacuation procedure itself was quintessentially British. Not a hint of panic on Warwick Road as people calmly walked away from the ground. The biggest worry from Reds was managing to get to the pub before the bars got rammed.

Bournemouth fans however were a different breed altogether – somehow blaming fanzine and swag sellers for the game being postponed. I suppose it’s the kind of reaction you could expect from a load of Tory-voting Southern mard arses. One great thing to have come out of Sunday’s postponement is that this lot will have had two 500 mile round journeys in the last 72 hours. Fantastic. Continue reading Oh The Simple Pleasures – Manchester, 17th May 2016

A Cow Going To The Market – Dun Laoghaire, 16th September 2015

Having picked a taxi up at the airport, I was lectured by a driver who sounded uncannily like Steve McLaren. “This is a city of 220,000 people, we have fantastic red light district and great shmokers’ cafes, why would you want to go to a shithole like Amsterdam?”

With this logic, it was hard to argue with a driver who had a similar physical presence to Wladimir Klitschko (and a similar barnet). It didn’t help this driver’s humour that the E27 was slowed almost to a standstill by a combined harvester that had a suspiciously yellow and green colouring. After all this time, I think Buckscanary has finally got his revenge.

Outside the Philips Stadion. This photo makes it look a little like Sunderland’s stadium, here though is where the comparison ends. Eindhoven’s a cracking place to visit, Sunderland… (photo courtesy of John O’Dea)

Once it became known amongst my friends that I was going to Eindhoven, I suddenly became very popular. Continue reading A Cow Going To The Market – Dun Laoghaire, 16th September 2015

A Long Road Back – Manchester, March 1st 2015

The most memorable moment of yet another dreadful first half at Old Trafford was when Jonny Evans passed the ball back to David de Gea from near the half way line in the 22nd minute. A wayward corner from Ashley Young ended up with Daley Blind on the opposite flank. He passed to Evans near the halfway line who in turn passed to de Gea. Evans had no choice, he couldn’t pass safely to another United played where he was so he did what any sensible centre half would do. The howls of disapproval, most notably from the K Stand, were the angriest I’ve heard Old Trafford since the anti Moyes banner flew around Old Trafford last April. Some people thought that the crowd were having a go at Evans, but I think it was more a case of a pissed off crowd who had seen far too many moves evaporate this season in this manner. That there was no outfield player available to Evans to pass to is more a problem for his team mates as a collective, than it is any culpability for Evans after an attacking position moments earlier fell apart. Not for the first time this season, United fans chanted attack, attack, attack-attack-attack, however to my ears, this was shouted with a bit more vigour than usual.

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Possibly the most terrifying image I’ve ever seen used to advertise a football match. Incidentally, Thriller by Michael Jackson is still available in all good record shops (while good record shops last)

A feisty Sunderland side who clearly fancied their chances Continue reading A Long Road Back – Manchester, March 1st 2015

On Freezing Cold Nights And Days In The Sun – Manchester, 3rd February 2015

Fifty one seconds is all it took for this match to come to life. A poor Daley Blind backpass was seized on by Tom Elliott. The big Cambridge centre forward ran through on goal, beat David de Gea and hit the United keepers left hand post before rolling out safely for a goal kick. I was in the ground watching this comedy so I couldn’t hear what was being said on live television, but I bet my season ticket that Ian Darke, the commentator for BT Sports, was dreaming of his Ronnie Radford moment as Elliott ran clean through. As I write this immediately after the match, I wonder who will rue that miss more, Darke or Elliott.

On Saturday, United went through the motions beating a feisty pub side from Leicester 3-1. Tonight, the visitors from Cambridge gave a far more convincing and credible showing. Like Saturday however, the match was over as a realistic contest by half time. Angel Di Maria played the ball to the ball to the far post for Marouane Fellaini. The Belgian headed down into the six yard box and with the outside of his left foot, Juan Mata hacked the ball into the Scoreboard End net in the 25th minute. Seven minutes later, Marcos Rojo scored his first goal for United. From six yards, the Argentine centre half glanced a header into the right-hand side of the net past Chris Dunn, the pink clad Cambridge keeper, after a brilliant Robin van Persie cross. In the 71st minute, James Wilson made the score 3-0 with a low shot from twenty yards into the Stretford End net. This capped the scoring off for the night and thus, duplicated the score of previous time Cambridge United played at Old Trafford in September 1991, for a League Cup tie.

On freezing cold nights, both eleven nights ago and tonight, Cambridge United football club and their loyal fans, who support their local team and take 6,500 to every away game, have had their metaphorical days in the sun. As I got back to my car near the Abbey Stadium after that shambles in the first game, I found a text from United on my mobile phone. Great I thought, an apology from United for the piss poor effort I’d just witnessed. I was wrong to think that. With a speed and efficiency that the United first team could only dream of, United’s ticket office showed them the way by telling reds that they were to have £30/45 debited from their accounts on Monday for the replay.

Radamel Falcao celebrates putting United 2-0 up against Leicester City on Saturday

In the week following that debacle, the country was in the thrall of yellow snow warnings. United decided they couldn’t be left out of all this and they excelled themselves in the aftermath of that appalling display at Cambridge. In a customer service manoeuvre so crass that it would have Michael O’Leary of Ryanair wincing, United sent out text messages and emails, giving season ticket holders whose card details had expired in the last six months, thirty six hours to pay for this replay or they would have to serve a one match suspension for the Sunderland match on the 28th of February. Most people wouldn’t have got their first post Christmas pay packet until the day after the deadline, but United with breathtaking arrogance were not offering any flexibility. The coup de grace was the imposition of a booking fee on top of the replay ticket for people who had waited, in some cases over half an hour, on hold to United’s ticket office. This is probably the most egregious example of the odious automatic cup scheme, which was first imposed on season ticket holders in 2007.

The D Stand at Old Trafford on 85 minutes

I’m not au fait as to how many people failed to get their payment to the ticket office on time, but with an official attendance tonight of 74,511 most Season ticket holders obviously did (there was nowhere near that many in the ground). Most of those people who begged, borrowed or stole to pay for the ticket tonight, will be falling over themselves to get a ticket for United’s first visit to Preston since 1972. I will be one of them, but with the vulgar way United have dealt with the ticket payments for this replay, I do sometimes wonder why so much effort is to put into it. See you at West Ham