Postcard from the Stretford End – Manchester United V Sunderland 15th of December 2012

Due to a long standing pre booked long weekend in Benidorm, today was the first and health permitting, last match at Old Trafford I´ll miss this season. Any hope I had of laying off my season ticket today was well and truly scuppered on Thursday morning when United sent a text message out to all season ticket holders offering to move their seat if they wanted to bring a heathen (none member) with them. I literally couldn´t give my ticket away for today´s match, a Saturday which has historically always enticed a lower attendance (unless United are playing a traditional enemy), due to it´s proximity to Christmas and fellas being out shopping with their wives/girlfriends. I find it perversly reassuring in the the some things never change sense, that behind the phony Premier league and SKY tv quasi religous fervour, the attendances will be affected by this weekends antics in the Dumplington centre.

 

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In A Backdrop Of Hot Air And Blue Smoke – Manchester, 9th Of December 2012

Things have changed at City. As Daniel Taylor from The Guardian pointed out, time was “when you might bump into Curly Watts or Eddie Large at Man City games. Tom Cruise is here today”. It was one of them days, I saw the Riot squad tearing down Every Street at 12.50 when all seemed quiet. Later on after the match, a prominent member of Uniteds firm was seen embracing a GMP football intelligence officer on Ashton New Road in a scene which had me thinking of the 1914 Christmas day truce in the Somme..

 

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Sacre Bleu, Red Mist In The Black Mountain, Manchester, 8th Of October, 2011

After doughnut gate with David De Gea last week at Tesco’s in Altrincham, where, according to the Sun, he didn’t just walk out with the doughnut but “swaggered” out with it. I’d love to see what David De Gea looks like, swaggering around eating a doughnut. Wayne Rooney, never one to be outdone, last night got sent off in Montenegro in an incident in which City & England goalkeeper and also good pal of Rooneys, Joe Hart, correctly described as pathetic. Reading this mornings press, you’d think that England had just been knocked out of the European Championships, not just qualified for next years finals in Poland and the Ukraine. I thought what Rooney did last night was plain daft but the way the fourth estate have reported on it, you’d have thought he’d commited treason. Whilst it’s unfortunate that Rooney’s gonna be missing for at least one match in the Euro’s, is it really such a catastrophe that the loss of one excellent player could cause such disruption to the English chances of success next summer ? If England cannot replace Rooney for an important match then it’s a huge indictment on the quality of players available to Fabio Cappello and by association, English football itself. Continue reading Sacre Bleu, Red Mist In The Black Mountain, Manchester, 8th Of October, 2011