From the Manor Ground to the Hawthorns, 1500 and goodnight – West Bromwich 19th of May 2013

On Saturday the 8th of November 1986 in front of a crowd of 13,545 at the Manor Ground, Alex Ferguson took control of his first United match, an abject 2-0 defeat to Oxford United. There have been many 2-0 defeats United have suffered since that day. There were enough bad defeats in his first four years. It was a period so turbulent in United’s history that it is to the credit of the much maligned chairman Martin Edwards, that United kept faith with Ferguson when a lot of people on the Old Trafford terraces were calling for his dismissal. For all the 2-0 defeats and other such crazy results in Sir Alex Ferguson time as United’s manager, he’d never been involved in a 5-5 draw, it was fitting really that Sir Alex’s time as United manager concluded with a game that encapsulated so brilliantly the great and not so great of his time as United manager. Before yesterday, the last time United had drawn a match 5-5 was in November 1895 when as Newton Heath, they recorded that score against Lincoln City at Bank Street in Clayton during A.H.Albut’s reign.

Photo: War bob, Anthony Murphy

Sir Bobby Charlton coming out of the Sandwell Academy car park for yesterdays match (Photograph courtesy of Scott Murray) Continue reading From the Manor Ground to the Hawthorns, 1500 and goodnight – West Bromwich 19th of May 2013

Not Nineteen Forever – Manchester 22nd of April 2013

City’s not entirely unexpected defeat at White Hart Lane yesterday meant that t-shirt printers were frenzedly printing up champions t-shirts from this morning, ready for the baying masses at Old Trafford tonight. After the final whistle, listening to the United fans trying to reach the high bits of We Are the Champions by Queen still brings a wry smile to my face. The post match celebration on the forecourt near the statue of the Holy Trinity was one that I will remember for a long time. Flags were flying high, there was a football being kicked high and wild into the celebrating crowd and a joie de vivre amongst reds that was infectious. Even the coppers, not usually people to encourage a good time, were laughing. The swagmen were walking round doing steady business and the fanzine sellers were trying to sell me a fanzine I’d already bought when United played City a couple of weeks ago. Over the years United fans have at certain times been a bit blasé about winning the title but tonight was not one of them occasions. It obviously takes a despised rival winning the league to remind us just how special it is. We can only be grateful that Liverpool haven’t won the title since 1990, that would be unbearable. It is even sweeter that the scousers blew a good chance of winning the league in 2009. City won the title deservedly last season even if the circumstances were a little bit painful, there’s no doubt in my mind that the right team won it. It meant that I’ve not wanted a league title as badly as this since 1993. This season, the right team again have won the title, it nearly always is. (Blackburn in 1995 being the obvious exception).

Scoreboard tells everybody in the ground who wasn’t aware that United are now champions (Photo courtesy of Gareth Jones)

Continue reading Not Nineteen Forever – Manchester 22nd of April 2013

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..

 

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

Doughnut van on Stretford Road – Manchester United V CFR 1907 Cluj 5th of December 2012

Walking down Stretford Road on the way to Old Trafford tonight, I had a gut feeling that the game I was about to witness was not going to be a classic. The smell of the doughnut van parked up on the junction of Stretford Road and Chester Road has left a stronger and more pleasant memory than anything I witnessed on the pitch. Halfway through the second half, the 700 or so pre-pubescant kids that were congregated in the L stand were engaged in a chanting competition with the Cluj fans. It was by some distance the most entertaining occurence on a night of football so indescribably bad and on a night so cold that it is believed that Vladimir Lenin was shivering in his Mausoleum. After the full time whistle I felt more inclined to applaud the kids in the L stand than anybody wearing a red shirt on the pitch. Cluj won with a fantastic 25 yard shot from Luis Alberto on 56 minutes but were knocked out of the Champions League due to Galatasaray’s win in Portugal. On 75 minutes, stadium MC Alan Keegan announced a crowd of 71,521 to laughs of derision from all around me. I don’t believe there was any more than 55,000 in Old Trafford tonight. Years ago, in the days of pay on the gate, squeezed in the Stretford Paddock and knowing there was at least 52,000 in the crowd, the crowd was sometimes underestimated to something like 45,000 and you knew somebody at Old Trafford was on a collosal fiddle. Nowadays it’s the other way round. Whoever came up with that crowd figure for tonight must’ve been the same person whom over the summer made the risible claim that United have 659 million fans worldwide. One more thing I learnt tonight was that with United avoiding a draw, it is now, According to Man United magazine columnist Steve Bartram, Uniteds longest run without a draw since 1896 (26 games). I bet that you really wanted to know that.

A narrow defeat for the Reds tonight but we're into the last 16 of the Champions League...

United side for tonights match

Continue reading Doughnut van on Stretford Road – Manchester United V CFR 1907 Cluj 5th of December 2012

Double Glazers, forever in their debt

Not since the Summer of 2006 have I approached a forthcoming season with such precious little optimism. Then, Chelsea had just won the title at a canter and bolstered their squad with the signings of Ashley Cole and Andriy Shevchenko along with Michael Ballack and John Obi Mikel, who’d been swiped from under United’s nose. With a seemingly bottomless pit of money and Jose Mourinho as manager, they looked unstoppable. In second place during the 2005/6 season were United. The position was a misnomer; at no point during that season did anybody think United were going to win the title. During the close season of 2006 United had only signed Michael Carrick. United also had the hysteria whipped up by the British media of the supposed Rooney/Ronaldo fall out after Wayne Rooney was correctly sent off in Gelsenkirchen for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho’s testicles. Cristiano Ronaldo was subsequently blamed by the very balanced and fair minded English tabloid press for England’s exit from the tournament (not Sven-Göran Eriksson’s tactics, squad/team selection or choice of penalty takers). That Rooney and Ronaldo clicked so well the following season was just as big a kick in the nuts for the anti-United brigade as the one on Carvalho. United seizing the title from a previously unstoppable-looking Chelsea is to this day, for my money, Sir Alex Ferguson’s finest hour.

Wayne Rooney is so angry at Cristiano Ronaldo getting him sent off in the World Cup in 2006 that he’s shaking his hand as he walks off the pitch 

A few months after the controversial takeover by the Glazer family in May 2005, Sir Alex Ferguson had endorsed their running of the club. People who are wilfully blind, or believe what they want to believe, took this as proof positive that the protests that preceeded and greeted the Glazer takeover was not only futile but misguided too. That from season 2006/2007 to present day United have won the title four times and the European Cup once would, on the surface, make things look good. In 2010 United lost the title to Chelsea by one point and the season just passed lost the title to City on goal difference. Everything’s alright isn’t it ?

The Glazers being escorted out of Old Trafford in June 2005

Since United sold Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009 for £80,000,000, things have been clearly far from alright. That summer, United also lost the services of Carlos Tevez having previously promised that the “permanent” transfer would be taken care of. Whatever people think of Carlos Tevez the man, he was as a centre forward for United, sensational. The reasoning emanating was that he was too expensive and that he’d left his United owned house in Alderley Edge a mess. On that basis, I was relieved he’d left Old Trafford, I can’t overemphasise the importance it is as United player to keep a tidy house. We were assured by David “manning the barricades” Gill that the money United received for Ronaldo in 2009 was waiting to be used on the right player. Sir Alex Ferguson claimed the money had not been used because there was no value in the market. That money could’ve been used to buy somebody like Ya-Ya Toure, a player who’d had a blinder against United in the Rome hosted European Cup final of 2009 but he obviously didn’t fit into the category of value. That Ronaldo money has now vanished. As for value in the market, if Dimitar Berbatov is representative of value then I’m looking at a completely different market.

Sir Alex Ferguson espousing his brand of socialism with the Glazers in 2006

Over the years, Sir Alex Ferguson has sporadically spoken well of the Glazers. Personally I was disappointed in this stance but I conveniently took a moderate position on these pronouncements due to him being “the man with the plan” (to borrow a phrase from UWS). This summer has seen Sir Alex Ferguson’s most aggressive display of support for the Glazers yet. What was once a feeling of disappointment and disillusion towards Ferguson from me has now turned into a naked disdain. I’m to the way of thinking how dare he question the loyalty and commitment of United fans who are unhappy with the blatant robbery of the club by his employers. This from a proud Govanite shop steward. The people who are expressing concern that he so disparages are the same people who with a loyalty that was blind and now apparently one-sided, were disrupting horse race meetings involving Coolmore nags when he was in dispute with Coolmore owner John Magnier, who along with J P McManus, also happened to be the major shareholders at Old Trafford. The dispute revolved around the stud rights to a horse that had been gifted to Sir Alex Ferguson, a horse that he’d not put a penny of his own money into (like his present bosses at Old Trafford come to think of it) and a horse that he’d drawn a healthy stipend off for basically having his photograph taken next to. Ferguson’s badly advised fight with such a powerful opponent as Magnier was only going to end up with one result (no matter what face saving bullshit was peddled by Ferguson’s PR people). It had echoes of Terry Venables’ battle with Alan Sugar approximately ten years prior, the only difference in outcome was that Ferguson kept his job.

Sir Alex Ferguson with jockey Michael Kinane and Rock of Gibraltar

 I’ve no doubt that the actions of a well meaning but more militant faction of United fans (M.E.C) coupled with the action of Sir Alex Ferguson in his litigation over the stud rights lead to the chain of events which left the Glazers in charge at Old Trafford. People have said that Magnier and McManus would have sold out to the Glazers come what may due to the offer they received but I believe that to be rubbish. United were turning over a tidy profit for Coolmore/Cubic Expression every year which was an added bonus to the kudos of having a major share in such a world famous sporting institution. All the trouble from the Ferguson affair coupled with a very good offer from the Glazers (with borrowed money at crippling interest) have lead Coolmore to basically say, fuck this, give us the money and we’re out.

Sir Alex Ferguson with Susan Magnier, his partner in ownership of Rock of Gibraltar along with John Magnier in more harmonious times

Many people warned in the Summer of 2005 what the implications of this takeover were. Andy Walsh, Sean Bones, Duncan Drasdo, the three main fanzines around Old Trafford (Red News, Red Issue & United We Stand) and organistions like Shareholders United and IMUSA were pilloried for being scaremongers. Basically what they were saying in 2005 is very close now to coming true.

Former chair of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association, now General Manager of FC United, Andy Walsh

When Paul Scholes came out of retirement last January, he was truly brilliant and I’m glad he’s signed on for another year. That said, as good as he was, does anybody believe that Scholes would have returned in those circumstances pre-Glazer? Scholes would’ve probably gone to Everton as United would’ve already replaced him (don’t give me Tom Cleverley!) Towards the end of the season where United blew an eight point lead with six games to go, they needed a midfield general to marshal the team and maintain discipline, coupled with a player who could take a corner. City had Ya-Ya Toure, United had Ji Sung Park. God bless the lad, Park did some great work at Old Trafford, never moaned and was a particular thorn in Arsenal’s side but it was painful watching him against Toure at the tripe colony in April. At the time of writing, United have signed Nick Powell from Crewe Alexandra (their young players traditionally used to go to Liverpool) and Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa from Borussia Dortmund. I don’t know much about Kagawa, I’ve heard good things about him from people whose opinion I respect and he was highly thought of at Dortmund. Nick Powell looks good but it’s too early to say how so especially after everybody getting giddy (myself included) about Phil Jones this time last year.

Roy Keane and Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane happily reminisce at Old Trafford in August 2007

As for Sir Alex Ferguson, only time will tell if he’s pulled off a masterstroke and made another silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He’s seen off better and more shrewd managers than the likeable Robert Mancini. Wenger and Mourinho immediately spring to mind. From a sheerly pragmatic view, his past record should buy him time should he want it but his attitude to United fans, which is getting more like Marie Antoinette every passing year, means that patience is wearing thin from people like me who’ve previously devoutly defended him against all kinds of criticism over the last twenty six years. That he so virulently defends a regime that should be abhorrent to what he’s supposed to believe in is the greatest paradox. Whilst Roy Keane may be embittered (a recurring incidence with people who’ve had close professional dealings with Sir Alex), what he said last December about Sir Alex looking primarily after himself appears as accurate as any pass he made during his distinguished twelve years at Old Trafford. In the winter of 1990, Red Issue columnist Zar wrote that time was running out for Ferguson and despite United’s convenient denials over the years, it probably was. Then, he turned things round to a degree which nobody in their wildest dreams or a scouser’s biggest nightmare could’ve envisaged. He might do it again, only a fool would bet against him, but now, time really is running out for obvious reasons. Sir Alex Ferguson came to United when they were in a complete mess and was given time which would now be unthinkable to sort the mess out. That he did so is the greatest achievement of his professional life. Due to his lamentable endorsement of the Glazer ownership and the obvious decline in United’s squad and resources, he could end up leaving at least as big a mess as the one he inherited from Ron Atkinson. For that to be his legacy would be a crying shame, there’s no question about that.