Wall hits Fan: Manchester United Star Does A ‘Cantona’… 100 Years Ago
When Eric Cantona of Manchester United did his amazing Kung-fu kick on an obnoxious Crystal Palace supporter seventeen years ago this month, I was there. By chance I was also an eye-witness thirty-five years earlier when United’s goalkeeper Harry Gregg spectacularly whacked a spectator at Luton Town in April, 1960, knocking him to the ground. That coincidence meant...
Don’t Treat Welbeck Like Wes… Give Him The Deal
Wes Brown was repeatedly given a hard time by Sir Alex Ferguson when it came time for contract negotiations. In October 2004 the club had offered Brown what they believed to be a reasonable deal and weren’t prepared to budge. “We’ve made the boy an offer and he’s turned it down,” said Ferguson. “It’s his...
When Arsenal beat Manchester United 5-2 in 1960, was the match ‘fixed’?
I was lucky when I first used to go to Manchester United matches, over fifty years ago. Although the team was in the painful early stages of recovery from the Munich Air Crash they still often managed to play wonderfully expressive football in keeping with the finest traditions of the club.Take this description of United’s quicksilver style, written by ex-1930s Arsenal star Bernard Joy...
Welcome Back Thierry – we missed you so much!
The return of that smug prick Thierry Henry might be just what the doctor ordered to make Sunday’s game more like the fiery encounters we used to enjoy. Whilst the Arsenal official site claims this match will be “epic” and one of the biggest games on the clubs’ calendars, I can’t help but think they’re...
Why 2006/2007 Was The Best…
In the summer of 2006 Manchester United were written off. Chelsea had just won the league with ease and added one of the best players in the world for each position to their squad. Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko joined them, whilst in contrast we sold our top scorer, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and...
The Suarez Report Broken Down
Here are the most interesting and important points from the 115 page document which explains why the decision was made to charge Luis Suarez with racially abusing Patrice Evra. (Or just scroll to the bottom where the key points from the report are summarised). Evidence - The FA and Evra watched some video footage of...
RoM Reaction To Europa League Entry
Ahead of kick-off on Wednesday I was nervous but I was still entirely confident we would progress to the Champions League Round of 16. I would have preferred not to endure a nervy draw and fancied us to get a win, but it was neither here nor there. Whilst there was some talk of the...
Man U, Munich and Duncan Edwards… Part II
We have seen in Part I how the term ‘Man U’, considered objectionable by many supporters today, was created entirely uncontroversially by newspapers at least sixty years ago, as an easy printed abbreviation for Manchester United. Used initially almost exclusively for fixtures, results and league tables, it only later became part of grassroots speech a...
Why Saying ‘Man U’ Isn’t So Bad… Part I
It has been estimated that Manchester United have 333 million supporters in over 200 countries, providing an astonishing cumulative audience of 4.2 billion television viewers watching the team in 2010-11. It would be lovely to think we’re all one big happy family but it’s probably no exaggeration to say that millions of those very fans...
Ferguson – Remarkable performances on and off the pitch
People will tell you that when someone of power and prominence walks into a room, before you have even seen them, you feel their presence. It’s an absurd notion really. The idea that anyone has an invisible aura of authority or influence is at best descriptive indulgence, more accurately it’s physically not possible. But the...
The Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Find
So we lost. 6-1. To City. In a week that brought us the catastrophic news of Westlife splitting up, it had me wondering – what about now? Could this really be City’s season in the sun? It’s always a mini-trauma to lose heavily to a bitter rival, and we all have our own personal coping...
How Patrice Evra has never played the race card and why assumptions are dangerous
Football can do a lot of things. It can turn completely stable people into emotional wrecks, it can play with our emotions like nothing else, save perhaps a member of the opposite sex. In short, it’s a very powerful thing. One thing it should not do, however, is to change our perspective. Not footballing perspective,...
