Half and Half
So here we go again. Another crisis, another crossroads,
another x on the graph marking the inexorable ascendancy of city and United’s
equally inexorable decline. Sensing a few more cracks in the empire, the media
vultures are pecking away again. Or, to shift metaphors midstream, Rooney,
sensing the water lapping at his ankles, plans to be the first rat off the
vessel.
There’s a glass half-full reading of all this of course. In
that version of events, United are sitting a mere three points behind the
league-leaders, going into that phase of the season when they habitually kick
into gear and with machine-like precision do just what is required to close out the opposition and win
the title. Then factor-in that those current league-leaders are city, providing
not just additional local motivation for securing title number 20, but also being
a club for whom failure is the defining characteristic, the strand in their DNA that no amount of petro-dollars can
ever eradicate.
And factor-in Fergie of course, who relishes battles like
these, ever obstinate, ever unwilling to countenance failure, the manager for
all seasons. Lose this afternoon and it will precipitate another week of crisis
talk, another mass venting of spleen on phone-ins and forums, more hyperbolic
and hysterical tweets. And all it will do is help foster the siege mentality
that Fergie thrives on and that he’ll use to drive his squad on through the
coming weeks.
Win this afternoon and...well, we can’t win really can we?
Not in any meaningful sense. Beat city and how far will it really go in
exorcising the horror of the 1-6? Say, by some miracle that United repay them
with a thrashing of similar proportions, what does it win us? Sure, temporary
ownership of that hoary old trope ‘bragging rights’ that we hear so much of on
Derby Day, but defeats in the FA Cup, particularly not in the third round, don’t
carry the deadly sting of league meetings, and city fans will exit the ground
secure in that three-point advantage whatever the outcome today.
Considering our opponents today, his eye-catching line about
United’s net-spend over the last three years being lower than that of Hull
City, Burnley and Blackpool, could be read as testimony to the tight fiscal
policies under the Glazer regime, proof that financial fair-play and sustained
success are not incompatible. That barely tells the story of course. That comes
in the haemorrhaging of money by the family, the constant price-hikes, leading
to the hollowing-out of the club’s hard-core support.
Smyth refers to a masochistic urge amongst some reds for
some serious pain that will lead to an ‘industrial cleansing’, a purging of the
Glazer’s from the OT body-politic, ushering in some kind of utopia. (As Travis
Bickle might have said, ‘One day a real crisis will come to wash all the Glazer
scum off the streets.’) Nice dream, to quote Thom Yorke, but not one likely to
actually happen. For all the death-knells being sounded, there’s still far too
much quality in the United squad for this to become a reality, a fact that the
self-regarding anti-Fergie voices that shout most on twitter will just have to
live with.
But though Smyth is right in most of the things he says,
Rooney stabbing home a late winner would be that bit righter. And that’s the
best and worst thing about the game. What we live for are those spasms of
delirium and delight that obliterate everything we rationally know to be true.
And when they come against them, there, they’re all the sweeter.
Will we win today? I’m half and half about that.
Snide Info
Screenwriter William Goldman might have scripted timeless classics such as ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ and ‘All the President’s Men’, but the words he’ll probably be remembered for more than any others come from his memoir ‘Adventures in the Screentrade’. There he wrote ‘No one knows anything.’ He might have been talking about film, but his words apply equally well to many other fields, from politics to music. And, of course, to football. Never more so than now, in the dog days of the close season, when transfer speculations rushes in to fill the void left by actual stuff happening.
Anything great in film (and many things far from great) deserve a sequel, and Goldman’s maxim definitely gets one when it comes to transfer speculation; no-one knows anything, but everyone thinks they know something. So depending which paper you read, which internet source you put your trust in, or whether the Glazer’s have done enough this summer to dispel doubts that United will never again be a major force when it comes to recruiting world-renowned talent, David Gill is right now speeding across Milan to sign up Wesley Sneijder. Alternatively Fergie and Gill, with the collusion of obliging hacks, have simply allowed such talk to flare to fan sluggish season-ticket sales.
In the light of recent revelations, journalistic reputation is already a pretty debased currency, but it’s weird to see so many willing to stake their names on such directly contradictory outcomes. Even weirder is the absolute authority and conviction with which they state their claims. I’m not talking here of the massed ranks of forumistas and tweeters eager to inflate their status as in the know merchants. I’m talking about those with picture bylines, the kind who come the new season will be angling for Sunday morning invites round Brian Woolnough’s gaffe for plastic croissants and warm orange juice (strictly ‘from concentrate’).
Who’s briefing who? And what are their motives? One day the BBC’s Howard Nurse is claiming that a ‘reliable’ OT source (reliable, like ‘informed’ being one of those adjectives that has come untethered from its actual meaning) that United were never in for Sneijder and that Gill was never even in Milan. This last point being a reference to the apex (one hopes) of silly-season idiocy when Gill began to trend on twitter as rumour of his location swept the web. The next day, the Guardian still go with a piece of where Sneijder will fit into the tactical scheme of things, while the M.E.N. , pinning the location of the meeting to Zurich, reckon the deal is still very much alive.
Who to believe? Definitely not Fergie himself who has made a career out of dissembling to the press. Whether he observes the whole sorry charade with mirth or with despair is open to debate. I’d guess a mixture of the two. But I couldn’t say for certain. Like everyone, when it comes down to it, I know nothing.
Seismic Saturday
We live in the Age of the Overstatement. And you know who’s to blame. Every Super Sunday another superlative gets drained of meaning as Sky dupe us into believing that the Premier League is simply one climactic, borderline classico after another. Hardly surprising then that the claims to historical significance of any given Saturday or Sunday in the footballing calendar should be treated with liberal quantities of salt. But if any Saturday ever deserved to have something like ‘Seismic’ attached to it, it’s the one coming up, a day that for United fans potentially brings two moments of, ahem, massive significance, one of which could cancel the other one out. The big question being, which is which?
Let’s start with the first. Nineteen. Think about that. Twelve times in eighteen years. For those of us weaned during the great famine of the 80’s, with only the odd FA Cup and glorious tales of years gone by to sustain us, it’s almost beyond comprehension. Young United fans, with their reflex hatred of all things Scouse, should have tried going to school when everyone supported Liverpool, when it seemed like every season they’d scupper the hope that this year was the one. They’d know about hating Scousers then. So I’ll say it again. Nineteen. (And with that said, can reds who should know better abandon this wacky get Paul Hardcastle to Number 1 campaign. Am I alone in thinking it smacks of the sort of fans who get their kicks carrying inflatable bananas or doing Poznan’s?).
Talking of which. Barely a couple of hours after we hopefully sink our claws into a deeper groove on that there perch, history of another kind could well be written at Wembley. Many United fans are already making noises about how any rays of light emanating from Wembley will be obliterated by that giant 19 taking all the space in the sky. I’m not so sure. For one thing, United were practically crowned on Sunday, meaning many of the tribute pieces have already gone to press. For another, there’s just no getting away from the fact that, like it or not, city winning the cup is a big deal. Best to admit this to yourself now rather than make a fool of yourself arguing otherwise. Not bigger than winning a record 19th no, but big nonetheless.
Think about it. This isn’t just getting a single monkey off your back, it is, to quote a bloke who knew a thing or two about bitterness, a wilderness of monkeys. We remember what that was like. True, for us it was the league title rather than just the trinket of an FA Cup, but it matters and there’s no escaping it. What do we do with the flag? Straight in the Irwell for me. In fact, it’s always astonished me that city never got round to negating it by just putting up an identical one of their own, would have soon lost its impact then.
Driving home tonight, mulling over some of the thoughts that I’m putting down here, I thought about some of the decent city fans I’ve know over the years. Kids I’ve taught with pretty shoddy lives – I know, I know, the gag’s write themselves, but not everyone has the courage to call their old man one of them – whose lives would be made a bit less shoddy if for once city didn’t let them down. It was a moment of weakness. I tried to fight it. But I can’t deny that for a spell there I felt what could only be described as a moment of equanimity about a city win.
It passed. I thought about those all those clowns doing ‘their’ Poznan, ‘Munich’ dribbling from their lips and getting caught in their ‘taches. But if it doesn’t happen on Saturday, it’ll happen soon. They’ll act like idiots when it happens, and if we don’t allow them their moment, so will we. Now where’s that bucket with the big hole?
So, farewell then @dgibbo28
So, where were you when you heard the news? Still out on the lash, basking in the sun and the warm glow of another late Chicharito winner? Slumped in front of Britain’s Got Talent, wondering what kind of morons actually watch this stuff (you weren’t watching it of course, it just happened to be on)? Or, perhaps you were glued to Sky Sports News, where I wouldn’t be surprised if the event wasn’t announced via the yellow-ticker scrolling across the foot of the screen. What event? Wayne Rooney’s arrival on twitter of course.
At this point it’s customary for me to apologise for yet another twitter-themed post and to think back to the NME letters page of the late 80’s and 90’s which would invariably feature some waggish correspondent wondering if it wasn’t time the publication just changed its name to New Morrissey Express and had done with it. In which spirit, it might be time I just changed the title of the blog to United Road – Tweet Me Home or something. Apology done, back to the theme.
Wayne’s debut was conducted in now familiar fashion. Embarrassed first couple of tweets in which he explained that he’d finally succumbed and give him time to find his feet, soon followed-up by shout-outs to various acquaintances. Before long, confidence, and with it confidences of one kind or another, were flowing and we were granted a privileged glimpse of life chez Rooney. All with a flagrant disregard for the conventions of spelling and punctuation that were manna to his legion of critics.
Rooney’s twitter debut was sandwiched between the recent-ish arrival of Nani and Micheal Owen, and the subsequent one of Darron Gibson. Not hard to guess which of these will accrue the most followers in the weeks to come (presumably the source of much bragging around Carrington these days). In these particular stakes, Wayne (on 188, 413) still has a bit of catching up to do if he wants to surpass the twit-father himself Rio (841, 166).
Question is what do they, and we, expect to get out of their being on twitter? First thing they can look forward to of course is an avalanche of abuse courtesy of cyber warriors emboldened by the shield of their avatars. Darron Gibson joined twitter earlier today. A quick @dgibbo28 search, offers a pretty unedifying glimpse into the abyss of banality. Or rather it doesn’t. Not two hours after going up, his account was deleted, presumably to spare him having to wade through all the malice being directed his way. Actually, I found this pretty surprising assuming that most reds would just relish the chance to tweet ‘shooo(repeat ‘o’ for what’s left of your 140 characters) at him. Clearly not.
Gibson’s quickly removed toe, might deter team-mates, particularly messrs Carrick, Bebe and Obertan, from taking the plunge into twitter’s murky waters. Should we regard this as a shame? That depends. On my most recent visit to twitter, I learned that Wayne is getting ready to watch the Blackburn v city game and has invited his followers to predict the score. At moments like that, there’s an inescapable melancholy around twitter. You get the sense of lonely people reaching out through the ether to other lonely people. And even lonelier ones blogging about it at length a few hours later as if it has some profound sociological significance.
Don’t believe me about the loneliness thing? Just follow former United striker Guiseppe Rossi for a while and glimpse the void at the heart of the gilded cage that is the footballer’s existence. Most of his tweets seem to be about his immense boredom, asking people what they’re doing with their time so he has a clue what to do with his.
Some argue that twitter is breaking down barriers between players and fans, barriers thought to have been reinforced by the increasingly super-injuncted, hyper-privileged lifestyles that players lead. I see a bit of this. For some reason unfathomable even to me, I find myself following Bolton’s Kevin Davies. He seems a decent guy. Plays with the kids. Looks after his horses. Watches the match. All pretty mundane (if having your own stables can be considered mundane). Will I be less inclined to yell abuse at him next time he’s backing into Patrice Evra? Probably not.
Tweeting footballers have their moments. Last week, Michael Owen whiled away the longeurs of the return trip from Newcastle by debating his time at Newcastle and his attitude to the press with the Mirror’s Oliver Holt with a candour you rarely find. At the other extreme you have the embarrassment of Rio ‘bantering’ with uber-twat Piers Morgan and urging his ‘twitfam’ to get manboobs trending. Laugh? No, me neither.
Opportunities to hear what players actually think are limited. In pre and post-match interviews they serve up thoroughly predictable clichés and banalities. Most interviews are merely PR obligations for whichever boot/computer game/energy drink the publicist wants shoehorned into the piece. They rarely make for a fascinating, edifying read. You can argue why should they and why should we expect them to. Players like Roy Keane and Ruud van Nistelroy (himself a tweeter these days), with opinions and the capability to articulate them, are a rarity. Others, Joey Barton for example, offer top value in interviews, but, Beady Eye-like, can’t live up to their own rhetoric.
What Gibson himself makes of today’s events we’ve yet to learn. Rio, unsurprisingly has tweeted his two’pennorth, claiming that it wasn’t the abuse that scared him away more the general hassle of monitoring his feed (there’s a gag in there somewhere). United fans who admire the view from the moral high ground and with nothing better to do on a bank holiday found plenty to opine about. And the whole thing killed a bit of time that we could all have spent doing far more meaningful things. And if that’s not what twitter is ultimately for, I don’t know what it is.
Shades of Red
If the posts on this blog have a connecting thread it’s this: the lingering fear that, as red as I am, I’m not quite red enough. Being a solipsistic soul, happy to while away endless hours in self-scrutiny and navel-gazing, I’ve got no end of explanations for this. I’m pretty sure I’ve explored many of them on here before, but it’s worth watching the highlights at x30 again. Never been abroad to see United. (Unless, you’re counting Wales, but the Millenium is hardly Moscow or the Mestalla is it, and what’s more I was on a club coach and in the company of the wife). Not Euro away fare in other words. Name any away ground in the country, and unless it’s in Bolton or Blackburn, I won’t have seen United play there. (Unless it also happens to be Maine Road, Boundary Park or Deepdale, and they were all pre-season friendlies). Not looking good for my redness here is it? And I’m not from Manchester either.
It gets worse before it gets better. Are you ready for this? The first time I saw Eric play in the flesh was that Munich anniversary game. Inexcusable really (unless I had the excuse of being born in 1993 which, I quite clearly don’t). How can I live with myself? More pertinently, how can I happily (if sporadically) tend a blog devoted to United where I often pontificate on the ‘correct’ way to support United? Erm...can I get back to you on that?
Not really. I don’t need to duck the question. Having broke down my credibility, let’s have a crack at it from the other direction, and try building it up again. Fell in love with United on FA Cup Final Day 1979, aged 7. Same day they broke my heart (or Alan Sunderland and that bloody perm of his did anyway). Went to my first game (Everton at home, midweek, 0-0) in 1979. Second game better: Andy Ritchie scored hat-trick against Leeds. This was more like it.
Remember my Mum coming upstairs one night to tell me it had just been on the news that United had sacked Dave Sexton. Remember crying at this news. Don’t remember why. Sister took me about once a month then. Then she got married and my Mum took me. Then, when I was about 12, Mum decided I was big enough to go on my own. If I wasn’t the first on the Stretford End every other Saturday I was one of them. And if wasn’t the skinniest and slightest on the Stretford End every other Saturday, I was one of them. By three my dazzling view of the pitch had shrunk to postage-stamp size, at best. Didn’t matter. I loved being part of that roiling ocean of red humanity, particularly when caught by the current of celebration, swept along to land god knows where.
At first, Mum thought I was too young (and too weedy probably) to go alone midweek. Never did get to see Barcelona in 1984. Don’t bear grudges much, and Barcelona in 2008 and was pretty special and I was there for that. The weird thing is, during all this time, I never went to the game with anyone. At the time this never felt that odd. I was from Oldham and there were surprisingly few reds around our way at the time, nor were there many at school who had Mum and Dad’s blessing to go to Old Trafford on a regular basis (remember this was the 80’s and all that entailed, and United were still tainted with the Red Army 70’s vibe and all that entailed). I swing between gratitude at the fact my parents trusted me to go, and the desire to retrospectively shop them to Childline for such flagrant lack of parental solicitude.
In time, a couple of other lads would start going too, one every game, one just now and again. Sometimes we’d bump into each other on the 182. Sometimes we wouldn’t. It didn’t seem to bother us either way. What it meant, is that I never became part of a United gang, my matchday rituals were all of a solitary nature (ah, but what rituals aren’t when you’re 15?). A change came when a lad at the shop where I did my papers (even Saturday nights, straight off the 24, doing the Pinks, amazed that I could be reading about a game I was stood watching – or to be more precise, stood in near proximity to – just over an hour ago), started offering me his Grandad’s seat in H stand.
It meant leaving the Stetford End, which was sad, but it meant being sat immediately behind the United Road end, which wasn’t. Even better, for some games, the away end would creep round the corner in our direction and we’d get visiting supporters right beneath us. I have a memory from about 1989 (I almost don’t want to set it right and sully it by looking it up on google) of a late winner against Liverpool, when they were utterly dominant, me stood on my chair, jubilant, scores of scousers beneath, baying for blood and throwing anything they could lay hands on at us. Don’t judge me, but there aren’t many moments in life when I can say I was as truly, joyfully, exultantly as happy as then.
And then I drifted away. Loads of reasons. Saturday job. The Stone Roses. No trophies and to be honest no sign of any. Went off to University, barely even bothering to notice results most of the time. Never even occurred to me go back to Old Trafford when I was back home. But I remember taking a break from revising for my finals one Sunday afternoon to listen to Oldham play Aston Villa. And I remember shedding a few tears when it ended. And more the next night when I was in some bar in Newcastle in the company of some reds, singing every song we could remember from our times on the terrace. Geordies looking on, realising there was little glory to be had in picking on a bunch of specky twats like that. Thank god.
And in time I drifted back. The odd game at first. Then the bug bit. Season ticket. The odd away – but only ever Bolton or Blackburn – oh, and Villa Park too, where I saw Ian Brown, rocking along with a simian stroll only the finest primates can master. Anyway, have my red credentials been re-established yet? Hopefully.
These days, the season ticket has gone back and, for a multitude of reasons I’ve drifted away again. Mortgage to pay. Family. PIK loans. Those sort of reasons. But in many ways, my redness hasn’t wavered in the way it did last time. How could it? I’m here writing this. If I wasn’t, I’d probably be looking at twitter where half my timeline is clogged by United related items of varying degrees of interest.
So why the anxiety and insecurity? It’s not just the not going. In some ways, and I’ve argued this myself, right now not attending OT is the truest measure of redness, your stomach for staying away the litmus test of how much you really want the Glazer’s to fuck-off, no matter what the colour of your scarf says otherwise. No, I’m pinning the blame – and if you’ve followed these posts, you might have expected this – on twitter.
What did you do last night? Me, I watched Cemetery Junction. Not bad. Nothing special. Female characters sketchily drawn to put it mildly. Gervais too happy to retreat into his usual (dis)comfort zone for my liking, all that ironic-racist shite, the nagging old-gran, like it’s On the Buses or something. Looked like he couldn’t decide what he was doing with the main character. Stuck on that Tim and Dawn from the Office-type romance. Watchable though.
Only, I know that, if I want to call myself any kind of red, I should have been doing nothing of the sort. I should have been at OT watching the youth team in action against Chelsea (I mean, you can’t seriously uphold a boycott for a game that costs 3quid can you?). You can? Well then I should have been tuned into some stream or other (obviously MUTV is a no-no). Or, at the very least, I should have been watching via twitter (it’s the new ceefax don’tchaknow) where no shortage of those I follow where filing 140 character dispatches at staggeringly frequent intervals. (I know this because I trawled through them after the film, when I should have been watching Spurs v Arsenal).
I know, because many of those I follow on twitter do, that I should have a workable opinion on Will Keane and any of the other members of the youth team who aren’t Ravel Morrison (everyone has an opinion on him). Thing is, I’m just not that interested. Fleet Foxes have a new album due in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to it immensely. But I’m not fussed about hearing the demo’s for the album, I want to hear the finished deal. I feel the same about youth football. I want the finished, produced album, not the rough and ready works in progress. Though it’s not surprising that the internet should be overrun with reds of a more completist, geekier persuasion. I just can’t find it in myself to join them, so I find myself staring into my navel and trying to gauge the degree of redness I see.
So, in summary. Youth team played. Didn’t watch it. Wrote about this at length. The end.
#mufc...ok?
Warning: This is yet another post on here in which twitter will play a prominent role. Time was when the biggest influence on my perspective on red-related matters was the view from my seat in N43, alas, no longer. These days, it’s an armchair view, with the chorus of cynicism, doom-mongering and rampant Scousophobia formerly provided by those in surrounding seats now coming direct from my mobile courtesy of twitter. It’s company I suppose, but it leaves a strange taste in the mouth.
On one level , it’s not that dissimilar to the experience of taking your seat and nodding to the usual faces. Some of them you know the names of, some of them told you their names a few seasons ago, but you’ve since forgot and it seems a touch off to ask them at this late stage particularly when they remember yours you rude bastard. Some of them you’ve even got their number in your mobile from when they sorted you out with aways and you reciprocated by letting them use your number for a Wembley trip you weren’t doing. Same faces mostly, stretching out in all four directions, the odd unfamiliar one slotted here and there, other obligations taking precedence for once. A community of sorts.
Do you get community on twitter? Of a fashion. Familiar names and faces – though these are faces squashed into minute avatar size. Any nodding as you take your seat? Not much. Instead for ninety minutes you hurl comments out into the digital void, but you rarely hear them make a splash. And your eyes flick towards the phone and you watch others do the same. Some amuse, many irritate. Often you find yourself struggling to beat down the thought , ‘Shouldn’t you be at – or at the very least watching – the game, seeing as you style yourself as the toppermost of top reds?’. Inevitably the devil on your other shoulder fires back the thought, ‘Shouldn’t you?’
You get this alot with twitter. It alarms you the degree to which some are consumed by United. When do you start wondering what team Fergie’s going to put out for a particular game? With me, it’s from about two minutes after I take my seat in front of the game. Not on twitter. Here, hours, sometimes days before, and people are pondering the permutations at Fegie’s disposal. Needless to say, when the team is announced, it’s the wrong one. I mean, really, isn’t it time Fergie was replaced by some crowd-sourcing app that picked the team for him?
Which brings me to another problem with twitter; the rampant self-regard. Naturally, I have to own up to the corollary that freights all these frets, namely, that as a tweeter and occasional blogger, I’m thoroughly contaminated with the same virus, but still. I get the feeling that some, and this is as a phrase I abhor, ‘prominent bloggers’, have risen to the status of spokepeople for all reds. And I want to know: who are you and who elected you our leader? (worrying possible answer: me when I clicked follow?).
I have no such fears with fanzines. They’re visibly there every game and have been for years. And it takes a damn sight more effort to get a fanzine together than it does to log on to wordpress or blogger. (And again, the pot can hear the kettle whispering that it isn’t red enough for his liking). Maybe I’m just peeved at my relatively miniscule following or the fact that this blog attracts so little by way of comments. Maybe.
Call me ‘old media’ but when you write a United blog and tweet incessantly about #mufc then I like to think you might have put in a few hours actually following them in the non-passive sense of the word. But if you’ll excuse me now, there’s about 83 people I need to inform why Fergie should be fired if he doesn’t start with Anderson in centre-mid tonight.
Negative capability
Ready to get a bit pretentious? Strap yourself in then, here we go. In 1817, while musing on exactly what gave Shakespeare his extraordinary genius as a writer, John Keats decided that the secret lay in what he described as ‘negative capability’. This he defined as, and I paraphrase only slightly, the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in mind at the same time. (Full disclosure: I just paid Wikipedia a quick visit to see if my Keats knowledge was holding up.) It’s a concept that, as United fans, we’ve had to take a crash course in this season.
For starters, there’s the fact that this is one of the most toothless and mediocre squads to have been assembled during Fergie’s time at the club, for proof of which you need only look at our dismal record of away performances. Except, this thought is counter-balanced by the fact we’re still top of the league and may well cancel out the memory of all those dire awaydays by taking the record up to 19.
It doesn’t stop there either. Alex Ferguson is a genius without comparison, a figure whose track record at United allows him license to do whatever he wants, without quibble or question, for as long as he wants to do it. Apart from the fact the same bloke is also a source of public embarrassment who heaps shame on the club with every hypocritical, myopic referee-slandering rant, and who has the effrontery to compound this by regularly snubbing every media outlet that his core support is likely to see, while happily opening up to a New York based digital radio station. And still persists in the line that the mediocrity of his squad is no way related to the Glazer’s financial chicanery.
It’s a wonder the weight of carrying these contradictory notions doesn’t do us an injury. And still they come. Nani? The notion that he is the team’s outstanding attacking force, able to bamboozle defenders at will, seems curiously difficult to take root, challenged as it is by the obduracy of the idea that he is little than a preening liability who will never be fit to lace Ronaldo’s silver boots. And he is tweets are shit too.
Wayne Rooney? Rampaging force of nature, a throwback to a sepia-age when footballers didn’t think it acceptable to spunk what to some is a week’s wages on a single packet of Marlboro. That Wayne Rooney. The one with a first-touch that has all the class of a Bolton call-girl, and who lumbers around the pitch, playing one lumpen, rotten ball after another. And who scored the finest goal of the season in the derby.
They don’t allow your thoughts to settle for a second this side. But I suppose tranquillity isn’t what you sign-up for when you support a football team, especially not this one. Let’s hope that all these contradictions level themselves out to make a thoroughly undeserved 19 come the season’s end.
