Premier League Nonsense

Poor results, players showing no heart, the decline of a great team with a manager seemingly impotent to halt the slide and unrest in the support. Welcome to the Arsenal 1973. Or 1983. Or 1995. Or 2012.

Take your pick. What’s happening at the Arsenal is nothing new and neither is the apparent malaise in the higher echelons of the club.

For some unknown reason the Arsenal seem unable to dominate English football in the way first Liverpool and latterly Manchester United have done the last 40 years or so. Arsene Wenger is just the latest manager to find that the Arsenal hot seat does get very hot after a while.

After winning the club’s first ever League and FA Cup double in 1970/71 there were those predicting the club would go on and dominate English football for a long time to come. They didn’t of course. The following season they finished 5^th in the table and lost to Leeds United in the FA Cup Final despite adding record signing Alan Ball to the squad.

A year later they brought in old school centre half Jeff Blockley to replace inspirational skipper Frank McLintock, oh how we need him on the field now, sleeves rolled up cajoling and threatening his team mates to show some spunk for the badge.

McLintock epitomized the Arsenal style in a way that Tony Adams later emulated but no one has come close to since. He was not a one club man, signed from Leicester City, but he was a captain in the days when captains rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in. literally.

Once, in a European game with Lazio in Rome things got out of hand on the field and there were some afters later in the car park between the two sets of players as Arsenal lads jumped into help their own. Can you imagine that now? They would be so wrapped up in their oversized headphones and texting their agent they would know nothing until the poor victim posted something on Twitter or Facebook. Then they would do nothing for fear of misplacing their ‘man bag’.

Back to that 70s side. Blockley was no McLintock. Older fans compared him with Ian Ure; today Blockley is recalled whenever fans recall the worst centre halves in the club’s history and a younger generation compare the hapless Sebastian Squillaci with him. He most certainly was not the man to replace a legend and restore past glory. The manager, Bertie Mee obviously realized that too late and brought in Terry Mancini, a balding, aging defender from QPR.

That said it all. Players like Peter Storey, Bob McNab and George Graham, mainstays of that double side, were moving on and their replacements were of a much poorer quality. North Bank hero Charlie George fell out with the club and was sold to Derby County. Half the double team had gone within three years and the club, apparently skint, turned to youth. Players like Brendon Batson, Brian Hornsby, Wilf Rostron and John Matthews were expected to leap from the youth team to fill the gaping void and none did though one young Irishman,Liam Brady did starting breaking into the first team around this time.

Mee eventually quit in 1976 after two relegation struggles had seen support whittle down to less than 20,000 for home games. In came Terry Neill who set about spending money to try and recapture the desire. In came the prolific Malcolm MacDonald from Newcastle United along with his former team mate Pat Howard, as well as players like Steve Walford and Kevin Stead. MacDonald scored for fun but suffered from injuries while the others just faded away making no impact on the club or its fans.

After four cup finals straddling the 1970s and 1980s, just one was won, fans were getting ever more frustrated as the club lurched from mediocrity to nothingness. Brady flourished as did two other young Irishmen who came through the ranks, David O’Leary and Frank Stapleton. Alan Sunderland and Willie Young were brought in to do a job but Arsenal under Neill were never challenging for the main prize, the title.

As the club grew more desperate so did the signings. Peter Nicholas came in, a tacking midfielder who surely replicated Brian Talbot. A striker was signed, Clive Allen, only to be swapped for a defender, Kenny Sansom. That was the Arsenal under Neill.

In 1982 big money was spent. In came England international Tony Woodcock and promising forward Lee Chapman while later in the season silky midfielder Vladimir Petrovic came in to add some flair fans had not seen since Liam Brady had been sold. Indeed, Brady’s departure, plus the controversial sale of Stapelton to Manchester United convinced many that Arsenal had become a selling club and the new signings did little to generate any enthusiasm among the fans with attendances failing to increase by any large amount.

It took the arrival of Charlie Nicholas to restore the feel good factor at Arsenal. Ok, he was ultimately a failure, he had no pace and couldn’t head the ball, but at last fans had found someone they could identify and in the early days of the season attendances did increase.

The Charlie effect though soon wore off and after a League Cup upset at home to Walsall, they lost 2-1, Terry Neill was sacked. The dismissal hadfollowed weeks of disquiet among the support with fans dividing into two camps. One lost thing Neill should go, another lot that he should stay. Grim times on theNorth Bank as the divisions evolved into pushing and shoving with the occasional slapping going on. Having lost the fans Neill’s days were numbered and in came Don Howe for a couple of years.

But it was George Graham who eventually put the swagger back in to the Arsenal and he did it promoting good young players like David Rocastle, Michael Thomas and Paul Merson. At the same time he made Tony Adams, who had made his debut under Neill in 1983, captain and he set about using his knowledge of the smaller clubs signing players like Perry Groves, Lee Dixon and Alan Smith.

Graham moulded a team in his own image and they became very successful. But he always mistrusted flair players. His methods worked as he won the ECEW in 1994 with players like Ian Selly and Steve Morrow at the heart of the midfield. It was the third cup triumph in 12 months but Arsenal fans were growing impatient with the football being played. Yes, it worked well in the cup but despite an Indian summer in 1992 when Graham’s team, boasting Anders Limpar, Ian Wright, Paul Merson and Kevin Campbell scored goals for fun, there was never another serious title challenge. Manchester United’s domination of English football was just beginning but Graham responded by dreiding Ferguson’s signing of Eric Cantona.

English football was changing and it was leaving Graham, and Arsenal behind. Cantona changed the mindset among many but Graham, stuck in his ways, proved stubborn. He would sign players like John Jensen, a dour, Danish midfielder, and Pal Lydersen, a Norwegian no one knew anything about. Jimmy Carter had failed to make the grade at Liverpool yet Graham brought him to the Arsenal.

In the transfer window of 1995 he finally splashed some cash. In came Glkenn Helder, Chris Kiwomya and John Hartson. None made any impact and weeks later, amid allegations he had taken bungs from agents, he was sacked.

Again Arsenal were rudderless. This time for 18 months as first Stewart Houstan then Bruce Rioch took charge. Then came Arsene Wenger and this time it was the Arsenal leading from the front. Wenger recognized the sea change in English football in a way that Graham never did. He loosened the shackles imposed by Graham and brought flair players like Anelka, Overmars, Henry and Pires.

For a while Manchester United and Arsenal shared the major trophies between them. Arsenal had become many people’s second favourite team and even the media said nice things about us. We were winning and we were winning well. Most un Arsenal like.

It was too good to be true. The building of a new stadium became a massive albatross round the club’s neck and forced a shift in policy. Wenger concentrated on signing promising young players many of whom plainly weren’t good enough. Yet, stubbornly, Wenger insisted his way was the best but results suggested otherwise.

There was a brittleness the club was unaccustomed to. Defeat against Old Trafford, the end of the impressive 49 game unbeaten run, took a long time to recover from. When Arsenal were on course for the Premier League an unfortunate injury to striker Eduardo and a late penalty saw another poor reaction with supposed captain William Gallas prancing round the field showing his disgust to the fans and the world.

Wenger seemed to treat the domestic cup competitions with contempt; perhaps little realizing winning one trophy, even be it the Carling Cup, would do wonders for the players’ morale. But he would brush off defeat in the Carling and FA Cup saying they weren’t important; what mattered was qualification for the Champions League.

The squad visibly weaked. Aleksander Hleb was no Robert Pires, and the focus moved away from lightining fast counter attacks to more possession football with a tall target man at the heart of everything. With frequent changes in the line up, and players often missing long spells through injury, the club seemed to be treading water at best.

Wenger would boast about how teams featuring players like Almunia, Clichy and Eboue were among the best teams he had ever built but the fans were starting to turn against him. They’re not mugs, they knew the players being brought into the team were not a patch on previous teams he had built.

There were rumbling among the support. That Wenger had lost his way, he could no longer motivate the players. For many, 2011 was the final straw. Losing to Birmingham City in the last minute of the Carling Cup Final. Of course Wenger being Wenger brushed it off, condescendingly saying it was only the Carling Cup. What mattered was the Champions League. We lost that as well and soon were left with nothing. Again. While Wenger blamed the pitches, the refs, the fixture list and anything else that came to mind. It was never his fault, the fates were against us was his opinion. The players, he claimed, possessed great mental strength.

Then came the disastrous pre season. All summer he claimed Nasri and Fabregas would not be leaving despite the mounting evidence they would. They did of course leave. In August. Meaning Wenger had just days to bring in some replacements. Then there was that 8-2 defeat against Manchester United; the latest in a long line of embarrassing defeats against our so called rivals.

Oh, and I forget to mention the 6 and a half % increase in ticket prices.

Inertia at the club. An unwillingness to face the facts and the results. A series of poor signings. Bad players onlong term contracts with high salaries that can’t be moved because no one else is daft enough to pay that kind of money for them.

It hurts to say that Wenger must leave after all that he has done for this club. Not everything at the club is down to him. That the club are a PR shambles isn't his fault; seriously, that Gazidis geezer coming out saying Manchester City are jealous of us?! Do these people know anything at all about football? And a new majority shareholder who promises we'll be seeing more of him yet is never seen again? That's another fine mess there Stanley.

There is no doubting players have let him down. Step forward Theo Walcott. If ever there has beena player everyone has willed to do well it is Theo. Yet time and time and time again he has betrayed the trust placed in him by his manager. He's a lucky young man, any other manager would have long ditched him.

Many fans wouldn’t mind so much if there was some effort from the overpaid players but there isn’t. The same mistakes are being repeated year n, year out. The lack of fight against both AC Milan and Sunderland showed that Wenger has surely lost the power to motivate the team. There is no mental strength in that dressing room like there is not much quality and there is absolutely no leadership. Wenger is deluding himself when says otherwise and he is bullshitting the fans.

# posted by Me @ 8:28 AM 0 Comments

Last summer is widely considered to be the most inept in Arsenal’s recent history. Despite constant denials by the club, Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas left once the new season got underway leaving Arsene Wenger to scramble round trying to find stop gaps before further humiliation followed the 8-2 reverse at Old Trafford.

In came Per Mertersacker, Andre Santos, Mikel Arteta, Yossi Benayoun and the South Korean striker Park. Earlier we had seen promising striker Alex Oxlade Chamberlain arrive from Southampton. Out to went Emmanuel Eboue, Denilson, Niklas Bendtner among others.

After six years without a trophy Wenger and the club underwent some spring cleaning. But the departures last season will be nothing to what should happen this coming summer. A whole host of players should be looking carefully at Wenger’s body language because if the manager doesn’t want to lose the Arsenal support, and he has already lost a fairly large percentage of it, he’s going to have to start some serious culling.

Out must go Manuel Almunia, Sebastian Squillaci, Tomas Rosicky and Andrei Arsharvin. Wenger must reconsider his loyalty to bit part players like Abou Diaby, eternally injured, and the extremely limited Johan Djourou. Do Park and Moroccan international striker Chamakh do anything beyond keep the bench warm and count their salary?

Then there are the big names. Robin van Persie will be entering the last year of his contract. Yes, he’s had an impressive season but we still have nothing to show for it and anyway given his injury record is it worth taking a punt tying him down to a last long term deal? And Theo Walcott? Wenger will soon be asking how many more wasted crosses do we need to see before deciding it’s not worth it and saying cheerio. Or perhaps play him down the middle, at last?

That’s basically a whole team whose position at the club needs to be assessed. That some of them are still there is a mystery only those familiar with the inner workings of the club can answer.

Szezcny needs to stay but he needs a quality back up and Lukaz Fabianski isn’t it. Bacary Sagna, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshire and Oxlade-Chamberlain should stay as should Thomas Vermaelen while players like Emmanuel Frimpong and Kyle Bartley should be given a chance after lengthy spells on loan or just plain get rid of.

Essentially Wenger needs to build a whole new team or the club is going to face more empty seats as fans get ever more disillusioned with the high prices charged and a transfer policy that attracts and rewards mediocrity. And he’s going to need quality in the midfield and attack.

The Frenchman has built successful teams in the past by spending money and needs to be allowed to do so again.

There could be other changes in the summer. There is talk of assistant manager Pat Rice finally retiring with Steve Bould, one of the famous back line built by George Graham, stepping up. If that happens it will be the first major change to the backroom staff wince Wenger took over at the club in 1996. Hopefully Bould will be able to install some defensive discipline because it certainly seems beyond Wenger to do so.

Arsenal fans are at a tipping point. The Arsene Knows Brigade are still there, still backing their man but the opposing view is getting more strident and grows stronger with each inept performance. The squad needs breaking up but does Wenger recognize it?

# posted by Me @ 6:43 AM 2 Comments

I’ve always been apathetic about other teams’ derbies. Rotherham United v Barnsley or Southampton v Portsmouth can never really mean anything unless you have firsthand experience of the rivalry that exists between the towns pr the teams.

Although I have taken in the past to watching Sheffield United play on occasion it has been more a convenience thing; giving me an interest in games at new grounds for example rather than any real deep passion for the club; though I dare anyone who isn’t a Wednesdayite not to be stirred by the john Denver classic Annie’s Song being belted out full volume by the hardy few.

Bringing me nicely to Sheffield Wednesday. Apathy has always been my chief feeling towards them. Them and Everton for some reason. I can’t bring my self to loathe either but at the same time I have never entertained any interest in them.

But that changed, at least for Wednesday back in 1993. We had defeated them in two cup finals the previous season and to be fair they did have a pretty reasonable line up in those days. But our game there early in the new season, had we but known it at the time, presaged the futire of top flight English football. I came away from Hillsborough luxuriating in the three points but shaking my head at what had been going on pre match.

Wednesday are nicknamed the Owls. For that season they had a kit sponsor that featured a [uma which kind of lets that particular cat out of the bag. That day the club, much to the embarrassment of those present (or perhaps just me) went to town on the Owl and the Pussycat theme. The sound system was cranked up really high, deafening their mute home support, while a oversized stuffed owl and pussycat walked around the pitch waving at the fans.

The owl and the pussycat may have gone to sea in a beautiful pea green boat but that early 90s afternoon they were larging it up in South Yorkshire and the home support were lapping it up. It was cringeworthy as the announcer told us how they formed such a perfect partnership and they would stay together forever and the club would live happily ever after.

Looking back it seems an amateurish attempt at branding. On the day it was just plain embarrassing. From that moment on my apathy for Wednesday descended into apathy and I hope I never have to see them again.

Wednesday continued to humiliate English football. They had Tango Man. A large beer bellied gentleman of the sort we English apparently revel in. he would strip off his shirt, paint his body and go topless. As the team slumped he became more famous than the miserable players they signed to replace the likes of Waddle, Harkes and Bright.

People would return home from their games and be asked how Tango Man did.

Then there was the brass band. The mining communites of South Yorkshire were famous for their brass bands which allowed the rest of us to marvel at the fortitude and spirit of those grim northern toughties who would spend all week down t’mine then blow trombones and trumpets at the weekend.

That was fine. Yippee. In the villages is ok. But why oh why did they have to export the racket to football stadiums? Seriously, many fans know what to do at games, they don’t need some Salvation Army types blowing and banging on cue to generate some support. It’s embarrassing. And it’s choreographed.

Which brings us neatly to where football is today. A choreographed business where anyone who breaks the unwritten rules is jumped upon by a hungry pack of media, fans and pundits. The players come on the pitch, line up, wave, shake hands with their opponents, wave then trot dutifully to their ends. When someone breaks that mould, like Suarez at Old Trafford, last weekend, then they become the biggest villain the country has seen since Camilla got between Charles and Diana.

Sheffield Wednesday have much to answer for!

# posted by Me @ 4:28 PM 0 Comments

One of Arsene Wenger’s comments following Arsenal’s 7-1 thumping of Blackburn Rovers was telling perhaps of how expectations have changed at the North London club. Asked whether there was any significance in the scoreline he said no, that it meant nothing unless the team could get a result at Sunderland next weekend and he would be just as happy with a 1-0 win.

1-0 to the Arsenal! That chant followed the club around especially during the early 1990s under George Graham, famous for his parsimonious defence. Under Graham you just knew that if they went one up that defence made of the good old English oak, Seaman, Dixon, Winterburn, Adams and Bould, would do the rest.

Wenger inherited that back line and they enjoyed several years of success but he has struggled of late to find players of similar stature and you just know these days 1-0 to the Arsenal is never going to be enough. Witness recent defeats away to Fulham and Swansea City.

There is always reason to gloat after such a comprehensive performance but there is still dissent among the Arsenal ranks though thankfully the threatened protest that had been circulating the internet, involving the placing of black bin bags on empty seats did not materialize, and that dissent won’t ease at least until a trophy is delivered.

There are though reasons for some optimism among the Arsenal support, not least the arrival on the scene of Alex Oxlade Chamberlain; he brings a directness and swagger to an Arsenal team that has been sadly lacking this last half decade and now he has made the step up to the Premier League fans will be expecting great things from the young man.

Wenger however will be keen to ease him gradually into the team and with Gervinho to return from the African Cup of Nations and the enigmatic Russian Andrei Arsharvin always ready to come on from the bench you can be sure the management team will be doing all they can to manage expectionsof their precocious talent.

Many fans will be hoping Oxlade Chamberlain will be able to have a positive impact on another one time teenage prodigy; Theo Walcott. Since signing for the club in 2006 he has shown glimpses of what he can do but never consistently and many will be hoping the emergence of the Ox may provide Walcott with the proverbial kick up the backside.

There are more reasons for optimism. Bereft of full backs for a large chunk of the season and forced to play centre backs out of position, fans have already seen the return of Bacary Sagna and can expect to see the likes of Kieran Gibbs, Carl Jenkinson and Andre Santos over the next few weeks which means that Thomas Vermaelen for example can return to his rightful position at the heart of the defence.

7-1 always makes you feel good but Wenger is right. It means nothing unless it is followed by another win and next weekend’s trip to Sunderland, resurgent under Martin O’Neill, will be a tough task.

(A little late, this was written after the Blackburn game)

# posted by Me @ 7:24 AM 0 Comments

Who’d be a coach? Mick McCarthy, in the hot seat at Wolverhampton Wanderers has come in for heaps of abuse this season with fans calling for his ouster and telling him he doesn’t know what he is doing.

And to be fair they do have reason to gripe. Their 2-1 away win at Loftus Road at the weekend against fellow strugglers Queens Park Rangers was their first three points in 12 games and no fan likes to see his team lose or draw week in, week out without feeling at least some frustration.

But what would changing the manager at Molinuex achieve? Wolves don’t have deep pockets; they are not funded by Russian oligarchs or Arab sheikhs. They won’t be able to tempt Jose Mourinho with a move to the Black Country. Even a Martin O’Neill or David Moyes is beyond their pocket book.

Back in the late 70s, early 80s Wolves did go round splashing cash they never had on players, Andy Gray was one of the first players to move for 1 million pounds, and building a new stand but they crippled themselves in the process and consecutive relegations saw them end up in the old Division Four, the lowest tier I the professional game, playing in front of crowds of 3,000 plus.

It was all a far cry from the 1950s when Wolves were one of the biggest clubs in Europe; pioneers who played the best the continent had to offer and often beat them. In fact it was the Wolves of Stan Cullis and Billy Wright that encouraged a young Irishman, George Best, to take up the game.

They beat the likes of Honved, back then Hungary were perhaps the best team in Europe and had recently embarrassed England 6-3 at Wembley, Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid.

They have had moments since then. A team built around players like Ferek Dougan, John Richards and Kenny Hibbet flourished for a while in the 1970s and when they did finally start their climb back up the table from their nadir striker Steve Bull was at the heart of everything.

Those names live on in Wolves folklore but their demise from the top table of Europe to Premier League strugglers has been hard to take for the support as the abuse directed at McCarthy has shown.

Since taking over the club in 2006 the club finished as champions of the second tier and are now in their third consecutive season in the Premier League. They have struggled in each of their seasons but then what club low on funds hasn’t?

Last season the big clubs didn’t like playing Wolves. They won at Anfield while beating Chelsea and both Manchester clubs at Molinuex. Proof, perhaps, that McCarthy does know what he is doing? Of course they lost to just about every other team in the Premier League and only escaped relegation by the skin of their teeth.

This season has been bereft of upsets. Sunderland are the only team from the top half of the table Wolves have beaten and during their 3-0 defeat at home to Liverpool recently the chorus of disapproval cascaded round the famous stadium. It says much of Liverpool’s current plight that losing to them should be greeted with such displeasure!

Wolves have a tidy enough squad and in Wayne Hennessey one of the best keepers in the country as his performance at the Emirates in December proved. Stephen Hunt plays the role of pantomime boo boy admirably while their strike partnership of Kevin Doyle and Steven Fletcher, the club’s record signings at 6.5 million pound each, are tidy players; Fletcher a consistent goalscorer.

And on the flank Matt Jarvis became the first Wolves player to be capped by England since Steve Bull more than 20 years earlier.

What more can Wolves’ fans expect? They are never going to challenge for the Premier League unless some bored, stinking rich tycoon comes over and says have some money. Their best hope of any kind of success is to follow the West Bromwich Albion model of promotion followed by relegation on a frequent basis. But given the rivaly between the two clubs even that is unlikely.

If McCarthy does keep Wolves up it will be the fourth season on the spin he has performed a minor miracle. Fans should be grateful for what they have. They only have to look at the current lot other ‘big’ clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Derby Couny and Nottingham Forest for the alternative.

# posted by Me @ 2:56 PM 0 Comments

OK so he wasn’t a Roman, he was born near the Slovenian border but why let a minor irritant like the truth ruin a good headline. Red tops have been doing it for yonks and anyway he played for and coached AS Roma.

You would think that in the wake of Fabio Capello’s departure as England manager just weeks away from the Euros in Poland and Ukraine he had become Interpol’s most wanted. People have been queuing up to slate the Italian saying he only came to England for the money (!), he never understood England and he never understood English football.

The Emperor hasn’t even packed his bags and the media are clamouring for his replacement to be an Englishman. Because, so goes the reasoning, only an English manager can understand English players. And, perhaps, their penchant for getting pissed, getting in brawls, racially abusing opponents or just sleeping with their wives or girlfriends.

With Fabio’s dismissal coming just after hours after Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp was cleared of avoiding tax everybody with an opinion has been opining and it seems opining with one voice. That Harry be the next manager of the England national team.

The players want him appointed. Ex players want him appointed. The press want him appointed. No doubt if we were to ask the Queen’s corgis who they would want appointed they would all bark Rosie in unison. It’s the kind of herd mentality that takes countries to war and leads banks to bankruptcy. It seems there is no one out there saying hold on a minute. Does it have to be Harry?

It seems so ironic that Fabio should quit for his support of his captain John Terry while he faces racism charges yet the knee jerk reaction of middle England is no more foreigners! Indeed in a normal world shorn of hysteria Capello’s support of his captain would be widely admired. After all, there used to be this idea that an Englishman was innocent until found guilty. But as former minister Chris Huhne is finding out, that doesn’t necessarily apply to people in the public eye.

As people are falling over themselves to point out that Fabio never took time to understood the English mentality it’s worth pointing out that his record actually was not that bad. He won 28 of the 42 games he took charge of, a 66.66% success rate that exceeds previous managers like Terry Venables and Kevin Keegan. It’s worth remembering they were two very popular appointments whose reign ended with more whimper than bang despite all the hype that surrounded them. Keegan won 39% of his games while Venables won a measly 52%.

The Football Association needs to make sure history doesn’t repeat a third time and that is why they should block out the din for Harry and take their time. Redknapp may have been found not guilty in one case but there is a high chance others are lurking under the surface and who really knows how many skeletons there are in his closet. For now he gets an easy ride but there are no guarantees that will last forever.

That much maligned Swede Sven Goran Eriksson also stands tall in the pantheon of England managers if we can ignore the fact that he dropped his trousers more often than he ever lifted a trophy. Only Capello, Sir Alf Ramsey, the only manager to actually win a trophy, and the much maligned Glenn Hoddle have better records than Eriksson.

Managing England is a poisoned chalice. Hardly anybody leaves with his reputation intact. Graham Taylor, Steve McClaren and even Bobby Robson were hounded out of the job by poor results, none of them won more than half their games, while Revie was accused of financial impropriety; something the FA should keep in mind while they examine Redknapp’s dossier.

There is much to consider when the FA do consider their next appointment. But their utmost priority has to be to find the best man for the job. And quality is not limited to the passport. It ain’t about pleasing the pundits or the press; it’s about ending that 46 year drought that hangs like an albatross round our necks.

# posted by Me @ 2:55 PM 0 Comments

I have a great deal of respect for Manchester United and their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. No matter what team you support you can’t help but admire his single mindedness and determination to continually reinvent his first eleven and still win trophies.

Even in the last few seasons when their squad hasn’t been as strong as a decade or so earlier, his teams have relentlessly, inexorably gone on to win games they shouldn’t have; it’s almost as if Sir Alex’s willpower alone has driven the team to success.

I’m also a great admirer of the way he has handled the big names. Recognizing the importance of the cult of personality in the modern game, and its importance in building the Manchester United brand around the world, Ferguson has allowed some players to be almost put upon a pedestal; treated almost differently all the while he thinks they can benefit the team and the club.

Look for example at the likes of David Beckham, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and Cristiano Ronaldo. Each of them was the focus and image of their team, something the club has subtly encouraged while other players like Gary Neville, Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs have been kept almost under wraps. The genius of the former would have counted for little without the consistency of the latter.

And who wants Gary Neville’s face on a t shirt anyway?

I’m old enough to remember the day a Denis Law back heel, nearly always prefixed with the adjective ‘cheeky’ for Manchester City sent United down to the old Second Division. That solitary season I followed United’s progress on our black and white TV as the team fought its way back to the top flight and their fans fought with everyone else, leaving a trail of destruction across the country faithfully recorded by the TV news cameras of the day.

Under their manager Tommy Docherty they played an expansive, attacking football. Gordon Hill and Steve Coppell flew down the wings while Stuart Pearson rammed home the goals. In fact, it’s hard to recall a United team that hasn’t deployed wingers effectively, think Olsen, Strachan, Kanchelskis, Sharpe and Giggs.

Even back in the 1970s, a decade after their European Cup triumph and two decades after the Munich disaster there was still an aura around Manchester United. They were no longer the force they once were but their support was still huge; home and away.

It was around that time that I became aware of the phenomena we know now as the Plastic Manc. We do a lot of this in England; say someone is not the real deal. Plastic Paddies paint shamrocks on their faces and get legless on Guiness every St Patrick’s Day without having any link to the emerald isle and during the punk rock scene plastic punks were those who dressed up at weekends but spent all week being ‘respectable.’

In short the plastics are never fully trusted or accepted by the hardcore.

It was the FA Cup Final and Manchester United were playing Southampton. United were back in the top flight while the Saints were down in the Second Division and my school, like many others around the country was wrapped up in Cup Final fever. It was after all about the only game shown live in TV.

The school I went to was perhaps an hour or so from Southampton, equidistant between London and the south coast yet there were very few Southampton fans in our classrooms. Plenty of Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham plus a sprinkling of Leeds and Liverpool. Oh and of course most of us had a soft spot for our local team, Aldershot.

But that Cup Final brought United fans crawling out the woodwork. Play times during the week before the big game we would live out our own Final fantasies on the asphalt surface, we weren’t allowed on the grass for some reason.

Of course we imagined it was United v Southampton but for some reason the United team had more players than their opponents. They had the best players and they also had the most handsome kids in the school on their side which of course attracted all the girls leaving the Southampton side low on talent, high on nerds and totally unloved in the playground hierarchy.

Things grew to a crescendo the day before the final. One lad who I shall call Bill was considered a bit of a trendsetter in our school. He was handsome so the girls loved him but he was also cool so the guys liked him as well. He was wearing adidas t shirts while the rest of us made do with plain white ones that were perhaps one fifth the price.

On the Friday he wore a Manchester United replica shirt. No one had replica shirts in those days, for half the school his cool factor went through the roof and having scored a goal he took his shirt off and swinging it in the air above his head went on a lap of honour followed by his team mates and the swooning girls all singing some awful dirge about glory and reds go marching on while the rest of us could only look on, no doubt feeling left out and all alone in the world.

Come Monday of course and normal service had been resumed in the playground. The usual suspects played football at break time while the cool kids, the handsome kids and the girls had all disappeared. United, you see, had lost.

Things haven’t changed much. Now, I’m on the other side of the world and English football, and with it Manchester United, has never been more popular. Instead of a few kids in the playground though the Plastic Mancs are everywhere. On the trains, the buses, motorbikes, offices. You name it. Go to a hospital and chances are you’ll find an English speaking doctor wanting to talk about David Beckham or Wayne Rooney while prescribing different coloured tablets.

The funny thing is that not one of them follow Manchester United because they’re successful or they have handsome players or because they are glamourous. Oh no. they just happen to support United because an uncle, a friend, a cat bought them a replica shirt. My retort to that comment is that If I buy Wigan Athletic or Swindon Town shirts for their kids they would grow up supporting those teams is usually met with a growl or a grimace or a mixture of the two.

Indeed any kind of engagement with these people is very difficult. Their input rarely extends beyond a playground taunt of ‘we won, you lost, you suck’ perhaps with a rehash of what the media may be talking about at that particular moment.

Last week, United beat my team, Arsenal, and I was forced to ensure a week of people I’d never seen before crawling out from under their rock to grunt their monosyllabic nonsense before disappearing again from whence they came. And now, with United losing at the weekend things have gotten an awful lot quieter.

Of course I have nothing against fans of other football clubs and there are some from this part of the world who do make the trip to Old Trafford, or Anfield or Stamford Bridge when funds allow. United have always attracted a support from beyond the Greater Manchester region; I recall every time I travelled north from Euston railway station trains to Manchester were often crowded with the Cockney Reds, London based fans.

It would be easier though to respect the grunters if they were to perhaps start to follow different teams. Even, heaven forbid, take a pride in and follow their local team. Then perhaps we could engage in conversations about shared experiences and the magic of attending a football match with all the culture surrounding it rather than grunting ‘we won, you lost, you suck’.

# posted by Me @ 6:20 PM 1 Comments