When you first met, you had no idea that they were ‘the one', but here you are, twenty seven years on. Contemplation fills your mind, tracking along every obsession filled vein, to that major organ in your skull. You didn't see it coming, the finishing line, but it was inevitable. The split is wholly amicable in the end, we have run our course now, and it is time to find a life apart from each other.
So the time finally arrived...
As day always follows night, the inevitable retirement of an ageing Scotsman in his twilight years on this planet, was always going to occur sometime very soon. Of course, it feels no less of a shock. That sudden feeling of loss, your heart detaching itself from the arteries and veins, and passing its way up your throat and out of your mouth, unceremoniously falling at your feet on to the cold floor, in a ball of grief.
When the final whistle blew at the Stadium of Light on the 13th of May 2012, Sir Alex Ferguson
applauded his players, and waited for the news. The news was not good. Manchester City had scored
at the death against QPR, and snatched the title on goal difference. Phil Jones wore a look of
utter distress; Dimitar Berbatov put his hand behind his head and stared into the distance.
This opportunity was definitely not going to be missed. A once-in-a-red-moon chance to see our
Manchester United Team in training – in the flesh! Time to perhaps experience our Club at work,
rather than the fine veneer ‘on show' in a match. Tickets sold quickly, ours had been bought four
weeks ago on the first morning of sales.
David De Gea
So Fergie has been proved right once again. The Spanish kid who had some dodgy moments (although that mistake at Tottenham was grossly exaggerated) has evolved in to the Premier League's best goalkeeper. Only problem now is keeping hold of him when Real Madrid and Barcelona inevitably come calling.
The text message arrived from Paddy at 5:44pm on Friday the 26th of April 2013.
"You busy at 4pm on Sunday?"
"Was planning to watch football down the pub, you?" I replied.
"Was planning on watching football at the stadium. Fancy joining?"
Did I fancy joining!...It was a good thing there was no-one else nearby to speak to; had there been, my voice would have been hoarse with excitement.
Daniel Harris The Guardian and On the Road: A Journey Through a Season
Seems odd to admit to it now, but I'd always kind of looked forward to the post-Fergie era. New stuff is exciting, United are exciting, and I was interested in whether a fresh perspective could retain what was best about the old regime and introduce a few new bits.
I was about 12, and playing Playstation at a friend's house. After roughly our 60th head-to-head match, he suggested we start a career game together. He was one of those odd sorts that didn't support a particular team, "just the game in general", so we were Manchester United. "Ah", he said. "There's only one manager, and two of us.
Following his inaugural season, it seems slightly rhetorical to enquire, as Naughty by Nature did all those moons ago, who's down with RVP? Fittingly, almost poetically (well, at least if you're an accountant) our number 20 bags a hat-trick to secure title number 20. Forget Justin Timberlake's recently-released musical namesake, this season at OT truly has been "The 20/20 Experience.
Exactly 22 things happened/were worth talking about in April. One of them was Margaret Thatcher's death. Another was this picture of George Osborne crying. Here are the other 20. (20: what could possibly be the significance of that number?)
20 things (not quite in chronological order):
1: Take away this Cup from me
Manchester United had no cup football in April of last year: good, no distractions.
‘People say mine was a poor upbringing. I don't know what they mean. It was tough, but it wasn't bloody poor. We maybe didn't have a TV. We didn't have a car. We didn't even have a phone. But I thought I had everything, and I did: I had a football.'
On the final day of the 2000/2001 Premier League season, Manchester United played Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane.
5. 2002-03
It's easy to forget how, in the days between the formation and dissolution of the Sky Four, the Premier League was largely filled with utter dross. Stern John and Collins John would count themselves as solid, dependable Premier League strikers and Allardyceball was the dominant religion.
I've been trying to understand Sir Alex Ferguson's effect on Manchester United, and to do so I have had to go back in time.
About half my life ago – well, seventeen years back, but it sounds more grand when I express it as a fraction – I studied Medieval History at school. It was a privilege to take that course.
1. Manchester United 1-1 Chelsea, (1-1 AET, United win on penalties), European Cup Final, 2008
You probably remember how this one went, so rather than retell a familiar story, let's take the time to smash one myth about this game: Chelsea were in no way unfortunate to go into the shootout having not already won the game.
Ah, March: the weather slowly improves, as does the football. With the title race and the narrative of relegation to consider (SIX POINTERS EVERYWHERE!), it all starts to mean something. Or maybe not. In fact, forget football, what's the point of life?
Webbe (2002) observed that the nature of ‘life' means it's liable to "flip 180 in a matter of days" and it felt like that at times.
It's been a strange kind of season. Any reasonable United fan would have bitten your hand off at the start of the season for a fifteen point lead at the top and a shot at the FA Cup by late March. And yet, one miserable week at the start of the month saw dreams of the treble drift into the ether and the double become a far more challenging prospect.
There are a lot of people thankful for the place the world has become; which is mostly great, because it's nice when people are happy (except when it allows for some to write off the very serious issues: who was responsible for ‘post-racial society', anyway?) because things are, of course, different now and not like it was before.
There have been better United players. Ronaldo unquestionably, a handful of others arguably. There have been more charismatic heroes, characters with edge and a kind of madness that our fans adore. Cantona, of course, but also the likes of Keane and Schmeichel. Just as the Pope is regarded as God's representative on earth, these hardboiled figures obsessed with the notion of winning somehow seemed like their manager's representative on turf.
1. Real Madrid 3-3 Manchester United, 1968 European Cup Semi-Final
(OK, so it wasn't at Old Trafford, but this is the most important game United ever had against Madrid, and there are only four other home legs, and this column is called top fives. So be quiet.)
Determined to prove his prophecy that preceded Munich, Matt Busby's new side had won a narrow victory in the first leg and had the task of completing the job in front of over a hundred thousand fans at a packed Bernabeu, without the injured Denis Law.
Since the draw was made its fair to say that most United fans have been eagerly awaiting this tie. Of course we have history with Real Madrid, a history which stretches back to the early days of this tournament. But it is recent events which makes this tie so exciting, as it is an opportunity to welcome back an old friend and a few old adversaries.
January, you'd be happy to hear, was a good month for Manchester United. And it is, on the simple premise that January will nearly always be more important than September, their best of the season yet. United were able to preserve their seven point lead at the top, beat Liverpool and ensure there were no defeats, with thanks to Robin van Persie and company (haw haw, outsiders can get their one-man team jokes out of the way now).
Having experimented with 4-4-2 midfield diamond tactic in a number of matches this season, Sir Alex put the formation to one side following the Champions' League group phase and then it reappeared for the FA Cup game at West Ham. Within the diamond he also tinkered with personnel; take Rafael against the Hammers where he trialled him as the inside midfield player on the right hand side.
Today marks eighteen years to the day since Eric Cantona launched himself into the stands at Selhurst Park and attempted to, quite literally, kick racism out of football. It was a watershed moment for the game in this country, an episode which split opinion and prompted hours of feverish debate. It is easy to see the moment as the JFK moment for a generation of United fans; where were you on the night of that infamous kung-fu kick?
We've all seen the argument before that the reason why our success is different to Chelsea's, and more recently, Manchester City's, is because we used our own money, hard earned cash put through the turnstiles and so on. Almost an admission, that the only reason United ended that painful 26 year wait for a title, was due to our transfer activity being greater than our rivals.
Whereas true golden years and genuinely titanic struggles usually require an ensemble cast squeezing every drop out of a hugely talented squad being a feature of both ‘99 and ‘08 seasons which are dominated by an individual tend to instead be focused on what fate was avoided rather than what was won.
For as long as we have been watching United our team has always played with width. So we can all be forgiven for not seeing this one coming. Yes United have played a 4-3-3 formation on the odd occasion, and with some success, (notably at The Emirates in recent years), but United are known for their wingers.
In the first chapter of Genesis, God tells mankind (yes, I know) to go out and conquer the
world, and ever since (yes, I know), we've been gripped by a paranoid, neurotic desire to
understand everything. But however hard we try, it's simply not possible: whether its spontaneous
combustion, kicks in snooker, or red trousers, cardigans and fascinators, some things will forever
lie beyond human comprehension.
Yesterday Sir Alex dropped the bombshell that he is officially retiring at the end of this season. As for most privileged Reds of Generation X and Z, Fergie is all I've ever really known. Whilst in the deepest recesses of my subconscious rests Big Ron, Fergie is the only footballing face of authority I've ever really recognized.
This is the first of a monthly article I will be writing and, thankfully, Scott has given me a complete free reign to do what I want; which may or may not be a good thing for his website. I've decided to use this opportunity to highlight the things that have irritated me, riled me up, rubbed me up the wrong way, made me laugh, made me cry, made me rant, left me speechless and left me incredulous.
Sir Alex Ferguson has understandably spoke down Manchester United's chances of winning the Premier League with 17 games remaining, but the reality is that his side have a 7-point lead just over the half way point of the season.
One of two English sides remaining in the Champions League, and an FA Cup replay against West Ham to come, the fixtures will come thick and fast for the record English champions.
The Mirror have claimed that Manchester United have agreed a £26m deal with Sao Paulo to sign
Lucas Moura but the manager has denied an agreement has been reached.
"We haven't reached an agreement for the player," he said. "We've shown an interest
but until such time as we get a deal agreed we can't say he's our player.
Football and social media can be more closely correlated than perhaps we realise. Whilst we
don't care so much what they say, the fact we now have the option to hear our idols has helped
bridge the gap between fans and footballers like never before.
Players from across the globe take to social network sites – mainly Twitter – to express
anger, rage, happiness, exchange "banter" with their celebrity ‘mates' & ultimately boost their
profile even further, with our very own Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) a prime example of this.
Football and social media can be more closely correlated than perhaps we realise. Whilst we
don't care so much what they say, the fact we now have the option to hear our idols has helped
bridge the gap between fans and footballers like never before.
Players from across the globe take to social network sites – mainly Twitter – to express
anger, rage, happiness, exchange "banter" with their celebrity ‘mates' & ultimately boost their
profile even further, with our very own Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5) a prime example of this.
I had a number of versions of this written and ready to publish but wasn't sure which one would be most entertaining or enjoyable for the average Republik of Mancunia reader. I did, in fact, send two of these versions to Scott and if you're reading this one (Version 2) he has decided that Version 1 didn't deserve a place on his website.
Follow Musa Okwonga on Twitter.
"For Roy Keane: "Hail to the Tempest"" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia.
Despite the best efforts of Sasa Curcic, football and sex haven't had much to do with each other down the years. Players sometimes compare scoring a goal to the physical act of love "scrambling it in that consolation goal from a yard against Villa gave me an even bigger thrill than when I splattered my beans up 'er indoors, Des" and there was that recurring childhood dream we had about Micky Quinn as a Page 7 fella, wearing only a thong and a roguish grin.
EINDHOVEN MIGHT BE Holland's fifth largest city, but they still had to find the keys to unlock the airport when I arrived there with a photographer in the spring of 1998. We had flown there to meet Jaap Stam just a week after he had joined Manchester United from PSV Eindhoven for £10.75 million, then the largest transfer fee ever paid for a defender.
There has been much debate amongst United fans about Shinji Kagawa recently. Some feel his first year at the club has been a disappointment and that he is unlikely to make the grade, whilst others feel he has great promise and will blossom in the years ahead. It's safe to say that the jury is still out.
This is the second in a monthly column that is fast becoming my favourite to write. The first one had mixed reviews with people criticising the language and style in which it was written. Apparently it had too much swearing in it which is odd considering the title of this column is "Cunt of the Month"; I would have thought swearing was an assumption!
Last year, my flatmates all Arsenal fans, kept going on about this Robin Van Persie bloke. I kept telling them that Wayne Rooney would slap in him in the face in terms of quality of football player. They were adamant that he was stupendously good and every week, I watched Match of the Day and I would see him score amazing goals.
