Something Completely Different

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Has the sun set on two of the mightiest footballing powers of the last thirty years?

Before I was interested in football (I used to hate it) I could never understand why everyone - bar their supporters - hated Manchester United. No matter who they followed, everyone who wasn't a fan was part of what was colloquially known as the ABU, a non-existent reverse fan club which took the position that its "members" would support "Anyone But United". So if you were, for instance, a rabid fan of Everton and you hated Liverpool, and Liverpool were playing United, you'd still support Liverpool rather than the Manchester team. ABU, right?

But I didn't understand this. I could not comprehend the level of animosity and, let's say it, hatred towards one particular football team by the fans of every other one. Of course, once I got into football it became clear. In 1990, Ireland qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever, and rather than be left out of the conversations and discussion that would take over the office as the tournament progressed, and wanting, after all, like most of us I guess, to be part of something bigger than myself, I started watching the matches and soon found that, surprising myself, I really enjoyed it.
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Once in, then, I saw how arrogant and brash Man United were, how they seemed to think every title and cup was their God-given right, and worse, how their fans behaved towards the supporters of other teams. I very quickly developed my own hatred for the Red Devils, and cursed names such as Cantona and Keane (never mind that the latter was an Irishman and also played for us internationally), Scholes and Bruce, and for their curmudgeonly manager, Alex Ferguson, who seemed to have the golden touch.

From as far back as the 1950s Man United had shown their superiority, but that lasted only until 1968, after which they fell into something of a slump until the years reversed and became 1986, when Ferguson led them to a total domination of English and European football which lasted well into the 21st century. Once he retired though, things began to go badly downhill, as we will see.
                             

For Manchester City, the "blue half" of the city, and fierce rivals of United, it was an entirely different story, almost the reverse. They had limited success in the 1960s and 1970s too, but only won the one league title (the Premier League then known as the First Division) as well as FA Cups and other trophies, but their decline was a far longer period than was that of the team they share the city with. In fact, during the time I got into football, Man City were very much seen as "the annoying younger kid brother" who hung around and got in the way. United never saw them as any sort of a threat, and they were rarely in the top flight at all. When they were, they usually did poorly.

It was only in 2008*, with Arab backing, and the appointment of Pep Guardiola in 2016*, that Manchester City ceased to become a joke, began to look like a real force in first English and then European football, and finally, over a twenty-year period, superseded and eclipsed Manchester United as the premier team from that city, and then from any city. Suddenly, the positions were reversed, as a Ferguson-less United found it really hard to turn on the style and went through many managers, none of whom seemed to gell, while City under their new manager went on to win everything in sight.
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In recent months though, while United have continued to struggle, seemingly unstoppable City have hit not only a bump, but a real wall as their form has stuttered, stumbled and now seems to have been completely derailed. Their performance in Europe has been nothing short of dire, and whereas they should have been expecting to prepare to defend their seventh Premier league title, they now look likely to be struggling to even remain in the top half of the table, as Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and, um, Nottingham Forest make it a four-horse race, the ex-Champions forgotten and left behind in their dust.

So what has happened? How have we got to this pass? How did one team, who used to bestride English football - and European too - like a colossus, fade so badly and become a shadow of themselves, with fans booing them off the pitch and Old Trafford bearing shocked witness to the unprecedented sight of supporters streaming out in disgust long before the match was over? And how did a team which, having risen as it were from the ashes and dragged themselves back from the very depths of the lowest tier in English league football, with the world at their feet, trip and have such a calamitous fall from grace?

To answer these questions, we will need to take a look into the history behind both clubs, the intense rivalry between the "blue" and "red" halves of the city, the strides they made in the past and the mistakes they have also made, the players bought, the players sold, the fans, changes of management, changes in ownership and at board level, and any other aspects of the teams that have contributed to the never before thought of situation of Manchester losing its status as the top footballing power in English football.

* Corrections with thanks to our resident football guru, @jimmy jazz :thumb:

QuoteIt was only in 2001, with the appointment of Pep Guardiola and Arab backing, that Manchester City ceased to become a joke, began to look like a real force in first English and then European football, and finally, over a twenty-year period, superseded and eclipsed Manchester United as the premier team from that city, and then from any city.

They were taken over in 2008, and Guardiola was appointed in 2016.

QuoteAnd how did a team which, having risen as it were from the ashes and dragged themselves back from the very depths of the lowest tier in English league football, with the world at their feet, trip and have such a calamitous fall from grace?

They didn't drag themselves back (and they were never in the lowest tier), Abu Dhabi bankrolled it using a bottomless pit of money, artificially inflated sponsorships, false accounting and got charged 130 times by the PL for it. Since the hearing began, the teams performance on the pitch has dipped dramatically, as if everyone at the club knows something is coming. In short, they know they're fucked.

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I: The Busby Babes: Rise of the Red Devils

Like most Football League clubs, Manchester United can trace their beginnings back to the late nineteenth century, when football was just starting to gain popularity. If you read my FA Cup write-ups, you'll have seen that this was a time of intense interest in football, much of it springing from cricket clubs (who presumably could only play in the summer, since they relied on the English weather) and most of even the smallest clubs were formed around this time. Often, this meant little more than a bunch of guys getting together with an idea, seeking some backing, and securing a place to play. On other occasions, as mentioned above, football clubs sprung from cricket ones, as a means of allowing that county or area to have sports during the rainier seasons. Some of these clubs were part of young mens' associations, workingmen's clubs or even schools and churches, but all had the same, if you'll forgive the pun, goal: to put their area on the map by creating a football club to compete in the many and varied regional leagues springing up around that time.

In Manchester United's case, it was a railway company that gave birth to the embryonic team that would go on to dominate English football for decades. In 1878, the Carriage and Wagon Department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath, almost three miles outside of the city of Manchester, decided they fancied forming a football club. They called themselves, not surprisingly, Newton Heath LYR (for Lancashire Yorkshire Railway) and played their first game against Bolton Wanderers reserve team. It was not an indication of the later greatness they were to achieve, as they lost 6-0. Nevertheless, when the Football League was founded in 1888, Newton Heath transferred there from the Football Alliance, taking their place in what was then the First Division. They had a hard time though, and after two seasons found themselves relegated to the Second Division. By now they were just Newton Heath, and had moved to a new ground.
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Like, it seems, almost every football club in the late nineteenth to very early twentieth century, Newton Heath narrowly avoided being wound-up, and with investment from four businessmen changed its name to, you guessed it, Manchester United. So really you would have to say the club as it is today is really only around since 1902. Under this new name and with financial security assured, the new club quickly rose out of the Second Division, even winning their first ever First Division title in 1911, a year after moving again, this time to the stadium that would remain their home till this day, Old Trafford.

Their initial glory was fleeting though, and between 1922 and 1945 the team bounced from division to division, being relegated then promoted, until Matt Busby took charge just after the war. Though it would take another seven years, Busby would take Manchester United to the top again, after which they would enter a fallow period during which the world of English football was at their feet. They won back-to-back league titles in 1956 and 1957, becoming that same year the first ever English football club to compete in Europe. Because of the youth of the team members, the squad earned the nickname "The Busby Babes", but this epithet was to have horrific significance only two years into their dominance.
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On February 6 1958 the plane carrying the team, its officials and also some reporters crashed on take-off from Munich Airport, killing 23 people, 8 of whom were players. It was, at the time, Manchester United's darkest day, and that of football too. Busby rebuilt the squad, and with people like Denis Law and future legends George Best and Bobby Charlton, Man United went on to win the FA Cup in 1963, the league twice in  1966 and 1967, and became the first English team to win the European Cup in 1968.

The 1970s saw Man United fall from grace, being relegated and losing their star players, as well as the manager who had masterminded their rise. In a situation which would be repeated twenty years later, Busby seemed irreplaceable, and every manager after him failed to revive United's flagging fortunes. Until the manager of Aberdeen left his post to come and take charge of the team, and in 1986 Alex Ferguson became manager of Manchester United, a job he would retain for almost thirty years, easily the longest-serving manager with the same club. His impact was not immediate, but results began to improve, and by the close of 1987 United were second in the league, finishing just behind eventual winners Liverpool.

1992 and 1993 were turning points for the club, signing future legends Ryan Giggs, Dion Dublin, Peter Schmeichel and Eric Cantona, and by the close of the 1992/93 season they were champions, a position they would occupy for most of the following twenty years.

Quote from: jimmy jazz on Jan 04, 2025, 06:02 PMThey were taken over in 2008, and Guardiola was appointed in 2016.

Oops! My mistake. That's what happens when you research two football teams at the same time!  :laughing:

QuoteThey didn't drag themselves back (and they were never in the lowest tier), Abu Dhabi bankrolled it using a bottomless pit of money, artificially inflated sponsorships, false accounting and got charged 130 times by the PL for it. Since the hearing began, the teams performance on the pitch has dipped dramatically, as if everyone at the club knows something is coming. In short, they know they're fucked.

I'll address all this, plus any necessary corrections, as I go along. I'm sure I read they were in the third division, but I'll bow to your superior football knowledge. For now.
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II: Better dead than red: Once in a blue moon

The origins of Manchester United's bitter rivals from the same city are somewhat shrouded in mystery, but they do seem to be rooted in a perhaps more violent past. During the later years of the nineteenth century, Manchester was subject to a lot of unemployment - perhaps as the Industrial Revolution took hold and men began to be replaced by machines - and young men with nothing better to do passed their time organising huge mass fights called "scuttles". As ever, the Church frowned upon this (though in fairness, you'd have to say, this time with good reason) and one rector tried to get the lads to channel their energies into more productive channels, through the local cricket, and later, football club. The team took their name from the rector's church - St. Mark's - and began initially playing other church teams, later changing their name to Gorton Association F.C., - Gorton being the name of the area wherein the church was located - and like Manchester United as Newton Heath, slowly losing their connection with the church as they metamorphosed into a proper football team.

The two teams came up against each other in 1886, with Newton Heath beating them in a horrendous 11-1 defeat in the FA Cup, quite possibly setting up a rivalry that endures to this day. The next year they moved to a new ground near a railway viaduct at Ardwick (perhaps unconsciously imitating the Newton Heathers, who had, you remember, been formed by the staff of a railway carriage office) and became known as Ardwick AFC; at this point, they became a professional football club. In 1889 the two teams put aside their nascent rivalry to play a friendly in support of a charity to raise funds for the victims of a local mine explosion, and in 1891 Ardwick beat Newton Heath 1-0 in the Manchester Cup, securing their place in the Football League.
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1893 saw the club go through some serious financial difficulties, which necessitated the dissolution of Ardwick AFC, to reform the next year as Manchester City F.C. This then means that they were the first of the two Manchester clubs to adopt the name they still play under, as United only changed their name in 1902. It's also possible - these are all only guesses - that United (then still Newton Heath) took umbrage at ex-Ardwick's claiming of their city's name (although they came from outside of Manchester itself, as already noted), since they, United, had been formed first, even if there were only two years between them. Whatever the reason, it seems that the blue/red division the city now lives under, and has done for well over forty years, is not a new one, and could be said to stretch all the way back to the formation of both clubs.

City became the first of the two teams to win the FA Cup, in 1904, almost adding a league title in the same year but falling short. United would have to wait another five years before they would lift the trophy. But history repeats itself, it would seem, and the next year City were embroiled in allegations of match-fixing and breaking Football League rules regarding players' salaries. Ah, Pep! Sound familiar? The League took a dim view of this, though given this was over a century ago now, the figures seem piddling in comparison to the ones being dealt with now - players should be paid no more than four pounds a week, and Manchester City brazenly paid a staggering ten! Outrageous! :laughing:  All in the context of the time, of course: a mere ten years prior, City had secured their new football ground for the eye-watering rental of twenty pounds a year! Retribution for breaking the sacred rules was swift. The manager was banned from football for life and most of the players fined and banned from playing for the next year. City could have collapsed, and indeed they had to sell off some of their best players in order to meet the fines, and who was waiting to snap them up? Given that United then won the league thanks to these ex-City players, the reasons for that lifelong rivalry just keep stacking up, don't they?
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Manchester City seemed to have some pretty bad luck in the early days, and while I of course can't say it was the case, I do have to wonder. Having had the honour of a royal visit from His Majesty King George V, City found their stadium the victim of a fire, caused, it is said, by a dropped cigarette butt. I see no accusation against, or allegations to same, but I entertain the - perhaps fanciful - notion that one or more supporters of Man United, stung at being passed over for royal approval, as it were, and jealous of the prestige City would have gained from having had the royal arse sitting on their seats, may have popped down the road to Ardwick for a quick smoke.

In any event, the stadium was unusable, and no doubt relishing the prospect of their rival club being homeless, United made sure plans to share Old Trafford with them were scuppered byy charging City exorbitant rent. I'm sure they had no intention of sharing their ground with their enemy, and anyway, surely the sight of those players United had snapped up when City had to sell them off, training at Old Trafford now for United, would have been a further burr under City's saddle? So in the end repairs were carried out at Hyde Road and Manchester City remained there for another three years.

@Trollheart yes they were in the Third Division but there are four tiers in the football league system. At the time, the Fourth Division would have been the lowest tier. Today it's known as League Two.

It is confusing, I know.

Right, right. Gotcha. What we think of as the Third Division now is actually the second, with the Championship being the first. Yes, it is confusing. Fun to research though. Learning a lot. I've credited you for the corrections I've made in the OP by the way. Glad to have you along for the ride.

Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 04, 2025, 06:43 PMRight, right. Gotcha. What we think of as the Third Division now is actually the second, with the Championship being the first. Yes, it is confusing. Fun to research though. Learning a lot. I've credited you for the corrections I've made in the OP by the way. Glad to have you along for the ride.

Cheers Big T. Would it be asking too much to correct Manchester City's name to 'Cheating Cunts'?  :)

I can see it now: two of the biggest clubs in English football - Cheating Cunts and Arrogant Bastards!  :laughing:

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III: Glory, Glory, Man United: Europe At Their Feet

Perhaps it's ironic that Manchester United would gain their greatest victories and become a - for a long time, the - footballing power in England with a Scotsman at the helm, but things changed radically when Alex Ferguson was persuaded to leave his managerial position at Aberdeen and come south to take over the then-struggling club. His impact was almost immediate: he took over the club on November 6 1986, and though they lost their first match they quickly began to see results, and only seven weeks later beat the mighty Liverpool at home, the only time Anfield had seen a defeat that season. There was, probably, talk of Ferguson being the natural successor to Sir Matt, but nobody could, I imagine, have predicted how far the new manager would eclipse even United's beloved ex-boss's record. It's fair to say that under Ferguson, few teams could stop the new United, and even if they lost matches, the ratio of wins to losses was always in their favour. They would become the darlings of Europe, winning cup after cup and title after title, and were always either Premier League champions or runners-up. For a long time - a very long time - Manchester United were the kings of English football, and princes of Europe.
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However, that road would not be smooth or straight, and after some bad results and a failed takeover bid, Manchester United were staring relegation in the face at the end of the 1989/90 season, and a mere three years after taking the job, Ferguson was rumoured to be facing dismissal (though the Board denied it, but then they always do, until the announcement), his job only saved when United won the FA Cup, beating Crystal Palace in a replay after a hard-fought 3-3 draw. Nevertheless, United finished a poor 13th in the league, looking up enviously at a victorious Liverpool side who had just made it a record 18th title win.

United had success in Europe though that year, beating the mighty Barcelona to take the Cup Winners Cup, becoming the first English team to compete and win in Europe since the Heysel tragedy which had led to the banning of all English teams from Europe. Let's quickly look into that, for those who don't know what it was.

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Backs to the Wall: Red menace at Heysel
An End to English Football in Europe (1985 - 1990)

On May 29 1985, in a game between Juventus and Liverpool at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, angry Liverpool fans began taunting and then throwing objects across the divide between them and the Italians. The Juventus supporters, running from the vengeful Englishmen, ran up against a wall and some were crushed against it as the Liverpool supporters surged forward. The wall, which had failed safety checks before the match but about which nothing had been done, eventually collapsed, and in all 39 people died. 14 Liverpool fans were later tried and found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to prison, while all English clubs were banned for five years from any European football match, Liverpool's ban extended by one year. It was a dark, dark day for football.

Further reading tells me the stadium, which was at the time the Belgian national one, was 55 years old at the time, and so badly maintained that parts of it were literally crumbling away. Arsenal, who had played there three years previously, described it rather succinctly, but accurately, as a "dump", and Liverpool fans who had not got tickets for the match were easily able to kick holes in the cinder block wall to get in. Both Juventus and Liverpool had asked UEFA to move the venue, but after a quick half-hour check, the governing European football body had shrugged and said, fuck it it will do. So they too have their part to shoulder in the blame.

Nevertheless, it can't be denied that no matter how shitty a stadium it may have been, the catalyst for the attack that led to the deaths of so many people was what used to be called football hooliganism. I can't say for sure if these were true Liverpool fans who went on the attack, or agents provocateur such as far-right groups like The National Front or Combat 18, who were known to infiltrate supporters clubs and go to matches just to cause trouble and foment violence, but there is just simply no excuse for behaviour like that, and it's right that those who took part were imprisoned. Because of the disaster, all English clubs were banned from playing in Europe for 5 years.

You can see then why not only being the first English team to get back into Europe, but also the first to win a trophy, was a huge feather in Manchester United's cap. Beating the legendary Barcelona, who had won the cup so many times they were almost its owners - three times since 1978, and this was their defence of the 1989/90 title - only made it all the sweeter, and despite the general resentment and hatred for United simmering in England at the time, and which would grow to outright antagonism between them and most other English clubs, or at least their fans, every English person must have swollen with pride to have known that one of their teams had beaten the pride of Spain.
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1991 also saw the signing of a player who would become synonymous with the rise of Manchester United, the 21-year-old Ryan Giggs, who along with Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes, Bryan Robson and Danish goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel would form the core of the team that would dominate English - and European - football for over a decade. The floatation of the club on the stock exchange and its net worth of over £18 million showed that Manchester United had ceased to become just a football club, and was beginning its journey towards being a worldwide brand and a true flourishing business. With success still eluding them though as they tried to unseat a rampant Leeds United from the top spot, Manchester United began hatching plans to steal their top striker, a move that would end up being one of the smartest ones Ferguson had ever made. Sacre bleu!

Giggs was an academy product mate, joined them in 1987. Ironically from Man Citys academy. Fergie went round to the Giggs household on the day of his 14th birthday and got him to sign schoolboy terms.

Giggs also represented England as a schoolboy. And was known as Ryan Wilson before Giggs. Changed his name because he doesn't like his dad. There is footage of him on YouTube as a youth and he was lightning quick. Fucking rapid and stood out a mile compared to the others his age.

Fair enough. I'm getting my information as usual from Wiki, which says "New to the United squad for the 1991–92 season were goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel and defender Paul Parker, but the big news of the season was the breakthrough of teenage winger Ryan Giggs, who had made his debut the previous season and played in most of United's games in 1991–92."

All of which only goes to prove that I don't read as well as I should. Ah well, fuck it: it's only United!  :laughing: Good to have you here to set me straight when I get something wrong about footy though! :thumb:

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IV: Noisy Neighbours: City on the edge of forever

The path their Manchester rivals would take through the leagues was about as divergent as you could imagine. Manchester City were always seen as the underdogs between the two, with Ferguson later dismissing their almost non-existent (at the time) threat to them as being their "noisy neighbours", the implication being, I guess, that City made a lot of noise but achieved nothing, or, as the Bard once put it, they were a team full of "sound and fury, signifying nothing." And it was true. But Manchester City had started off the twentieth century flying, and it could have originally have been so much different for them.

Already with the royal seal of approval, as detailed earlier, City in fact featured a player who would go on not only to manage their bitter rivals, but who would become a legend in United's history, Matt Busby. They finished third in the league in the 1929/30 season and got to the semi-finals of the next three FA Cups, unable to win it, but the only English team to be in the semi-finals three years in a row. In 1934 their dogged persistence paid off as they lifted the FA Cup for the first time, having beaten Portsmouth 2-1. Three years later they were champions of the then First Division (which would later become the Premier League) for the first time. Somewhat unbelievably though, the very next season they were relegated, the only team in England to be relegated as champions, an uneasy record they still hold to this day.

This really odd turnaround would not be the only time City seemed to fall at the first fence, do things the hard way, or lose to opposition they should easily beat, a phenomenon that came to be known as "City-itis" or "Typical City Syndrome". It would, in all likelihood, be the reason City would have such a tumultuous time in the league, and why, for a long time, they were seen very much as the second Manchester club. Perhaps as part of this, City courted serious controversy when, just after the end of the war, they signed a confessed Nazi, Bert Trautmann, as their goalkeeper. The signing prompted demonstrations, but Trautmann, having changed his views on both English and Jews after his unexpectedly honorable treatment in a POW camp, made himself indispensable to the team and soon won the hearts of the City faithful. He was brave, skilled and energetic, and became recognised by the end of his career as one of the greatest keepers of all time.
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Trautmann would play a crucial part in Manchester City's next FA Cup victory, which took place in 1956. With 17 minutes of the match to go, and City up 3-1 against Birmingham City, one of the opposition players collided with the keeper as he tried to save (and succeeded) but his neck was in fact broken, a fact Trautmann was not aware of - though the pain he was in would seem to have told him something at least was wrong. He had been stunned into unconsciousness, and the referee stopped the match to allow urgent treatment. This was before substitutions were allowed, so if Trautmann had to go off he could not be replaced. Despite attempts by the management to have another player take his place, Trautmann insisted on remaining in the goal.

He had not an easy time of it. Though his defenders did all they could to keep the ball from being in a position where he would have to save it, kicking it long and into the stands whenever they could, twice before the end of the match two Birmingham players did get through the defence, and the German had to save the ball, an action that exacerbated his agony and knocked him unconscious again. Despite all this, he completed the match, and was able to - with considerable difficulty - mount the steps to receive his winners' medal, to a chorus of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" from the supporters. If nothing else, this incident of incredible bravery and determination, and dedication to the club, cemented Bert Trautmann's place in Manchester City history.

This FA Cup victory was, however, the only bright spot in a very dark time for the club. In 1963 they had been relegated to the second division, attendances had dropped from a high of over 80,000 to a tenth of that but with the appointment of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison as manager and assistant coach, they soon climbed out of the second division and won promotion at the first try. I also find it amusing how things have changed in football in terms of what's allowed and what's not. I read that in the 1967/68 season at one match two players from opposite sides traded punches on the field, but neither were sent off or even carded. Wouldn't happen today: even raise your hand to a player, even one on your own team (hello Newcastle) and you're likely to be taking, as they say, the early bath.

City were champions again in 1968, beating the then league leaders and their fierce rivals Manchester United 3-1, then on the final day of the season, with victory sealing the title for either, United were at home to Sunderland, bottom of the division, while City took on Newcastle away. After a hard-won match City took the title, no doubt to the fury of United. City went on to again win the FA Cup in 1969 but began to struggle in the First Division, losing ground though the following year they did the League Cup double, winning both the Cup Winners Cup and the Football League Cup, but while they were favourites to win the division in 1971/72, the old City-itis struck again and they began a run of bad results, which ended with them finishing fourth. With the departure of Mercer that year the club went into something of a tailspin.

They just survived relegation the next season, only avoiding being the only team in English football to be relegated twice, having been champions, though they did get their revenge as, as the 1973/74 season came to a close, they beat Man United to send them down and survived themselves, if only barely. I'm sure you could hear the grinding of teeth and the curses raging around Old Trafford! The next years were good, as in 1977 City just barely missed out on the title, beaten to it by Liverpool by a single point, but then City slipped into something of a decline. The 1980s featured a bounce between first and second division as the team were relegated, promoted, relegated, promoted, but seemed to have no chance of ever achieving the glory of being in a top position again, never mind winning the title. A series of managers coming and going did not help matters, and despite a glorious thrashing of their rivals in a 5-1 defeat in 1990, a result which Alex Ferguson described as "embarrassing", City would not see real success again until almost the new century.

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V: The French revolution: King Eric lands on English shores

Born in Marseilles, to a Spanish mother and a French father, the birth of one Eric Pierre Cantona on May 24 1966 was the herald of the coming of a footballing legend. Love him or hate him (I hated him) you could not ignore or deny his almost magical skill on the ball, and it wasn't long before Eric was leaving the shores of la belle France to head to England to compete at the very highest levels. His father had been a goalkeeper, and so not surprisingly this was the path he originally chose, but his talent could not be confined to standing between the posts, and he soon moved into an outfield role, but like many gifted players, he was a mercurial personality, and had already been in trouble for attacking the crowd and insulting his manager in France before he arrived on England's mainland. In fact, in a feat which would be echoed during his time with Man United, Cantona aimed a kung-fu kick at an opposing player in 1986, for which he was banned for three months, this reduced to two after a threat to make him unavailable for the national side.

After a serious spat with the French Football Federation, he was persuaded to leave France and seek his footballing fortune in England. It would be the start of a truly glittering career, though it did not kick off as such. Liverpool declined the offer to sign him, Sheffield Wednesday could not afford him, and he ended up first on loan and then a permanent member of Leeds United, with whom in 1992 he was instrumental in them winning the league. Whether he knew about Liverpool's turning down of him or not, Cantona took revenge when Leeds beat them 4-0 in the 1992 FA Charity Shield, scoring three out of the four goals himself, his first English hat-trick. Cantona continued to impress, but when Leeds began to lose ground and the manager replaced him, Cantona's anger knew no bounds and he put in for a transfer, stating his preference to be Manchester United. He had spent less than a year at Leeds.
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This was the year the FA changed the setup of divisions and the previously-named First Division became the Premier League, the Second Division was renamed Division 1, and ten years later would be known as the Championship, with the Third Division becoming League 1. Confusing, non? Manchester United were struggling in the inaugural season of the Premier League when Cantona arrived in December, falling behind high-flyers Aston Villa (yay!) and Blackburn Rovers, who would win the title for the first and only time in 1994/95, rather ironically, as Ferguson had been keen to sign Alan Shearer, who instead went to Rovers from Southampton and would then go on to be instrumental in their title win. He had also spent a million on Dion Dublin, only for him to suffer a broken leg almost immediately and be sidelined for most of the rest of the season. He needed a scorer, someone who could lead the team and put the ball in the net. Eric Cantona proved to be that player. Not only was he more than capable of scoring goals, but he could set up other players, drive the play, be the leader the team needed. He was a force to be reckoned with, turning United from a somewhat tired, beaten team into one hungry for success and aggressive in a way they had not been before. It's said he changed the team single-handedly; people were simply in awe of both his talent and his personality, as well as his desire to win. Man United began to move up the league.

His first season with the club ended not only with them taking the title for the first time in over a quarter of a century, but also being ten points clear at the top. This was a position from which other teams - including previous golden boys Liverpool and Arsenal, as well as fading lights Leeds, would find it impossible to dislodge them over the coming decade. Never again would Manchester United flirt with relegation, and the golden age of one of what would grow to be England's top teams really began with the arrival of a brash, arrogant but undeniably talented Frenchman. He helped them overcome Chelsea 4-0 with two penalties in the 1994 FA Cup, but his temperament was always a problem, and he saw more red cards than perhaps even Vinny Jones, disagreeing with refs in an almost McEnroe-esque way, attacking other players and causing controversy. He was nevertheless voted the PFA (Professional Footballers Association) Player of the Year for that year, and also became far and away Manchester United's top scorer, with 26 goals in all competitions.
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His temper, however, frequently got the best of him, and almost 10 years after he had launched a kung-fu kick at a player on the other team, he repeated the offence, though this time it was in response to abuse from a Crystal Palace fan, who, when Cantona had been sent off for violent conduct, ran down to him to shout racial abuse at him. Cantona's response earned him a criminal sentence of two weeks, though this was later commuted to a community service sentence instead. Hilariously, the fan whom Cantona attacked was also sentenced, this time a fine resulted, which was doubled when he attacked the prosecutor at the trial! He was also banned from Selhurst Park for a year.

But Cantona had yet to face further punishment from his club and the FA, both of whom viewed the attack as a stain on the reputation of English football. There were calls for him to be deported, or banned from playing for life, but in the end he was precluded from playing for the rest of the season and handed a hefty fine, while FIFA stepped in and made the ban worldwide, meaning he could not play for the national team, nor transfer to a European club to escape it. His absence from the Manchester United squad meant they missed out on the "double", ceding the Premier League title to Blackburn Rovers, Shearer no doubt scoring to rub salt into the wounds for Alex Ferguson.

He managed to keep Cantona at the club, though just barely, as Eric had put in a request for a transfer, believing his time in English football was over. After the manager convinced him to stay, and after his ban expired, he was the lynchpin around which Manchester United's dominance of football turned. It's probably fair to say that without him, the club might have sunk back into the depths of the table, and into obscurity. Ah, if only! But the resurgence of Manchester United would begin with the return of the king, and would not end really until their legendary manager retired as the new millennium dawned.

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VI: Crossing the red line: United for keeps?

As the red half of the city celebrated and began to learn how to speak French possibly, the other half literally had the blues. Manchester City's fans, angry at the lack of success at the club (and probably also comparing it to that of United) had forced out the chairman and he had been replaced by City favourite and former player Francis Lee in 1995, but things just continued to go from bad to worse for the club. The next year they were relegated from the Premier League as the club were forced to modernise their stadium to comply with the Taylor Report in the wake of the fire at Hillsborough in 1989, Manchester City spending far more than they earned, a disastrous state of affairs, but unavoidable.

Demotion to the Championship (the old Second Division) meant they lost out on lucrative gate receipts as Premier League opposition would no longer be playing them, and of course they had no hope of getting into Europe from the second tier of English football. Even worse, they did not do well in the Championship and were in fact further relegated at the end of the season into the new Division Two, now known as League 1, the third tier. It would be a long painful climb back, and even if they somehow shone, they could not get into the Premier League again for at least two seasons. While Manchester United soared under the guidance of their new French leading light and a host of promising players, City were unable to keep their own good players and no decent clubs had any interest in having their players sign for them. So they would have to make it on their own.
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Through a change of ownership and by dint of some hard work, this is what they did, and as the millennium turned they found themselves back in the top flight, but it was not to last, as they were again relegated at the end of the season. The arrival of a football legend in 2001 however signalled an upturn in fortunes for the club, as former Liverpool player and England manager Kevin Keegan took over, masterminding the sort of rebirth phoenixes dream of. In his first season in charge Keegan had City back in the Premier League, and this time they stayed there. He signed Peter Schmeichel from Aston Villa, which ruffled so many feathers at United that Gary Neville refused to shake hands with him when they were in the tunnel at the start of the Manchester derby.

Schmeichel had finished with United in 1999, after serving there for 8 years, and moved to Europe, where he played for Sporting Lisbon for 2 more years, before returning to England to sign for Aston Villa. The rivalry between the two Manchester clubs was such that, when Schmeichel had said he was retiring from English football, the United players and fans did not expect to see him back in England, but when he signed in a shock move for their deadly enemies, it was seen as a betrayal. Even now, Neville is unrepentant about his snub of his former teammate: "When you look back now and you're 43, like I am, there's two things about that. One, he left Man United at the age of whatever he was, 35, and he said he was retiring, basically to go abroad. At the time when he came back, he played for Manchester City. You can't play for Manchester City. I'm a United fan and I can't play for Manchester City, I can't play for Leeds and I can't play for Liverpool. That's just written in stone. You just don't play for those clubs, irrespective of what happens. He'd won the treble with United in '99, said that he was retiring...he should have carried on playing for United for the next two or three years if that was the case. We struggled for a keeper between Peter and Edwin."

Seems nonsense to me. We lost players such as Dwight Yorke to Man United, and Jack Grealish to Man City, which angered me at the time, but you get over it. After a while you cease thinking of them as Villa players, and they're now the enemy, or if not, you seldom if ever root for them again. Keeping that sort of childish feud going for nearly twenty years seems to me petulant and juvenile, but there you go. Schmeichel helped City to survive another season in the Premier League, including taking four points from his old club. Tragedy struck though when one of their other recently-signed players, Marc-Vivien Foe, died after collapsing on the pitch during a match in which he was playing for his native Cameroon. As if in sympathy, City's season also died, and they just scraped through avoiding relegation. During this time they did however move to a new, purpose-built stadium, initially called Eastlands (for the colliery near which it was built) then the City of Manchester Stadium, though these days, due to sponsorship by the United Arab Emirates airline, it's known as the Etihad.

2004/05 proved to be the last stand for Keegan, and after City crashed out of the FA Cup to Oldham Athletic, who, so far as I can find out, were not only in Division 2 (later to be renamed League 1, the tier below the Championship) but were also struggling to exist, facing a liquidation order, he quit and was replaced by a real football hardman, the one they called "Psycho".
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Stuart Pearce had played for Newcastle and West Ham, but is best remembered for his long captaincy of Nottingham Forest, for whom he played for 12 years and where he also took on the role, briefly, of caretaker manager. He was known for his unapologetic style of football, a man who was not afraid to make the kind of tackle that today would have the ref waving the red card, and yet, showing what a different time it was and how football was played in a very different way, Pearce was only ever sent off three times in his career.

He was one of Keegan's coaches and given the job on a temporary basis after the manager's departure, then offered the full time position, which he accepted. Results began to improve, with City edging close to European football for the first time in a decade or more, but Typical City Syndrome struck and by the end of the season they were all but flirting with relegation again, clinging on in fifteenth place. Same old same old, it seemed, with a League Cup exit to League 1 side Doncaster Rovers, and the next season was more of the same, City ending up just above the drop zone and being dumped out of the League Cup by another League 1 side, this time Chesterfield. Results like that usually spell the end for a manager, and so Pearce was sacked at the end of the season.

More turmoil, more disappointment, more resentment (especially as, at this time, their hated rivals United had the world at their feet) and a change of ownership was about to bring more heartache for City fans, as that favourite of club owners in England and Europe raised its head once again and looked blinking and blearily out into the light.

Yes, corruption and financial irregularity were back on the menu for those of a blue persuasion in Manchester.

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VII: Keane for glory: in for the kill

Another of the players central to Manchester United's dominance of English football was not a striker, but one of the most feared and talented, and tough midfielders in English football. And in just the same way as a Frenchman revolutionised the United attack, it would be an Irishman who would shore up a perhaps leaky midfield. Roy Keane came from Cork, and they breed them tough down south, let me tell you! They don't call it the Republic of Cork for nothing! Keane began his playing career for a local Irish club, but his first English professional team was Nottingham Forest, where he came under the wing of Forest legend Brian Clough, ironically losing 1-0 in the League Cup to the team with which he would become famous. He almost ended up signing for Blackburn Rovers when Forest were relegated in 1992, but due to some technical paperwork issues he was unable to make the move and was snapped up instead by a canny Alex Ferguson. For the rest of his career Keane would remain with United, becoming one of their most loved, successful and (by opposing teams) feared players.

His arrival coincided, more or less, with the debut of the French master, and between them Cantona and Keane would form the backbone of the team which would go on to conquer football. That's not to say, of course, that they were a two-man team, but it really was a winning combination. Keane was instrumental in United winning the double - the league and the FA Cup - and helped put their "noisy neighbours" to the sword in a 2-1 victory in the Manchester Derby in 1994.

Cantona's absence, as already noted, from the 1995/96 season meant he had to watch as his team ceded the title for the first time in three seasons to Blackburn, and if you want to be unkind (and I do!) you could say they completed the "loss double", as the league title slipped from their hands and they also surrendered victory at the FA Cup to Everton. Like his French teammate though, Roy Keane suffered from a bad temper, a tendency towards dodgy tackles that edged into violent conduct, and was soon making a small collection of red cards. He was sent off for the first time in 1995 for stamping on later England manager Gareth Southgate, would have a very public spat with Arsenal striker Patrick Veira in the tunnel, and famously (or infamously) deliberately injured Alfe Inge Haaland (father of the Manchester City striker Erling) after an incident in which Haaland accused him of feigning injury after he himself had tackled the Norwegian. His retribution was almost lethal, and has gone down in United, and football history as almost as infamous an incident as Cantona's kung-fu kick.
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It seems after the incident in which he was accused of play-acting, Keane fumed and plotted his revenge, and to be fair he had time to fume: the tackle broke his cruciate ligament and sidelined him for the rest of the season, when United again failed to win the title, losing out to Arsenal. Most commentators agreed that without Keane United had struggled, and had he been fit, they might have been champions again. So  when he had the chance to take revenge, he grabbed it with both hands. Or rather, with his boots. Haaland was now playing for Man City, which possibly made the revenge all the sweeter, and in the Manchester Derby Keane went in hard on him, injuring him so badly that it ended his footballing career.

For the foul he was suspended for three games and fined, but then rather stupidly, or arrogantly, take your pick, he referred to the incident in his biography, making it very clear that the foul had not only been deliberate, but had had malicious intent to injure. He said "I'd waited long enough. I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you cunt. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries." This earned him further post-punishment from the FA, another five-match suspension and the £5,000 fine increased to a massive (but still surely nothing to him) £150,000 for bringing the game into disrepute, something the FA tended to take very seriously, and still do. Even then, Keane remained unrepentant, snarling "My attitude was, fuck him. What goes around comes around. He got his just rewards. He fucked me over and my attitude is an eye for an eye."

He didn't mince words when taking the fans to task, decrying the lack of home support. His take was "Away from home our fans are fantastic, I'd call them the hardcore fans. But at home, they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don't realise what's going on out on the pitch. I don't think some of the people who come to Old Trafford can spell 'football', never mind understand it." Whether or not this rankled with United supporters, or whether the "real" ones sought to dissociate themselves from the "posers", I don't know. What I do know, and what everyone knew, was that Keane was never one to keep his mouth shut if he had something to say, and he often landed in the news for the wrong reasons.

Unrelated to United, but important to me, is his throwing away of our chances of progressing in the 2002 World Cup, when, after a spat with Ireland manager Mick McCarthy, he walked out on his team and went home to Manchester. I've never forgiven him for not putting his country above his own petty concerns. Irish players always say it's an honour to wear the green jersey. Well, he proved he didn't give a shit about the country of his birth, and was only interested in pursuing a vendetta with the manager. Cunt.
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Anyway, apart from all of those negative aspects, like Cantona it can't be denied he was a fantastic player, his absence the previous season underlined by United's winning of their first ever treble on his return to the captaincy - they retook the title, won the FA Cup and also the Champions League. Keane was back, and so were United. During the first eight years of his time there, they won the title six seasons running. There seemed no stopping them, until the new millennium, when they finished the 2001/02 season third and were booted out of the FA Cup by Middlesbrough in the fourth round. Keane left Manchester United in 2005, having scored 51 goals for them, and having been the most successful captain the club ever had. He also holds the joint record for the most red cards in English football, an unlucky thirteen.

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VIII: Abu Dhabi United: Sheikh yer money!

I couldn't say if it was the first, or indeed only time an actual government got involved in the running of an English football club, but in 2007 the former Prime Minister of Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra took a major shareholding in Manchester City. The first thing Shinawatra did was appoint former England boss Sven Goran-Eriksson as manager. With a flurry of signings, Eriksson shored up the team, but none of the names seem to have resonated in City history, not like the names we now know as household ones - Haaland, De Bruyne, Ederson, Aguero. Nevertheless, they must have done the trick, as the team's performance began to improve, and by the end of the season City had their highest ever points total, yet finished ninth, despite twice routing their old rivals. Eriksson's future was already looking in doubt.

That doubt became certainty in June 2008. Eriksson had spent £45 million (a huge sum at the time, when now that would barely buy one decent player) and his team had been savaged 8-1 by, of all teams, bloody Middlesbrough again, Chelsea having already put six past them without reply earlier in the season. Their ninth-place finish was nowhere near good enough, and Sven was given his marching orders. In, to surely some surprise and controversy, came a Manchester United alumnus. Mark Hughes had frequently been the bane of teams playing against United, often coming on as a sub and scoring a winning goal, frequently in what became known as "Fergie time", of which more later. So it must have been with some derision, doubt and trepidation that fans saw him take control of their club, but worse were the rumours that Shinawatra had had his personal fortune frozen by the Thailand government and that he had asked the City chairman if he had a spare £2 million he could bung him as a loan, have it back to you by Friday, cross me heart. Pressure began to grow for his ousting.

Shinawatra sold the club to an Arab consortium known as Abu Dhabi United, a name which would be used ironically - and, in many ways, sarcastically - to describe Manchester City for the next decade or so. Headed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, vice president of the United Arab Emirates and a member of the UAE royal family, and brother to the president, this was the most blatant influence by a foreign country on an English football club. If Shinawatra's controlling interest in City had been somewhat unprecedented and certainly controversial, the idea of an Arab country basically owning one was, well, unique. I'm certain it had never been done before.

Sheikh Mansour's address to the fans just after the takeover probably says all that needs to be said about the deal: "I am a football fan, and I hope that you will soon see that I am now also a Manchester City fan. But I am also a long-term investor and that is probably more important to the club and to you because it means we are here for the long haul and that we will act always in the best interests of the club and all of its stakeholders, but especially you the fans."

The word "investor" being used shows that, as you would probably expect, and like their fierce rivals on the red side of the city, Manchester City were about to cease being primarily a football club and about to begin the transition to a worldwide brand, a business, a going concern. It may be a cliche, but it's true: Arabs are rich, and when you have essentially the spending power of an entire Arab nation behind you - and not only that, one of the richest - then it becomes clear that you can, as a football club, literally buy your way to success. With the establishment of the Premier League in 1992 it was obvious that the bigger, richer clubs were separating themselves from the poorer, lower league ones, and that the tier system that had existed before then was about to be completely codified: only clubs who were able to spend enough to achieve success in the Championship would be able to raise themselves to the glory of the Premiership, and the key would be money which could buy talent from overseas.
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However, for the time being, or at least from the outset, it seemed throwing money at the problem was not going to fix it, and not everyone responded to the lure of the Arab billions. An attempt to sign Dimitar Berbatov from Manchester United failed, a badly-thought-out offer for Cristiano Ronaldo, believed to be in the region of £134 million, never materialised, and though they snatched Real Madrid's Robinho from under the noses of Chelsea, the Brazilian had a sporadic season with the club, hardly worth his £32 million fee. City finished worse than they had the previous season and were knocked out of the FA Cup earlier this time, a third round exit to Nottingham Forest. City fans no doubt rolled their eyes and sighed Typical City Syndrome again!

Their attempt to sign Kaka from Milan in the summer for a reported £100 million broke down, and in a case of "revenge is a dish best served cold", Hamburger SV, from whom Eriksson had signed Vincent Kompany, beat them 4-3 in the UEFA Cup, knocking them out of the competition. They had success though, unlike with the attempt to sign Berbatov and Ronaldo, when they convinced Carlos Tevez to jump ship, a move which so angered Alex Ferguson that he hit out publicly against the club, calling it "small minded" and possibly making the "noisy neighbours" quote, though I can't find out if that's the case. Oh no I can; I read the article, and he didn't. He was certainly pissed though: Tevez had spent a mere 2 years at United, but would spend 3 at City, where he would win both the Golden Boot and the title. City were on the way back up, but Hughes would not be there to see it. It would take the tenure of another manager, and a further three years before the dismissive words of the manager of their hated rivals would ring hollow indeed: "I can't look at them as our main competitors. Liverpool and Chelsea are our main competitors."

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IX: Dawning of the Age of the Celebrity Footballer: The Kids are alright (Part I)

Time was when if you weren't a football fan, the only time you saw or heard from a footballer was if they were on a quiz show, or involved in some charity single or something. People who normally didn't follow the game might get interested when their country was in the World Cup, but other than perhaps a tabloid headline (usually bad) the world of football and celebrity were two very much different ones that kept separate from each other.

That changed in the 1990s.

Anyone who's a football fan knows of poor pundit Alan Hansen's famous prediction "You can't win anything with kids." This came about as a result of some of the older, more experienced players leaving Manchester United, and Ferguson's going against the grain when he decided to forego signing top players from abroad, as many of the other top clubs were doing, and to stick with his academy graduates. Known as "Fergie's Fledglings" (it says, though I never heard the term used on Match of the Day!) they included teenagers like Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, the already-mentioned Ryan Giggs and the Neville brothers, Gary and Phil. Joining them were two men who would become synonymous both with football (and winning) and celebrity, and who would usher in a new age when footballers were seen as more than just footballers, and were now media stars, celebrities in their own right.
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Even if you know nothing about football you've probably heard of Ronaldo and Beckham. Cristiano Ronaldo was (and still is) a star in Portugal, and signed by Ferguson in 2003, there were more than ten years between his debut and that of David Beckham in 1992 (though really 1995, as he spent some time on loan at Preston North End and really only started making an impact on his return), but both players awoke in the public a more wide-ranging interest in, if not football, then in Manchester United, as it began to grow into a global brand. Beckham's marriage to Spice Girl Victoria Adams, known in the group as Posh Spice, in 1999 really kicked his celebrity status off, as the two became a power couple. Music and football merged successfully for the first time, and the crossover brought, presumably, fans of the Spice Girls into contact with Man United.

This sort of thing can, of course, be a two-edged sword, and one that can cut very deeply indeed. Although nobody would deny Beckham's almost superhuman talent, nor that of his Portuguese teammate, the very trappings of riches and power have a tendency to ensnare people (perhaps why they're called trappings) and soon Beckham was on magazine covers, in gossip columns, and making headlines for non-football reasons. He was loved at the club though, helping them to another title and instrumental in United winning the treble - League title in 1998/99, FA Cup and Champions League - a record they held as unique until Manchester City managed to do the same thing over twenty years later. The relationship between him and the manager began to sour though, as Ferguson believed Beckham was being controlled by his wife, and prioritising her commitments to the detriment of football. It was clear that his celebrity status and his footballing career were not mixing. Ferguson grumped "He was never a problem until he got married. He used to go into work with the academy coaches at night time, he was a fantastic young lad. Getting married into that entertainment scene was a difficult thing – from that moment, his life was never going to be the same. He is such a big celebrity, football is only a small part."
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It would be difficult, even impossible to drop him from the team though, as his skill helped United win three titles in a row, something very few English football teams had ever achieved, and this belief was thrown into sharp relief when, injured in a Champions League match in which he broke his metatarsal bone, Beckham was sidelined for the rest of the season. United lost the title for the first time in three seasons. Despite his many contributions to their success, United's loss in the FA Cup to Arsenal in 2003 led to an infamous incident where a furious Ferguson injured Beckham by throwing or kicking a boot at him, which cut him under the eye. By the time summer rolled around he had departed the grey rain of Manchester for the sunnier climes of Spain, as he signed for Real Madrid.

Despite all this, it was Fergie's "kids" who brought him successive title victories, defying the confident prediction of Hansen and leaving him with egg on his face, as he gamely tried to amend his words to "you can't win everything with kids." In this, too, he would be proven wrong, as, as already mentioned above, United ended the millennium with the only treble ever to be achieved in that century. During this period they really were unstoppable, able to come back from a losing position in the dying moments of a game, often after what many took to be excessive extra time, usually awarded at home, which led to it being sarcastically referred to as "Fergie Time." You really could not count them out until the final whistle blew, whether they were at home or away, playing in England or Europe. They were the team to beat, and Old Trafford took on a fortress-like status; teams feared going there, and opponents would consider even a draw a great achievement if they could do it.

However, as the millennium turned, United had gone from a position of strength and unassailability into something of a decline, despite the signing of players like Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney. Rooney had made his name playing for Everton, but was quickly snapped up by Ferguson, and would become both the lynchpin of his twenty-first century success, and another celebrity footballer to contend with. But the new millennium did not start well for United, who failed to win a single trophy in 2000/01. I note with amusement that Middlesbrough must have been alternately the most hated and most loved team in Manchester, as they had knocked both City and United out of the FA Cup on different occasions! As Beckham departed for Spain, Ronaldo arrived from Portugal, and a whole new chapter was about to be written in the long and colourful history of Manchester United.

Trolls regarding Alfe Haaland, the Keane tackle didn't end his career. He played for a couple of clubs after that. Let me know if you want me to stop correcting things. I feel a bit of a dick doing it.

Keane's book is great BTW. Good read. He is a nutter but he's a good guy really I think. I hated him at Villa though, at times it appeared he was deliberately trying to make us lose. Good to watch just not at Villa.

No, I get you, and I read that all right. But he never played a full game (so it says) after the tackle, so while it didn't end his career there and then, it certainly brought it to a shuddering halt. Yes, Keane is good value for entertainment, sure, but when you've been betrayed by your countryman it's hard not to think of him as a selfish fucking knob.

And no, continue to fact-check. It's helpful, and it's also good to know you're actually reading what I write, not just skimming through it. I appreciate it.

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X: Why always me? Two Italians walk into a football club...

While Manchester United stuck with their hugely successful and popular Scottish manager, their blue rivals had already gone through two Scots, no less than thirteen Englishmen, a Swede and a Welshman in the period since Ferguson had taken over United. There's a joke in there somewhere isn't there? Englishmen, Welshmen, all that's needed is an Irishman! But things were about to settle down for the troubled "noisy neighbour", as 2009 was about to see the launch of an era of European and international managers, and the long-awaited rise of the club who had always been seen as "the second Manchester club".

Showing perhaps how serious the new owners were about returning City to the top, and staying there, the next appointment was a high-profile one indeed. Roberto Mancini had already won the Serie A title (the Italian version of the Premier League) three times in a row, and was therefore a highly experienced and most importantly successful manager when he took over Manchester City in 2009. He guided City to their highest finish since 1992, sitting fifth in the table at the end of the season, and went on to sign major players such as David Villa, Yaya Toure and the always-mercurial Mario Balloteli, though City did not recoup their investment in Robinho, who was sold to Milan at a snip - £22 million, more than £10 million less than they had paid for him from Real Madrid. Still, what's ten million between friends, eh? The almost bottomless coffers of the Abu Dhabi United Group meant City could now afford to sign players from huge teams, such as Barcelona, Lazio, Milan and, um, Aston Villa.

City appeared to be back to winning ways, taking their fifth FA Cup in 2011 (and beating a disgruntled Manchester United in the semi-finals) and finishing third in the Premier League. The next season would be even better, as, on the way to their first title they slaughtered Man United 6-1, and then humbled them at Old Trafford, leading to the game being dubbed "the demolition derby" and Alex Ferguson to comment that "Even as a player I don't think I ever lost 6-1. It's an incredible disappointment, and my worst day ever. In the history of Manchester United this is another day and we will recover. But that kind of defeat will make an impact on the players. There's a lot of embarrassment in that dressing room and quite rightly so."

There seemed to be no stopping City now, as they aimed to eclipse their longtime rivals and top the Premier League, which they would do at the end of the season. But they also hit the footballing - and national - headlines for other reasons. I mentioned one Mario Ballotelli earlier, and called him "mercurial". Let's look at why that statement is appropriate.

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"Why always me?" Super Mario or Donkey Kong?

Only days after joining Manchester City, Balotelli showed how he was even then going to be an influence, and not always for good. Involved in a car crash, he was asked by police why he had over £5,000 cash on him, and his simple (and one might think, arrogant) answer was "Because I am rich." He also threw a dart (for some reason) at a youth team player, and before signing for City had been apparently photographed in the company of two of the Camorra, Naples' branch of the Mafia. He's said to have visited a women's prison and driven through it "to have a look around".

He fired off air pistols with a group of his friends in the Napoli piazza before coming to England, and only a short time after arriving burned part of his house down when he rather stupidly set off fireworks in the house! Perhaps ironically (which is the only way I can see it could have happened) the next week he was made Greater Manchester's ambassador of firework safety! Were they 'aving a larf or wot? He also broke curfew to go sign autographs and pose at a local curry house, another incident that got him into trouble with the boss. Mancini's frustration with the player can he heard in his response when he said. "I told him, if you played with me 10 years ago I would give you every day maybe one punch in your head. There are different ways to help a guy like Mario. I don't speak with him every day, otherwise I would need a psychologist, but I speak with him because I don't want him to lose his quality. If Mario is not one of the best players in the world it will be his fault, because he has everything. Mario can be one of the top players in Europe. I don't want him to lose his talent."

Later he made it clear he had given up on his star player.

"I've finished my words for him. I've finished. I love him as a guy, as a player. I know him. He's not a bad guy and [he] is a fantastic player. But, at this moment, I'm very sorry for him because he continues to lose his talent, his quality. I hope, for him, he can understand that he's in a bad way for his future. And he can change his behaviour in the future. But I'm finished."


Balotelli would score 20 goals in the league for Mancini during his three seasons with City, but these are wildly unbalanced, with the bulk of them (13) coming in the 2011/12 season, 6 in his first season and only a single goal in his final season. That may have been due to injury; I'll check. Hmm, doesn't look like it. 23 appearances in 2011/12 resulted in 13 goals, 14 appearances in 2012/13 yielded just the one. And his first season he appeared 17 times and scored six. So a very poor return for his final season. Even so, taking all competitions into consideration, in 80 appearances he scored 30 goals, so that's almost what, forty percent?

Nevertheless, talent and ability is one thing, discipline is another, and Balotelli was constantly accused of diving, had a bad attitude on the pitch and was seen by many - including his own teammates - as arrogant and uncontrollable. I think you could possibly make comparisons between him and Paul Gascoigne, though Gazza was always seen as more of the "lovable joker" whereas "Super Mario" had a hard, nasty edge to much of what he did.

At one point, Balloteli made the point as clear as he could, when after scoring against Man United in October 2011, he removed his top to reveal the slogan "Why always me?" printed on his shirt. The moment went viral, but the answer was pretty plain really: because a lot of the time, Mario, you're just a knob. It was somewhat self-serving, to ask such a question in such a public manner, when he already knew the answer, but like a lot of what he did, it was probably both a dig at the manager and a publicity stunt, intended to increase his already considerable public profile.
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If you're going to win the title, especially from your Manchester rivals, do it with flair, suspense and unmitigated and unexpected joy. On the last day of the 2011/12 season, City and United were level on points. United's match against Sunderland had already concluded with a victory for Ferguson's team, who were just waiting for the final whistle to blow on City's still-in-progress game against QPR, the London team ahead 2-1 with only minutes to go. The United fans and team were already celebrating, anticipating another title win, when City equalised and then, in the final minute of extra time, the famous roar rang out from the commentary box: "AguerRRROOOOO!" as Sergio Aguero won the match at the death, turning the game around and giving his team the title, and almost as importantly, snatching victory from a stunned Old Trafford.

This marked the first time Manchester City had won the Premier League title ever, and the first time they had won the First Division title since 1968. They had waited, frowning in the shadow of their flashier, more successful and popular neighbour, for 43 years, and now they could finally celebrate having a C beside their name on the table, sitting top of the Premier League, and looking down with joy at Manchester United in second ("second comes right after first!") knowing they had shattered their - somewhat arrogant - dream of lifting the trophy for another year.

But United would have to get used to it, because unlike Blackburn's one win in 1993 or Leicester's later odds-defying victory in 2016, this was not going to be a one-off thing. From here on in, City and United would be on even footing, and would contest the title each season.

Manchester City had finally arrived.

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XI: The dawning of the age of the celebrity footballer: The kids are alright (Part II)

If anything illustrated the unalterable fact that Manchester City was now primarily a business, it was of course essentially the purchase of the club by the Arab state of United Arab Emirates, as already related. United would "sell its soul" internationally to, to America. When businessman Michael Glazer and his family bought out the two main shareholders in Manchester United, J.P. McManus and John Magnier in 2005, he was able to launch a takeover bid which subsequently had him in total control of the club. There were no tears shed on the departure of the two Irishmen, who had publicly tried to have Alex Ferguson removed from his post, over some dispute concerning a racehorse all three men owned, so they would not exactly have endeared themselves to the fans. But at least, those same fans might later reflect sourly, McManus and Magnier had not plunged the club into enormous debt, which the Glazers did, in order to bankroll their successful takeover bid.
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(No, no! They're glaziers, not Glazers!)

Fans took to the streets in protest and even formed their own club for some reason, and did their best to secure new ownership for the club, trying to oust the Glazers. It might be noted that at this time City had not yet been taken over and that Chelsea were, to my limited knowledge anyway, the only English club owned by a non-English (or at least nominally British) entity; Roman Abramovich was Russian, and the oligarch had bought the London club, who won the Premier League title that season and began to be seen as real opposition to United, as would Manchester City later. While the infusion of American money might have been welcome, the fans did realise it came at a huge price - interest on the loans the Glazers had taken out came to almost £60 million a year, and considering the club was valued at £800 million, well, do the math: the club was paying back almost a tenth of its total valuation to investors each year.

The first visit of the Glazers to their new possession was less than welcoming, as they were met by protesters and a ring of police, chanting of "Die, Glazer, die!" (this from the supporters, obviously, not the police!) which seems a little extreme, but that's Man United fans for you. As more and more of the Glazer family arrived to fill supposedly non-executive seats on the board, thereby one would assume solidifying the stranglehold on power at the club by their father, the terms of the loans were tackled.  The club stated, "The value of Manchester United has increased in the last year, which is why lenders want to invest in the club ... This move represents good housekeeping and it ensures that Sir Alex Ferguson will be provided with sufficient funds to compete in the transfer market." The Manchester United Supporters Trust responded, "The amount of money needed to be repaid overall is huge ... The interest payment is one thing but what about the actual £660 million? It is difficult to see how these sums can be reached without significant increases in ticket prices, which, as we always suspected, means the fans will effectively be paying for someone to borrow money to own their club."

But despite the fans' fears, a new sponsorship deal, exclusive TV rights and expansion of Old Trafford actually saw Manchester United thrive and grow, except where it mattered: on the pitch. The year after the Glazer takeover they were knocked out of the Champions League, beaten to the title for the second season by Chelsea, and lost their influential captain, Roy Keane. In to replace him though, came another "kid" who would light up both Premier League and European football, and lead United to major victories for the rest of the decade.
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Although he signed for them in 2003, and was instrumental in League Cup and FA Cup victories, Cristiano Ronaldo (who would forever go under the mononym Ronaldo, sometimes confusing football audiences, as there was already a Brazilian player so named) would have to wait till 2007, four years later, before he could lift the Premier League trophy with his teammates. Before that, he would prove to be not exactly the smiling Portuguese lad, having a training-ground spat with Ruud van Nistelrooy and clashing with Wayne Rooney during the World Cup. He would develop an arrogant attitude - justifiably so - as he believed himself the star of the team, which he really was, but this was an attitude that would not make him many friends. Throughout his time at Man United, Ronaldo would be revered by the fans but often loathed by his teammates.

In 2008, having already won a string of awards, including Young Player of the Year, Fans' Player and FIFA World Player of the Year, he won the coveted Golden Boot for his 31 league goals of the season, and helped United win the Champions League, an all-English final in which they held Chelsea to a 1-1 draw after extra time, and  beat them 6-5 on penalties. Nevertheless, Ronaldo had never quite settled at United, and soon after completing this victory he transferred to Real Madrid, though he would return over a decade later, to a much-changed Manchester United.

Ronaldo's arrival - and subsequent success - at United certainly did not harm sales, either at the ticket gate or in the gift shop, with his iconic number 7 shirt being still the top seller there. His boyish good looks and fiery Iberian personality surely drew more than a few ladies to the matches, and helped to open the game up more to women, and if you want to call that a sexist comment go ahead, but do you think they'd have been coming to see Mark Hughes or Paul Scholes? Like his contemporary, Ronaldo has gone on to earn staggering amounts of money from his career as a footballer, well above what he's paid, and is the first footballer in the world to earn one billion dollars. He's cut sponsorship deals with everything from soft drinks and video games to clothing and, um, car oil. Hey, if there's money in it, you know? He's seen as one of the world's most recognisable - and therefore marketable - athletes.

And then, there's Wayne.

Ronaldo took the piss out of MU.

2008 after they'd won the CL and PL double he spent all summer flirting with Real Madrid and even referred to himself as a slave.

2009 before the CL final he went out of his way to say he was staying then fucked off once the final was over.


Ferguson had promised him in 2008 he could leave if he gave them one more year, so he already knew he was going when he did this.

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XII: The comedown: A Chile reception

As it always was with Manchester City it seems, delirious joy and success was followed by disappointment and a morose belief that things were going badly again. Having won their first ever Premiership title in 2012, the club began the next season poorly, with no new players signed in the January transfer window, and indeed none joining the club until the last day of the season, when they finished second, but still a massive 11 points behind their hated rivals, who went on to win another title. Worse, they were booted out of the FA Cup by Wigan Athletic, who had already been relegated, and their European adventure barely got started, City being eliminated in the group stages of the Champions League. Questions were already being asked about Mancini, now in his third season in charge of the club, and, proving that the people who have the shortest memories and who are the least sentimental and sympathetic (and patient) are football club boards, last season's inspiring last-second win was already forgotten. Like they say, you're only as good as your last job, and the moment that it looks as if you can't deliver the same again, you may be out.

And he was. Out that is. Mancini was handed his marching orders three days after the FA Cup exit, May 14 2013. A month later the new manager was announced.
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A native of Chile, Manuel Pellegrini had made his managerial name in Spanish football, successfully helming Villareal, Real Madrid and Malaga over a nine-year period. Anxious not to make the same mistake they had with Mancini, City moved quickly to sign new players (one of whom suffered injury as soon as he arrived, leaving him out of contention and recalling Manchester United's misfortunes with Dion Dublin) and though the season started sluggishly, by the end things were moving nicely in the correct direction.

Again defeating their rivals by a considerable margin, this time 4-1 in the Champions League, City went on to exact revenge on Wigan and hammered them 5-0, and gave themselves a nice double Christmas present when they put six past both Arsenal and Tottenham, the latter without reply. As the bells rang in the new year, notions of not even a treble but an undreamed of quadruple - Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup - were being discussed. However we all know Fate does not enjoy being tempted, and these lofty ambitions were soon brought down to earth in flames, as City exited the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona, and the FA Cup thanks to - you guessed it! - Wigan, who I guess you could say had the last laugh, that year left them with a possible double being the best they could achieve.

This they did manage to do, winning the League Cup and then beating Liverpool in a crucial match that allowed them to take the title a mere 2 points ahead of the Merseysiders (Man United finished a poor 7th, 22 points behind them, having lost 12 of 38 games, almost a third of the season). It was their second Premiership title. It would not be their last, though the following seasons would show a dip in form. Nevertheless, they ended the 2013/14 season with 102 goals, just one short of the record set by Chelsea. The next year's performance in Europe saw them again fall prey to the Spanish giants, being knocked out in the Round of 16, and chasing this time Chelsea for the title. For the record (and as will be noted in the article on them later) the gap this time between the two Manchester clubs was much slimmer, with United finishing 4th with 70 points to City's 79, though Chelsea took the title with 87. City were again knocked out of both Cups, and the dreaded rumours began to do the rounds about the position of the manager.

The next year will be forever remembered in football history not for either of the Manchester clubs, not for Arsenal or Liverpool or Chelsea, but for a tiny little team who had struggled into the Premier League and had, against all odds (including those of every single bookie!) fought their way to the top by the end of the season to win their only Premiership title. It made worldwide news, and anchormen and women around the globe fumbled with how to correctly pronounce the word "Leicester". Football lives for these miracles, and they only happen probably once or twice in our lifetimes. If City winning the title in 2011 at the very death was a miracle, then Leicester winning the title in 2016 was the all but impossible come true. It didn't help Pelligrini to be beaten by virtual no-hopers, especially when Leicester beat Man City by a staggering 15 points, both Manchester teams finishing level on points, City just above United on goal difference at a poor 4th, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur both well ahead of them.

They did go on to win the League Cup, and got as far as the semi-finals of the Champions League, the best they had done in years, though they lost to another Spanish team, Real Madrid beating them away in the second leg after City had held them to a nil-all draw at home. The writing was on the wall for the Chilean though, who left as his contract expired at the end of the year. The man who would replace him, and is still there today, would write the name of Manchester City large in blue flaming letters across the history of Premier League and European football.

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Intermission: Girls allowed: Rise of the WAGS

While this phenomenon is certainly not in any way limited to or exclusive to either of the Manchester clubs, I think it's important, as part of the more recent history of both, to include it. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, though there were some high-profile partners to footballers, there was little actual attention focused on the women, but after the 2006 World Cup the term WAGS (Wives And/or GirlfriendS) came into more popular use as the partners of certain footballers were themselves famous, or, in some cases, used their association with the player to increase their own profile. The first of these seems to have been England legend Bobby Moore, who married author Tina Dean, but it was very much the negative aspect of relationships that characterised perception of what would become known as Wags.

Whether we admit it or not, and despite the growth in female football, it's still a sexist, male-dominated sport and seen as the territory of men, with women seen, mostly by managers, as unnecessary baggage and potential problems. The idea had long been held that players should abstain from sex for a number of days before matches, the prevailing wisdom being that sex was a distraction and that players would not play to their fullest potential. This immediately cast women as little more than a diversion, even an obstacle for players (or, really, managers) to overcome, giving the women a negative standing in football. Should, for instance, a player usually to be relied upon miss a goal or a penalty, and it emerged he had had sex the night before the match, his drop in form would often be put down to his having been distracted.
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As the age of the celebrity footballer arrived though, any partner of  a particularly famous player would come under the media microscope, none more so of course than Victoria Beckham. Quite often, and usually without justification, these women would be blamed for poor performance by their husband or boyfriend on the pitch, but sometimes their own actions in public might be seen to negatively impact his own public profile, and thus his playing. If it was known in the media that Beckham was concerned about something his wife was or was not doing, or if there was - as we've seen - conflict between what she wanted to do and what he was contracted to do, then that could very well translate into problems on the field. In these cases, Posh would be blamed, whether she deserved to be or not.

If the Beckhams were the first real "football power couple" of the Premiership era (George Best may have had multiple girlfriends and/or wives, but the very fact of his womanising and lack of fidelity would have diminished the chances of any one woman being seen to control or influence his career) they were certainly not the last. Soon, we would come to know the names of women either associated with other areas of business or the media as well as we knew their partners. Cheryl Cole, wife (now divorced) of Arsenal and Chelsea's Ashley, Colleen Rooney, wife of Wayne Rooney, Rebekah Vardy, wife of Leicester's Jamie, Joe Cole's wife Carly, all became synonymous with the acronym, though none of them liked it.
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I suppose nobody likes being defined by what their husband or boyfriend does, which is certainly what WAG does, however this did not stop many of these women taking part in various reality shows based on the theme, including WAGS Boutique, WAG Nation and WAG Miami, while the drama series Footballers Wives, although not using the term, focused heavily on the way partners of footballers were seen to live the high life, drinking champagne like water, driving sports cars and going to the best clubs, as well as - in the series anyway - sleeping with everyone they felt like, including other members of the team.

The idea of WAG became aspirational, not that surprisingly, to young women, who emulated the look and tried to copy the fashion and lifestyle, even if they had no interest whatever in football. It was all about "living the life", or trying to, and measuring up. Because of their new (and perhaps unlooked-for) celebrity, the WAGs ended up becoming fashion and style icons, even if, as often happened, that fashion was far from what one might call chic or tasteful. Some of them bemoaned the way their partner's life overshadowed their own achievements: Victoria Beckham said that she and her husband had "so many wider interests ... fashion, make-up. I mean you think, yeah, football's great, and singing's great. But you've got to look at the bigger picture" and others were critical of women trying to copy them, as Colleen Rooney noted  "apparently more and more women are getting into debt because they try to shop and party like a footballer's wife. If I heard of anyone doing that, I'd tell them to get a grip".[which perhaps gave the lie to her releasing her own line of perfume and cosmetics, while  Sunday Times columnist India Knight observed, while waiting in an airport queue, that "it's as if a low-level wannabe footballer's wife vibe that is neither aesthetically pleasing nor edifying has become the norm ... I saw this phenomenon en masse". Among other features, Knight identified "enough pink glitter to satisfy the girliest of five-year-olds, massive handbags and huge designer sunglasses.." The general image - whether true or not - of WAGs was that they were pampered and somewhat otherwise lazy and talentless women who were only famous because of their husbands, and enjoyed the celebrity that brought. Clearly, that's not true in some cases, though it probably can't be denied that some of the women attained the fame they did through nothing more than their association with a famous football player.

In a rather amusing episode during the 2010 World Cup, new England manager Fabio Capello laid down the law, telling his players they could only see their partners the day after a match, stating "We are here to play, not for a holiday." Whether this was a backlash against that rule, or whether they were just shit, England were already on the plane home by the time the Round of 16 was over, having won just one match (and that against Slovenia, and only by one goal) in the group stages and barely making it through, then thrashed 4-1 by Germany! Capello's comments followed on from the previous World Cup, when the shopping habits and behaviour of the WAGs was seen to have been a distraction for the players, causing them not to play well and to exit early. Ironically though, that year (2006) England won two of three of their games and finished top of their group, got through to the quarter-finals where they held Portugal to a 1-1 draw and only lost on penalties. So probably an unfair characterisation/demonisation of the girls, or maybe even a poor excuse for the failure of his predecessor's team to get past the quarter-finals?

Never one to keep his opinions to himself, Manchester United's Roy Keane held forth about the WAGs in 2002 when he suggested part of the reason United had not won anything that season was due to a lack of hunger, dedication and the feeling among some of the players that the rewards ("the Rolex, the mansion") were more important than the game. He expanded on this when he took the manager's job at Sunderland, snarling that "If someone doesn't want to come to Sunderland then all well and good. But if they don't want to come to Sunderland because their wife wants to go shopping in London, then it is a sad state of affairs. Unfortunately that is what is influencing a lot of footballers' decisions. Priorities have changed for footballers and they are being dictated to by their wives and girlfriends."
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(Not a WAG)

This was, to be fair, understandable: London is where it's at for shopping, night clubs, parties and fashion, and the north has always been seen traditionally as poorer and less interesting that the south. In 2022 the rivalry between two high-profile WAGs became one of national interest as Colleen Rooney took a court case for libel against Rebekah Vardy for allegedly leaking her Instagram posts to a national newspaper. Rooney won the suit, costing Vardy an estimated £3 million. With typical journalistic humour, the court case was dubbed "Wagatha Christie." The case also gave rise to a TV documentary, no doubt earning Vardy back more than the few mill she had had to pay out.

Whether they are seen as a good or bad influence on the players, whether the players are upset by or don't care about the attention their wives and girlfriends are subjected to by the media, it's clear now that football, still, as I said at the beginning, despite everything a man's game, is starting to be influenced by the women who are attached to it, even if only peripherally. It's interesting that there seems to be no corresponding term for the partners of female players (HABs? Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it?), though it would seem that the media take it that the female tends to do the more "controversial" things, such as shopping, sleeping around, getting drunk in night clubs - George Best would probably be outraged. Apart, maybe, from the shopping. Footballers, once seen as almost male icons without any reference to women are now usually inextricably identified and linked with their partner, though as I say, the term, not at all surprisingly, is not enjoyed by the women to whom it applies. In fact, according to Wiki, In 2010, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) criticised the term as sexist and stated that it could be offensive, as it was often used to demean women.[9] Other commentators have reflected this view. Felicity Morse has argued that "referring to any woman pejoratively as a 'wife or girlfriend' is not acceptable, and that the "casual repetition of this chauvinist term has normalised it".[10] Dana Johannsen described the term as "the most odious acronym in sport",[11] while Melanie Dinjaski argued that it demeans women and "implies a link between women and dogs, happily wagging their tails at their owner's (player's) side".

Perhaps, though, it's now a case of the tail WAGging the dog? Sorry.

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XIII: The dawning of the age of the celebrity footballer: The kids are alright (Part III)

In 2002 Alex Ferguson watched somewhat open-mouthed as a fresh new recruit scored a frankly amazing goal for Everton, aged only 17. This goal marked both the debut and the explosion onto the footballing scene of a kid who would go on to become one of Manchester United's most famous and most successful players, as well as one of England's finest captains. Wayne Rooney had been with Everton since he was nine years old, originally as their mascot and then playing in various youth teams, and would spend two seasons in the first team before putting in for a transfer tin 2004, with Chelsea and Newcastle both interested, but Ferguson saw the potential in the young man, and convinced the board to sign him for a record £20 million (plus another £7 million in "contingencies"), the highest ever price for a player under 20 years old. It would prove to be a steal.
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Rooney scored a hat-trick on his debut in the Champions League, something I'm not certain any other English player has done, though maybe they have. Still, it was an impressive start, and only to get better. He joined however at a time when United's fortunes were falling, the season they won no trophies, but the next season was better, as they won the League Cup, thanks mostly to two goals from him, though again Man United's quest to regain the Premier League title was thwarted as Chelsea beat them to the top. Like most "star" players, and particularly young ones, Rooney had his share of run-ins with refs and red cards, and, showing his growing arrogance already by 2006, when sent off for an elbowing offence, he threatened to revoke the FA's permission to use his image if the three-match ban was not overturned. But since the match had taken place in Europe, there was nothing England's football governing body could do, even had they intended to accede to such outrageous blackmail.
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He became, of course, a hated figure at his former club, especially whenever they played Everton, as the Merseyside fans on the blue side of the city surely rued what their team could have become had he not been sold, and Rooney's behaviour towards his former fans didn't help, that arrogance growing, perhaps the sense of "you sold me, you lost out, now deal with it", this only reinforced when United finally managed to take the title in 2007, reversing the trend as Chelsea came runners-up with six points between them, Everton a long way behind in sixth with 58 points to United's 89. He was also plagued by injury, leading to his absence for some of the next season, but even so United retained the title, Chelsea this time only 2 points behind them and Everton in 5th. That year they also won the Champions League, rubbing it in to Chelsea as they beat them in the final. They would win the title for the third season in a row in 2009, this time beating Liverpool to the top by a mere four points, and achieving a record 19th title win, prompting derision at Liverpool fans, whose team had won 18 and mocked them on their 18th victory, chanting "Come back when you've won 19!"  They had, and I guess revenge was sweet, but it would not last. That season Chelsea were third and Everton again 5th, but the next season would see the Blues take their own revenge as they beat United by a single point. In the top five though was a new and rising challenger, and the next season saw Manchester City, level on points with Chelsea, third in the table. The following one ended with them at the top, level on points but with a superior goal difference to Man United.

But all was not rosy for Rooney, and he resented being benched, ostensibly due to injury, which he said he did not believe to be the case, and put in for a transfer. This request was dramatically withdrawn though, and Rooney would go on to play for United to almost the end of his career. He scored what most agreed to be the goal of the season when his bicycle kick overhead into the net took the match against rivals Manchester City in 2011. Ferguson said it was the best goal he had ever witnessed, and was no doubt glad his star player had stayed, as were the fans. Man United's fortunes would begin to seesaw, however, under the renewed threat from a resurgent Man City and the later retirement of their long-serving manager. Rooney was also banned for two matches for swearing into a camera during a match, something that was captured on television. In 2012 he helped defeat City in the FA Cup, but their rivals would have the last laugh as they won the title with the narrowest of narrow margins, that famous last-second winning for Aguero sealing top place for City and leaving United crushed. Whether it had anything to do with that disappointment or not, Rooney again handed in a request for a transfer.
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He would, however, stay with the club for another five years, ending his career with 253 goals, all-time top scorer for Manchester United and only seven behind Newcastle's Alan Shearer as top goalscorer of all time, a record still held at the time of writing.

Rooney married what Americans would call his high school sweetheart (they had met in secondary school) Colleen McLoughlin and was falsely accused of assaulting her at a nightclub in 2006, a libel case he won (foreshadowing her victory over Rebekah Vardy, as detailed in the last piece) but allegations of infidelity while Colleen was pregnant were not so easily dealt with, and the case was settled out of court. Rooney appeared in many tabloid stories and gossip columns, showing how the idea of footballers keeping their private lives private has become almost an impossible task, made all the harder by their own arrogance and lack of decorum. You'd have to say that in general, they only have themselves to blame.

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XIV: Goodbye, Mr. Chips: Farewell to Ferguson

Anyone who knows anything about football will agree that the slide into what can only now be termed football mediocrity for a club which was once the toast of England and Europe began with the decision in 2013 of their talismanic manager to retire. Although he was at the time getting on, I really don't think too many people saw it coming. I certainly didn't: to me, Ferguson was as synonymous with United as Arsene Wenger was with Arsenal at the time, or Frank Lampard with Chelsea. You just couldn't imagine them being separated. But Ferguson had been with the club at that point for 26 years, far and away the longest any manager had remained with any club in England, perhaps Europe. Arsene Wenger, who came to Arsenal ten years later than Ferguson, lasted 22 years, making him the second-longest manager, while most other clubs tend to change their manager every few years, some within the same year. So this was really quite some achievement.

Ferguson remained and remains loyal to United, having resisted offers to coach other teams probably, he is now a director and club ambassador of  Manchester United. But his retirement coincides almost directly with United's first loss of the Premier League title, and though they regained it the next season, 2013 would be the last time Manchester United would top the table right up to today, where they currently (at the time of writing) languish miserably in the bottom half, desperately trying to win matches and return to the glory days. Since Ferguson left they've had a total of six different managers (not including caretaker ones), who have all failed to find that spark that made the team such an unstoppable juggernaut in the twentieth century.

It probably would not be fair, or accurate, to say something as simple as "without Ferguson United fell apart", but there's no getting away from the fact that the loss of the man under whose leadership many had joined, grown up and won trophies and titles was a huge blow to the club. On the announcement of his intention to retire, United's share price fell sharply by five percent, and the obvious question was, who was going to take his place, or try to? The man tasked with that turned out to be, perhaps to everyone's surprise, another Scot  (in a time when more and more European and other outside managers were being brought in), former (and, at time of writing, current) manager of Everton, David Moyes.
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It was never a good fit. If there's anything Manchester United fans hate worse than Manchester City, it's Liverpool, and Everton being the blue half of Merseyside, this was not going to sit well with those who filled the seats at Old Trafford. Moyes had been managing Everton for 11 years, which placed him as the third-longest manager in the Premiership, but he only lasted ten months in his new job, as the team performed terribly, losing out on the title, as I already said, and Moyes' insistence (like, it must be said, most managers when they take over) that he would bring his own staff to the club, which resulted in the dismissal of long-time assistant manager Mike Phelan, who had been there since 2001, did not help endear him to fans. This would of course change if he could produce the results and show that he was the man for the job.

He couldn't.

At least the appointment of United favourites Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville to the coaching staff might have helped smooth some ruffled  feathers, and in fact Giggs, now a player-coach, would helm the team as interim manager when Moyes was sacked, but no matter the situation in the dugout or indeed the boardroom, it's on the pitch where fans want to see progress and results, and they don't want to see their illustrious team's name sliding down the Premier League table, as it was.
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After an embarrassing FA Cup exit in the third round to Swansea City, and a defeat to Sunderland in the League Cup, United had also suffered an embarrassing tour of Asia, Australia and Europe in which they lost three out of seven games, returning in no mood to conquer the Premiership. There were no new signings (Moyes attributed this to a difficult transition for him, having to learn a new way of signing, i.e., bigger players for more money and, oh yeah: the fucking team had been on tour!) which disgruntled fans even more, though they may have been somewhat placated by the new manager's promise that Wayne Rooney was going nowhere, which seems to have come as a surprise to Wayne Rooney, who had asked for a transfer!

After winning the Charity Shield - against Wigan, and only by two goals - it was time for the serious business of defending the title, but a 0-0 at home against Chelsea and a 1-0 defeat away to Liverpool soon had United sliding down the table, a position they never recovered. They fell 4-1 to rivals Manchester City away, were defeated by newcomers West Brom, sliding to 12th place, and just about managed to hold Southampton to a draw as winter closed in. It would be a cold one, with little comfort for the ex-Champions. They did however manage to beat title favourites Arsenal at home, but embarrassingly lost to Moyes' former team as well as Newcastle, leaving them with 2 points out of 12. The New Year started off badly with a defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, United now seventh, the highest placing they would achieve that season as their rivals ran away with the title. No less than three penalties awarded against them at Anfield saw Liverpool thrash them 3-0 and at the end of March a light aircraft, arranged by some United supporters, flew over Old Trafford towing the banner "Wrong one - Moyes out!" This was in reference to Chelsea manager Jose Murinho's claim, on taking the job, that he was "the special one". Moyes put a brave face on it, but he must have known his days were numbered: when you lose the fans, the only way to get them back is to win games and advance up the table. He was doing neither.

The final ignominy for the fans was when United were beaten 2-0 by Everton, in one of those little quirks of fate football likes to throw at us. Days later, Moyes was giving his marching orders, and Giggs took over as interim manager until a replacement could be found. Though he did his best, you work with what you have, and Manchester United ended the season in seventh, without any chance of qualifying for Europe, not even the much-derided Europa League, this making it the first time in over 15 years that they would not be playing football outside of England. Even Everton had finished ahead of them! They did at least get to the quarter-finals of the Champions League that year, being beaten in the second leg by Bayern Munich.

Having failed pretty miserably with their second Scotsman, the board of United decided it was time to look further afield. This time, it would be the first foreign manager they would appoint, a policy that (caretaker/interim managers aside) they have kept to ever since. Surprises me that they didn't look among the many retired or out-of-work English managers, but perhaps that was their mistake. At any rate, none of these men would come with the regulation magic wand, and the decline of Manchester United, while occasionally temporarily arrested, would continue on into the next ten years.

Over the other side of the city though, it was an entirely different story.

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XV: Putting some Pep in it: Phoenix from the flames

A revelation, an unqualified success, Premier League champions and champions of Europe: these are just a few of the things Manchester City were not when Pep Guardiola took over managing the team in 2016. To say his first season in charge was a damp squib is an understatement: City were knocked out of the Champions League in the Round of 16 by Monaco (admittedly, after a serious fight in which City took the first leg 5-3 but lost the second 3-1), were dumped out of the FA Cup by Arsenal, eliminated from the League Cup by their rivals, and finished a poor third in the league behind Spurs and a massive 15 points behind winners Chelsea. The only consolation was that they finished three places and 9 points above United in sixth. Next season, though, it would be better. So much better.

In the 2017/18 season they went 18 matches unbeaten, took United down at the Manchester Derby and set records for the most goals scored in a season, with 106, the most wins at 32 and the most points at 100. With 5 games still to play they were champions-elect, equalling United's previous record, beating the former champions in second by a clear 19 points and they won the League Cup, beating Arsenal 3-0.
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A suitable metaphor for City's meteoric rise under Guardiola might be this: in his first season the team were a steam locomotive, chugging sedately along. By the second season that locomotive had become a maglev bullet train, hurtling along at breakneck speed, unstoppable, every opposing team blown away as easily as leaves on the track before the mighty colossus. The rebirth of Manchester City was on course now, and, to quote HG Wells, nothing and nobody could stop it.

They began at 3rd, dipped to 4th after one defeat (their only one of two throughout the entire season), climbed to second where they remained for two weeks, whereafter they rose to first, a position they held right through to the end of the season, winning every match bar six and unbeaten but for two matches near the end of the season. Phenomenal is the only word that fits. Not since Arsenal's "Invincibles" in 2003/04 had any English Premier League side gone unbeaten for the entire season, and I remember a post made by Arsenal when City slipped to their first defeat, at the hands of Liverpool in January, which just said "Phew!" Manchester City had come so close to equalling Arsenal's rightly proud record, but fell short by a single game. Still, it was an amazing achievement, and saw them win the title for the first time under Guardiola, their fourth overall. I suppose there must have been some cold comfort for United that they were the only other team to stop City's unbeaten run, coming out 3-2 victors at the Etihad.
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But you can't have it all, and success eluded them in the FA Cup, as their perennial bogie team, Wigan, knocked them out in the fifth round, and they failed to make it through to the semi-finals of the Champions League, being beaten by Liverpool on both legs. As with the improvement though from the first season under Guardiola to the second, the third time would be the charm, as City not only retained their title for the first time ever, but also completed the treble, an achievement previously only, um, achieved by Manchester United. After a brief stumble at the beginning of the season, during which they fell to 5th place, but were back on top in four weeks, City divided the season into three blocks, the first of which saw them at first, the second at second and the final, and most important part, returned them to first, where they remained till the final day. They went unbeaten almost to Christmas, where they suffered three defeats almost in a row, but these would be their only ones, bar one blip in January, as they took hold of the league and powered towards the finishing line. This time, each time they came up against United they beat them. At the end of the season their rivals were well below them, 6th with 66 points to City's 98.

This year they raised the FA Cup, hammering Watford 6-0 in the final and scoring a total of 26 goals in the competition overall, and beat Chelsea on penalties in the final of the EFL Cup, which gave them an unprecedented domestic triple, though unable to add to that they were beaten by Spurs 4-4 on the away goals rule in the Champions League. 2019 was certainly their year. The next year though, they would face a serious challenge from a resurgent United, as both teams vied for a title which, in the end, neither would win.
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They do say though, that every silver (or blue) lining has a cloud. Or is that the other way around? No, in City's case, storm clouds were gathering for them off the field as their financial dealings were being questioned. First broken in a German newspaper the previous year, the allegations that City had broken UEFA Financial Fair Play rules began to be taken seriously, and in 2019 UEFA began to investigate these. Like any container of small wriggling creatures once opened, the charges levelled against Manchester City in Der Spiegel turned out to be merely the tip of a very nasty iceberg. And a very badly written mixed metaphor. But what do you expect when you're run by some of the richest people on the planet? You think Arabs, and more, princes, are going to play fair? Hey, ya lie down with dogs, ya know? Here's the full lowdown from Wiki:

A further report from Der Spiegel in April 2022 claimed, based on leaked internal documents, that the Abu Dhabi owners had previously made payments into the club disguised as sponsorship payments by Emirati companies like Etihad and Etisalat (the same claim that the club had successfully defended at CAS in 2020); Sheikh Mansour's Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) had allegedly indirectly paid for underage players to sign with the club; and that the club had allegedly used a fictitious contract between Roberto Mancini and Mansour's Al Jazira Club to pay large compensation fees to the former manager in addition to his salary. It also claimed that these three cases were under investigation by the Premier League for the last three years. In response, Manchester City dismissed these claims as untrue and classified them as another systematic attempt to undermine the reputation and integrity of the club.

In addition to this, City also had to pay out compensation to players who said they had been sexually abused in a historic case going back to the 1980s, and although theirs was not the only club involved, it further tarnished the image of a club many people were beginning to think thought itself above the law and had effectively bought the Premier League title. The sexual assault cases were settled but the financial ones are still ongoing at the time of writing, and could result in serious penalties for Manchester City. Not as serious, admittedly, as those suffered by the men who were abused by their coach in the twentieth century, but still severe enough to quite possibly justify their half of the title of this entire project. Time will tell. It never can keep its mouth shut.

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XVI: Europe calling: The Special One arrives at Old Trafford

This time Manchester United looked to Europe for their salvation, and believed they had found it in the shape of Dutch manager Louis van Gaal, who had previously steered Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich to glory, but his arrival at United in 2014 coincided with the departure of some of their better players, including Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand, and he was also the first non-British coach to take control of the team. At the time, though other teams were being managed by "foreign" managers (Chelsea and Liverpool being notable ones) there was still the kind of, let's not call it prejudice but perhaps uneasiness about a "foreigner" coming in to a club like Manchester United, which had always prided itself on having been run by men from the Home Countries.

So Van Gaal faced a lot of opposition and resentment, particularly in the wake of Moyes' failure and swift departure, and many may have thought this was something of a knee-jerk reaction by the board, expecting someone perhaps more like Terry Venables or Bobby Robson, a man linked to English football history. Or an ex-player. Many clamoured for Giggs to be given the job full time, but whether he wanted it or not, four matches in charge was certainly not seen as enough experience to take over running one of the most powerful clubs in English football, and so United made the choice to "go with a foreigner".
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It was a gamble, and one that did not pay off, United losing their first match at home against lowly Swansea City, the first time the Welsh team had ever beaten them on their own turf, and the first time United had lost the opening match of a season in more than forty years. Two uninspiring draws against lower opposition followed as they failed to beat either Sunderland or Burnley, it taking them four games into the season before they finally registered a victory. Starting the season at a shocking 16th, they had clawed their way up to 9th but by the time future champions Leicester City had beaten them 5-3 they were languishing at 12th. It would, however, be the lowest they would go for the rest of that season. Their confidence was boosted by a repeat of the Manchester Derby, which they had lost in November 1-0, this time resulting in a 4-2 victory over their rivals in April 2015. United were now sitting third in the table and looking at European football. Their joy was short-lived however, as they now suffered three straight defeats, one victory and two draws to end the season fourth. It was still a massive comeback from their starting position, credit for much of which had to be given to goalkeeper David DeGea, who had pulled their fat out of the fire more times than seemed possible, keeping them in games they should by all rights have lost. Though City did not win the title this year either, they still ended up two places and nine points above their rivals.
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United exited the FA Cup in the sixth round at the hands of Arsenal, and the League Cup humiliatingly to MK Dons with a 4-0 thrashing. With no European football for them that season, this was another one to end with nothing new to be added to the trophy cabinet. 2015 started well with two victories, against Spurs and Villa, giving United top spot for the first time in two years. They weren't able to hold it though, and would end the season a poor 5th, a long way behind surprise champions Leicester City. United would lose ten games (three in a row, like last season) and draw nine, including against their rivals nil-nil, though they would beat them later in the season. Defeats for United this season included a 3-0 thrashing away by Arsenal and an embarrassing loss to newly-promoted sides Bournemouth, also away, and Norwich City, at Old Trafford. Having lost to Southampton, United were booed off the pitch by their fans. Van Gaal must have been having a Moyesque moment, seeing the trapdoor opening under his feet.
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February saw some respite for the under pressure manager, as Marcus Rashford, a product of the Manchester United academy, made his debut and scored twice to take down Arsenal, off the back of a shock defeat to relegation strugglers Sunderland. Rashford would be instrumental in United's fight to get back to the top, though he would have his own problems with the management. He helped them overcome their biggest rivals too, when United ran out 4-2 winners of the Manchester Derby, Rashford clinching the winner, but like much of their season, this was offset by another shock defeat, this time to West Brom, who had not beaten Man United in over three decades. Nevertheless, Van Gaal's Ferguson-like faith in the young hopefuls earned him points with fans, though a see-saw pattern of results - win, lose, win, lose, win, draw etc - kept United out of fourth place as City claimed this honour, and the right to play European football next season in the Champions League. United would have to settle for the Europa League.

They did win the FA Cup, after extra time against Crystal Palace, but lost the EFL Cup to another bogie team of theirs, the perennial party-poopers, Middlesbrough, exited the Champions League at the group stages, and, transferred to the Europa League, lost out to Liverpool, ending a poor season in Europe. Two days after taking the FA Cup, that trapdoor flopped open and Louis Van Gaal dropped through. Another one bites the dust, ja?
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What was needed, clearly, was someone equal to, or at least comparable to Ferguson, and the board hunted about for a suitable successor, someone who was worthy of wearing the crown the Scot had worn for 27 years. United believed they had found him in Jose Mourinho, the mercurial and highly successful coach who had taken Chelsea to three Premier League titles, their first ever, three EFL Cups and an FA Cup. He's the man for us, they rubbed their hands and thought. If he can do all that for Chelsea, taking them from what was pretty much at the time a mediocre side and turning them into a team of champions, he can do it for Manchester United, return us to the top, get us back into Europe, properly.

He would have some success with United, mostly in Europe, but they would never again be Premier League champions. Things didn't start too well when United had a chance to do the double over City but lost the Manchester Derby, and then, to rub salt into the wounds, his former team beat them as Chelsea took them in a humiliating 4-0 defeat, though Mourinho was able to take revenge on City in the EFL Cup where his team ran out 1-0 winners. But whereas we expect players to cause trouble on and off the field, we don't always anticipate such behaviour from managers. Mourinho though, arrogant to a fault, questioned refereeing decisions, taunted opposing fans and made comments that got him into a lot of hot water. After United went out of the Champions League at the hands of Spanish side Sevilla, he held a 12-minute conference which turned into something of a rant as he defended his time at the club. Here's the report.

Directly addressing the fans' anger, he said they "have the right to their opinions and reactions, but there is something that I used to call football heritage".
He explained "football heritage" by saying United have only reached the Champions League quarter-finals once since losing the 2011 final.
Mourinho also compared United's recent league and European record to that of Manchester City, who have finished above United in every season since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
He said: "Do you know what is also heritage? Nicolas Otamendi, Kevin de Bruyne, Fernandinho, David Silva, Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero - they are investments from the past, not from the last two years.
"One day when I leave, the next Manchester United manager will find here Romelu Lukaku, Nemanja Matic, of course David de Gea from many years ago, they will find players with a different mentality, quality, background, with a different status and know-how.
"I could be in another country with the league in the pocket, but I am here and I am going to be here, and no way am I going to change my mentality.
"I'm not going to disappear from the tunnel, running immediately; the next match, I will be the first to go out. I am not afraid of my responsibilities.
"When I was 20, I was nobody in football. I was somebody's son, with a lot of pride, and now at 55 I am what I am. I did what I did because of work and because of talent and my mentality."

You could take from that that he was refusing to accept responsibility for the loss, that he expected it, or that fans' expectations were too high. I really don't know, but he certainly was not one to take criticism lying down, seeming to see it almost as an insult, an attack upon him personally. He would see his old club come back to haunt him again as Chelsea beat Man United 1-0 to lift the FA Cup, while at least in the Premier League they went unbeaten until October, one of his new signings, Belgian Romelu Lukaku, scoring in almost every match. This included a 2-0 victory over new champions Leicester City and a 3-2 defeat of Manchester City, who would go on to take the title, as well as a 3-1 hammering of Arsenal and 2-1 defeats of both Liverpool and Chelsea later in the season. They finished second, their best result in years, but well behind City, who took the title with 100 points, 19 more than United. It was also the last season United would ever be in the top four. It must, however, have been some comfort to the ex-Chelsea boss to see his old team struggling in 5th with 11 points less than United.

They went out of the EFL Cup in the 5th round to Championship side Bristol Rovers, and as mentioned were knocked out of the Champions League by Spain's Sevilla in the knockout round second leg, prompting Mourinho's diatribe after the match. The next season, which would be Mourinho's last in charge, started poorly, with two bad back-to-back defeats, one to Brighton and one to Spurs, and continued with too many draws and defeats, including two more humiliating losses to Manchester City. By the end of the season, they could only win two of their remaining eight games, drawing two of the last three, and ending up sixth in the table, the beginning of the slide for the former champions of English football.

They lost to Wolves in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, were beaten on penalties by Derby in the EFL Cup, exited the Champions League in also the quarter-finals, beaten by Barcelona in the second leg (having lost both) and would not qualify for Europe again the following season. After a terrible start to the Premier League, with United sitting an awful 16th, Mourinho remained unrepentant, calling himself the one of the greatest managers in the world. Clearly, he was not a fan of the maxim "you're only as good as your last job". United's board were though, and they parted company the week before Christmas. A lump of coal in your stocking, Jose!

The next man to try the job would come both from further afield, and closer to home, as United rethought the Ryan Giggs idea, and decided to give an ex-player a shot at managing the team he had once played in, though mostly as a substitute.

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XVII: Ghosts in the wind: The world shuts down

2020 will of course always be remembered for one thing: the year Covid-19 arrived on our shores. As the virus moved insidiously across Europe and towards Britain and Ireland, people (and governments) began to take notice and venues were shut down. After some consultation, having been suspended for four months from March to June 2020, the Premier League made a partial return, to the eerie sound of footballers playing to ghost supporters, as fans were not allowed to attend matches (or, in most cases, even leave their homes) and games were played behind closed doors. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, I never realised how boring football is without commentary and the roar of the crowd.

City began the season as champions, but would find themselves unable to defend that crown, little of which, if any, can be laid at the door of the pandemic. They still maintained an impressive lead, holding onto the number 2 position (where they finished) for almost the entire season. They only lost 9 matches (one of which, to their delight, was against their red rivals, who put paid to what was at the time a three-game unbeaten run; United would emerge victorious in both their encounters with the champions) and drew three, with impressive victories over Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle. At the end of the season they would be 18 points behind a rampant Liverpool, who took their revenge for being pipped to the title the previous season by just a single point, but still 15 above their red city rivals. If they wished to partake of any footballing schadenfreude, City could gloat over the fact that Liverpool had to lift the Premiership trophy to an empty stadium, thanks to Covid restrictions. I'm sure they weren't that petty-minded, though.
:shycouch:
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Eager to defend their FA Cup title, they made it to the semi-finals but lost out to Arsenal, while they beat Aston Villa 2-1 to retain the EFL Cup. In the Champions League they were beaten in the quarter-finals by Lyon, leaving them with just the one trophy for that season. The euphoria of the previous year was certainly evaporating. Only temporary though, as the next season was to see them again top the table. With stunning unoriginality and a sense of it would be funny if it wasn't so sad, the FA and the Premier League decided that, with fans still not allowed to attend matches by the  government due to Covid concerns as infection rates and deaths spiked, the idea of "empty stadiums" was not catching on, and so they used applause and cheers recorded from the FIFA videogame! Why each club didn't just get its fans to record the noises and then use them is beyond me, but what do I know? At any rate, the 2020/21 season began in this way, and continued until more than a third of the way into 2021.
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Things did not start well for City, with some shock defeats plunging them to the bottom half of the table, but they rallied in November and then went on a 21-game unbeaten run to end the season top of the table again, this time 12 points ahead of Man United, who would be spending their last season anywhere near the top. Considering this was a season in which both Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus, their top strikers, were out injured for much of the time, this was a pretty remarkable comeback for City. This was also the season they signed Jack Grealish from Villa, infuriating me, and the year European Cup glory was so almost in touching distance, when they made it to the final of the Champions League but lost to Chelsea. An interesting quirk about that tournament is that in the quarter-finals they came up against Borussia Dortmund, who had Erling Haaland playing for them. The next year, Haaland would sign for City and be instrumental in their defence of their title.

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Intermission II: Greed is not good - The many deaths of the Super League

This 2020/21 season marked what many would consider potentially the darkest day in football (not counting tragedies or deaths) when a conglomerate of super-rich businessmen essentially tried to buy the game. The so-called European Super League, an intended rival to the UEFA Champions League, was an idea that had been around since the 1960s, but which had been shot down each time it was raised. The main idea behind it, to nobody's surprise, was the capability of making more and more money out of sponsorship and television deals, but most clubs and football associations - including UEFA and FIFA - had blocked it.

The most recent attempt was generally a Spanish idea, with the presidents of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus trying to "steal away" the big clubs from the Premiership. The idea, apparently, this time ran thusly: one of the biggest impacts Covid had had on football was, supposedly, to tilt the already heavy bank balance of super-rich clubs slightly in a direction they would prefer it had not gone. Or in other words, they'd lost money, but were still richer than God. To offset this, it looks to me as if they decided to blackmail UEFA: implement the changes we want or we steal all the decent teams from you, and you can have your Champions League with teams like Young Boys and Schalke04, and see how far you get with that!

The "decent teams" of which they were speaking, other than their own, were of course the big English ones: Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and the two Manchester clubs, as well as the three big Italian clubs - Inter Milan, AC Milan and of course Juventus - and the two Spanish clubs plus Atletico. These 12 teams would then compete in the new "European Super League" against each other, removing them from the Champions League, therefore denying the smaller clubs the chance to play them, and making the whole thing a lot more predictable and boring. Imagine the FA Cup without League 2 or lower participation. The other thing this would do would be to take away the chance of earning European revenue from the smaller clubs, creating a "super-tier" of English and European football, codifying the gulf between the leagues and further distancing the top clubs from the lower, poorer ones. It was, in essence, football by the rich for the rich.

A governing principle of the ESL was that "once you're in, you're fucking in, pal!" There was no mechanism for clubs to leave, unless the league was officially dissolved, and a reported £300 million penalty and "unlimited fines" for trying to do so. Sounds like the football mafia to me! The founders were not, however, prepared for the outraged backlash their plan received. Given that the whole thing had been conducted in secrecy (with FIFA involved through a codename, while publicly railing against the proposal) the enterprise stank to high Heaven, and possibly low Hell too. Governing football bodies were quick to condemn it, and warn that any club taking part would suffer serious sanctions, such as their players not being able to take part in other international competitions, or for their country in the World Cup or Euros. They would also be banned from taking part in their own country's domestic leagues, though the FA, presumably realising how much money the Premiership, FA Cup etc bring in, did not go this far. FIFA, anxious to abandon the rapidly-sinking ship and pretend it had been against it all along, turned coat and sided with UEFA and the various footballing bodies condemning the proposal.
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Next to have their say were the smaller clubs, or, you might say unkindly, the clubs who had not been asked to join. In England, West Ham, Leeds and Everton all proudly proclaimed their working-class roots and their allegiance to English football, and condemned both the ESL and the "Big Six" teams who had initially signed on to take part. Fans took to the streets in protest, and as a consequence, politicians got involved, with the British Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, who had probably never even seen a football match never mind attended one, pretending to be a man of the people and strongly coming out against the idea of the Super League. Current PM, then in opposition, Keir Starmer, agreed, as did the governments of Spain, Italy and France.
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Former players of Manchester United had nothing but contempt for the proposal, and both expressed shock and anger that the club they had made their names in had acceded to the invitation to join. Jurgen Klopp was against it (but did not offer to resign from it), Pep Guardiola lived up to his name and was very guarded, arguing for both sides, and Chelsea's manager at the time also got splinters in his arse. This all at a time when nobody really knew what was going to happen, and most were, it seems, still hedging their bets. Sky, BT Sports and Amazon all backed away, hands facing outwards and promising they had not made any deals to broadcast the new Super League (though if they had, they would surely not have admitted it), but perhaps the most important and public demonstration against it was from the people who really mattered, the ones who paid to see their teams week after week, bought the shirts, videos, mugs and whatever else the clubs wanted to sell them, and in a way, paid their wages.
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Fans were unanimously against the idea, and marched to show their disgust, holding placards like "Hands off our game" and "Football is for all", making impassioned speeches about how the whole deal was likely to destroy English football, and how they variously could not believe that their club endorsed the plan/were delighted and proud their club had said no. Anger was building to a fever pitch: like we Irish if you were to take away our pubs (or our churches, Henry VIII!) the worst thing you can do to an Englishman is take away his footy. For many people, that's all they have to look forward to after a full week's work, and not to be able to go and watch United or City or Arsenal was a step too far. This had to stop.

And it did.

On April 20 2021 all the six major English Premier League clubs withdrew from the Super League, leaving only the Spanish and Italian ones remaining. Protests at both Chelsea and Leeds grounds (where the latter were playing Liverpool) got heated, with the buses of both home and away players being blocked at Stamford Bridge by angry fans, until the club announced it was withdrawing from the agreement. Manchester City were the first to formally do so, followed by Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham. Chelsea, despite making the announcement first (probably due to that protest and its urgency) were last to actually leave the Super League. Soon after, Atletico Madrid, Inter Milan and AC Milan did the same. It took over a month for Juventus to shuffle off, but Barcelona and Real Madrid remain. Perhaps they can play with themselves?

The big English clubs all issued statements unreservedly apologising for their poor judgement and requesting, in the words of Krusty the Klown, "please don't quit the fan club!" Managers had had, so far as can be seen, no input into the decision, and most disagreed with it but had no say, so fans did not hold the likes of Klopp, Guardiola or whoever was in charge of United that week of any wrongdoing, but the debacle left a dark cloud over each club and built, or extended, a fundamental distrust between fans and chairmen. Of  Liverpool's board it was said, and probably with some justification, "They're not sorry; they're just sorry they got caught out." As a result of protests, some, but not all, of the clubs included fan representation at the boardroom level. Many top executives at the Big Six were fired or invited to resign, an enquiry was launched into the whole business, and large fines levied on each club. Plans were put in place to ensure British law and FA rules prevent any English club from attempting to join such an enterprise in the future, ruling out any possibility of Premier League participation in any version of the ESL that should struggle out of the coffin the fans, the media and the governments of various nations have nailed it into, and upon whose grave UEFA have danced.
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For those of us to whom this news, while percolating away like bad coffee for years it seems, was fresh, the whole thing seemed to be over in a flash. I watched the report on Sky News about it, and either within the bulletin or slightly after (okay, it may have been a day later; I think I was left with a feeling of anxiety so probably not as immediate as all that) the announcement was made that the Super League had been scrapped, or that at least the big English clubs had all backed out, and the idea was as good as dead. Talk about a victory for the common man! When, before, has people power triumphed over tycoons and tyrants? Well, this time it did. Mind you, had everyone who mattered said yes, or said nothing, perhaps we would today have a far different football league, if any, and Gary Lineker might be out of a job!

From the start, the whole idea of the European Super League was to make money - it might as well have added "Rich" as its third word - but that's to be expected. Nobody who plays football, bar those in the really lower leagues, plays for free, and even those who do dream of one day making it big and being a household name. There's nothing wrong, in principle, with football clubs or organisations wanting to make money. Where it falls down though is when the only ones to make money are those who have already too much; the super rich, megacorporations and high net worth individuals who own clubs such as Chelsea, Real Madrid or Liverpool, and when those who really need a cash injection are to be left out in the cold.

It's quite clear that the men who organised this monstrosity had little to no interest in the game, and I say that realising fully that it was spearheaded by the president of Real Madrid. The weak excuses given, the vague promises that the smaller clubs would not suffer, the all but shrug at the downside speaks to people who are primarily and only concerned with lining their pockets and those of their friends, and don't give a curse how adversely their plans would affect European football. They don't care about the fans: they're just numbers, ticket prices, a demographic to be manipulated, used or ignored as suits their purposes. Not people, just figures and statistics on a balance sheet. VAR has already done a very good job of reducing our game to measurements, statistics and probabilities. We don't need some super rich elitist league stealing our players and our teams. Already too many are going to China and Saudi Arabia, the lure of lucre too strong for them to resist, or maybe they just don't care anymore.

But whichever way you choose to view it - some claim "global politics" was the big barrier to the Super League's being accepted, and maybe it was - in times of crisis for football, there'll never be a voice as loud as those of the fans.

Football is for all, not a piggy bank or rainy-day fund for a bunch of people who are rich enough already. In the end, money may very well make the world go around, but football makes it just that little bit more bearable.

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XVIII: Norway, Jose! The Super Sub returns

Famed as the man who was always coming off the bench to clinch the winning goal, and nicknamed "the baby-faced assassin" for his boyish looks, which honestly make him still look about 12 when he's well into his 50s, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was an instant hit with the fans when he was invited to take charge of the team on a temporary basis, as the bewildered board, surely amazed that the Special One had not managed to work his magic for them, looked around anxiously for another saviour. While they did that, Solskjaer led the team to five successive victories, their first being a 5-1 demolition of Cardiff City, a team he had previously managed. This was the first time United had scored five goals since 2013, and as the team strode on to victory after victory, it began to look more and more to everyone that Ole was the man to get them back to winning ways. In fact, they went on a staggering 13-game unbeaten run, only stopped by Arsenal in March, though after that they seemed to come to something of a juddering halt.

It's perhaps odd that as soon as Solskjaer was given the job on a permanent basis, his win ratio began to drop dramatically as the results dried up. Manchester United began to lose ground badly, losing four of their remaining eight games, drawing two and winning just two. They never really rose above sixth and that was where they finished, a jaw-dropping 32 points below champions Manchester City, and crashed out of the FA Cup in the quarter-finals, losing to Wolves. Derby County knocked them out of the EFL Cup on penalties, and lost to Barcelona in the Champions League. 2019, Solskjaer's first full season as manager, started well with a 4-0 thrashing of Chelsea, but very quickly United slipped into what was becoming the norm, losing and drawing matches to teams like Crystal Palace, Wolves, Chelsea and Southampton, though they did beat City both times they faced them. Towards the end of the season they made a spurt, winning 9 of their last 14 matches, and drawing the rest. It was an improvement, but too little too late, and they finished the season third, 15 points behind second-placed Manchester City and 33 points behind champions Liverpool. They were knocked out of the FA Cup by Chelsea again, and to their horror, it was Man City who booted them out of the EFL Cup. That just left the Champions League, but they hadn't qualified for that, so had to settle for being kicked out of the Europa League, again by Sevilla.
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The next season, paradoxically the one in which United ended second in the league, their best result since Alex Ferguson had retired, was to be the last with Solskjaer in charge (thank Christ, because I'm getting tired misspelling his name!) with some highs (4-1 win over Newcastle away, 6-2 demolition of Leeds at home, 2-0 defeat of Man City at the Etihad) and some lows (6-1 loss to Spurs at Old trafford, 4-2 defeat at the hands of Liverpool at home too) and featured their best-ever result, and joint highest scoring match in Premiership history, a 9-0 savaging of Southampton.  Amazingly, the Saints had already suffered nine goals without response when they played former champions Leicester City in 2019, and United had also put nine past Ipswich Town way back in 1995, their own highest score being 10-0 against Anderlecht back in the mists of time, 1956, but of course that wasn't in English football, and was well before the formation of the Premier League. And long before most of these players had been born, including their manager.

Speaking of whom, with results like that, you'd have imagined Solskjaer (there! Last fucking time I have to spell it!) would have remained, but a club like Manchester United, while they want to win the Premier League, are more interested in Europe, and there United stumbled, losing to German side RB Leipzig in the group stages and again being transferred to the Europa League (which kinda seems like it might be seen as the remedial class for football; only the "special" teams play there) where they got to the final but could only draw with Villareal, and lost 10-11 on penalties. As well as this humiliating loss (can't even win the fucking Europa League, what use are you?) it no doubt stuck in the board's craw that City again won the title, United a full 12 points behind them. Add in exits from the FA Cup at the hands of Leicester and the EFL Cup courtesy of their deadly rivals, and Ole Ole Ole, it was time to say adios, and back to Norway he went. Not even the semi-triumphant return of another United favourite could save him.