Manchester Meltdown: The Fall of a Footballing Dynasty

[Trollheart]

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.

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.

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.

[Trollheart]

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.

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".

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.

[Trollheart]

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.

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.

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.

[Trollheart]

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.

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."

[Trollheart]

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.

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."

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.

[jimmy jazz]

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.

[Trollheart]

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.

[Trollheart]

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.



"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.

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.

[Trollheart]

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.


(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.


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.

[jimmy jazz]

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.