United Road Take Me Home

Is the soul still one?

I’m on the train home after the West Ham game (heading to Bolton if you’re thinking of questioning my right to mouth off about matters United). The vibes, considering we’ve just been handed the League title, are damp. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe the result of the game, maybe it’s the nature of the corporate stamped, stage-managed presentation ceremony, as far removed from the genuine euphoria at the end of the two forays to Merseyside as you can possibly get. But I never expected winning the league could feel as deflating as this.

I’m flicking listlessly through Red Issue, when the bloke sat opposite me pipes up with, ‘I don’t read that shit anymore,’ He’s a bit pissed, so I don’t really fancy taking him on, but being a courteous sort, I ask why? ‘Too much politics. Too much FC. Fucking traitors.’ He spits out the words – alright initials – FC with maximum scorn, the kind of pure venom you’d expect United fans reserved for the words city, Leeds or Liverpool. ‘They’re still United,’ I offer by way of response. ‘Bollocks!’ is the curt reply. I sense that we’re not going to hit it off and steer the conversation towards a subject that all United fans can agree on, the urgent need to offload Kieran Richardson. I get off at Bolton, and he continues to the Mancunian heartlands of Barrow. And yes I am aware that’s a fine example of a pot having a go at a kettle of mildly darker hue.

I offer this by way of illustration of the current standing of FC and its supporters in the eyes of many of those who stayed behind at Old Trafford. Two years on from the start of the American occupation of OT – with Gill still doing a fine job in the poodle-Blair role, lobbed a juicy bone in the shape of his million pound salary – woe betide any United fan who wades into the treacherous waters of the state of the union between the MUFC/FCUM factions. United We Stand, in print and online, bravely keep the arguments alive, but anyone willing to stick their head over the parapet usually gets it splattered in a hail of vitriol and gob. But here goes anyway.

One problem is that it’s almost impossible to discuss the issue without resorting to emotive language. Those who claim that they ‘stood by’ Big United imply betrayal on the part of those who moved to FC. Those on the other side of the fence who flaunt their greater integrity and purity of soul, do so at great risk of alienating those of us who no matter how much angst it involved, opted to stay at Old Trafford.

Last season saw a digging in and entrenchment on both sides. For Big United fans, it was a season of unexpected glory with United playing utterly peerless football of the sort not seen anywhere else in Europe, never mind in the North-West Counties League Division 2. For many it was a vindication of their decision to stay at Old Trafford, proof that the Glazer regime needn’t inhibit the tradition of swaggering football that’s the true spirit of United. Factor in the close season spending spree, which is certain to see expectations for next season ratcheted to ridiculous levels, and many will no doubt be wondering why we all made a fuss about the Glazers in the first place. Why fret about politics when we’ve got a midfield containing Ronaldo, Scholes, Hargreaves, Nani, Carrick, Giggs, Anderson (and of course Fletcher) to drool over?

The answer comes in the form of the jacked-up prices, handily made public the day after the AC victory, that will see United fans screwed out of more money at the exact moment when other clubs are freezing prices, knowing that the cash deluge from the new TV deal means they’ll still be turning massively inflated profits. On the surface it might not be politics preventing many reds from renewing this summer, but the underlying forces have been put in motion by the Glazers need to manage that mind-boggling level of debt.

Many make the claim that it doesn’t matter who owns the club as ‘they’re all the same anyway’. I refute this in relation to football club owners, just as much as when I hear it applied to politicians – Dennis Skinner and David Cameron are the same are they?. The Glazer’s financed the United deal at little risk to themselves, plunging a once solvent, well managed club into the kind of debt that can never be fully wiped out. And they did so because they assumed that we were mugs, sources of cash that would never question or query their business as long as they kept us distracted by matters on the pitch.

The way that supporters of most other Premiership clubs have rolled over and waved their legs in the air the minute an American sugar-daddy has hoved into view, proves that they have a point, but United fans are different; or some of them are anyway. It’s unrealistic to imagine you’ll ever have a totally politicised, engaged support; there’ll always be a majority indifferent to what some – me amongst them I suppose – would impose as the ‘proper’ way to support United. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep the arguments alive. I sometimes get a sense of some FC fans having a ‘redder than thou’ mentality, but it’s still possible to be an Old Trafford going red without being an apologist for Glazer, just as FC doesn’t constitute some kind of betrayal.

So next season, when Ronaldo’s racing down the wing, and Rooney’s caressing it into the net with the daintiest of touches, remember that it’s still political.

posted by Royton Red @ 10:33 AM