One in Ten

This is McFootball.

659 million fans. 1 out of every 10 human beings.

As I travelled home last night, I read the "news" (once Eden Hazard had let everyone rest easy on their seats rather than perching on the edge in excitement) - it was a rather slow news day - that Manchester United were gleefully telling anyone that would listen that they had 659 million fans worldwide. Oh, and that shows that the Glazers, like Guinness, are good for you.

Following the capitulation in the league, leaving bitter cross-town rivals as champions.

Following Chelsea lifting old Big Ears, in a year that United were appalling in Europe.

Following another year of mounting debt and a £71 million-sized black hole and the news that a long-term target and ego of the year chose to live in London, rather than the North.

Following all these and more, was the wonderful news that all is well at Old Trafford, cos we have considerably more fans than anyone. Richard Arnold, United's commercial director, might well have been sticking his tongue out and waggling his hands around his head, shouting "na na - na, na na", I'm not sure - but that is the vibe that I get from reading this.

"We finished the season in first place, and city finished winning on goal difference," he said. That's second place then, mate.

"Competitors come and go. The one thing that remains constant is Manchester United," he continued to opine, going on to tell us what a great job he and the club were doing to win fans all around the world, because United are so great.

Now, I gave my season ticket up about 6 years ago. I saw that lovely Rooney volley against Newcastle in the last game I attended as a paying customer. Since then, I have contributed the princely sum of £3.50 to the club, in the form of a pint of liquid refreshment a couple of years ago, whilst there as a guest of a friend at my one and only time in Old Trafford since.

That is about 350 pence more than about 658.5 million of those fans then. Put together.

Yet these fans are courted, cherished and celebrated. This is McFootball. The big challenge now is not to look after the local, long serving, paying fans - they will probably be there anyway, buying tickets and going to games.  No, the chalenge is to come up with ideas how they can make a few more of those millions spend a little more of their hard-earned on chasing the United dream, buy the tv plans, spend at the megastores and look ubercool in red.

Except this grand, old club club, as we all know, is much less than cool. Probably just about the most uncool football club on the planet.

Mind you, despite how sad it is that United have to report such "findings", they are obviously not alone in doing so. Take FC Barcelona, everyone's current favourite club, no?Alongside their wonderful current brand of football, they go around telling the whole world how great they are, usually just in a game of one-upmanship aagainst Real Madrid, how they are "mes que un club," Along with this recent upward trend in the actual footballing-stakes, they have found an upsurge of millions of admirers around the world that posture in their shadows and laud them as the greatest ever, wishing that every club could be run in the same way - from tactics, to academy (oh La masia, of course) to business (without actually knowing too much about any of them in a lot of cases). Despite all this - they are also held up as every inch the coolest football team. I find it all a bit mawdling, to be honest.

More than a club? You are just another football club, Senor Barcelona. Just like any other. You just happen to have hit a very purple (and blue) patch. Unless by "more than a club", you are counting all those basketball and hockey and whichever other teams bear your name and whose trophies reside in your museum. Perhaps more than just a football club, then.

Old news, but I found the Unicef shirts a little too much to stomach as well. Nice gesture, but we all know it was only to soften the blow of them realising that they had to act like every other club and sell the space on the front of the shirt like everyone else. Do a quick two-year hit for charity, everyone loves us, then BANG, and the dirt is gone. We can sell to highest bidder as the ad-free shirt no longer exists.

"But we represent a whole nation, the nation of Catalunya" is another attempt to justify the claims - the Espanyol fans that share your city put it quite well "Qatar is not Catalunya" - the shirt went to the highest bidder, no matter where the money was coming from (and there are plenty of rumours about the Qatar Foundation to cause worry).

Furthermore rumours abound that naming rights of the Camp Nou are under discussion - giving more credence to the thought that everything has a price in McFootball. History, tradition - even coolness.

Not got a particular axe to grind with these clubs. Just McFootball. But like our favourite fast food, we all love our junk football as well.

twig

Replica shirts

Clone Wars do you feel like a player?....

They are a sign of allegiance.
They show you are part of a crowd - or different to the norm.
Worn as a badge of pride at belonging, or as two-fingers at those who are not with you.

They are big-business walking advertisements - a decision to advertise on which can be so delicate, that a company wishing to do so will go to great lengths to check who they will be upsetting when they emblazon the front of the bright coloured polyester mesh shirt - sometimes sponsoring more than one shirt to ensure they stay on side with all parties to a divide (see the old firm).

Not so many years ago, I used to live much closer to Manchester city centre - in the area of the city that was the original home of Manchester United, Newton Heath. Not the most salubrious of suburbs, but we lived in a nice house, on probably the nicest street, we thought.

The area still has links with United. A number of streets are named after some of the Busby Babes that perished in Munich, the library is covered by a wonderful mural featuring red-shirted footballers alongside links to the past major suppliers of employment in the area, factories and engineering. An old bus route, the 53, also runs through the area, all the way to Old Trafford. The only reason I could think of for that route would be to connect the two areas once the move was made by the club back in 1910 to Old Trafford from Bank Street in Clayton. I am very happy for any local historians to put me right on that theory! Red shirts were the norm, as far as I could tell.

Only half a mile or so from United's Bank Street home, an area ripe for regeneration next to Clayton, Bradford and Newton Heath became the site for the commonwealth games - and so it was that some noisy neighbours moved in to the locale.

Before it was decided that as a family, we would head for the hills, we shopped at the supermarket opposite the commonwealth stadium. On many occasions, following city's move in to the ground, I became aware of what I thought was the club's plan to attempt to become the pre-eminent team in the city. The club had a deal when taking residence at the stadium, that meant they would take the gate receipts equivalent to a full Maine Road (some wags may question if that had ever occurred) and anything over that ceiling would be the council's. Perhaps, I thought, as a looked around the supermarket at the large number of then "laser" blue shirts, this is their apocalyptic idea...

Repopulation.

From nowhere, in this predominantly red area, city fans appeared all over the place. Red pubs closed down and reopened as blue. Chippys and shops took on city-related monickers....I had become cast adrift in a sea of blue...

One particular journey to the supermarket, I became blocked in an aisle by a family of city fans. A straggly-haired Rick Wakeman lookalike, his big-boned wife and four snotty-faced kids barred my way - all bedecked in blue replica shirts. Everywhere I looked, there were similar groups of twos and threes in blue - they were slowly going to repopulate and change the demographic of Manchester greatly by raising large, sprawling families of city fans, all apparently born with CTID tattoed on their backs and a rather touching phoenix and three stars on their chests (what are those three stars actually for?).

It all got me to thinking, me, not having bought a replica shirt since the age of 17. What makes a grown man want to squeeze his ever expanding lump of lard stomach into a gaudy piece of polyester and become a walking billboard? Kids I can see it. Despite the annual cries of the likes of the Daily Mail against the price of the said item, 30-40 quid seems a bargain for a piece of clothing that will hardly ever be off their back, still looks the part when dirty and doesn't need ironing. (Have they seen the price of kids shoes, lately, and how long they last with the way kids grow?)

And names on the back? Again - all kids have football heroes, and if they are not going down the route of the kids name and age on the back (again, the likes of the Daily Mail would probably warn against that in this stranger-danger age) then they are going for Rooney, or Silva, or Bale, or Torres....ok, maybe not the last one... But grown men? There they are, mid-40s walking round with the name of a player half their age printed on the back of an ill-fitting replica shirt - why??? Does it make you feel like a player when you prise it on?

Yet there is this feeling that they have to be bought to show allegiance - to show everyone you are a red, a blue, a dale fan, a tyke, you are leeds.... give me a simple, understated polo or a nice cotton t-shirt with a small marking any day - although even then...

Whilst I rant on about that - there is also the issue of wearing shirts at inappropriate times and places.

Naturally, as a testosterone fuelled youngster, straight after a heavy defeat, heads must be held high and shirts must be worn - proud in the face of adversity, but a Manchester United shirt in Leeds city centre is never a good idea, nor a Sunderland shirt in Newcastle, I'd wager - we all know the no-go areas - I once had the insult "SCUM!" screamed at me whilst walking through Sheffield city centre as a naive 16year old in my replica -  but how about another no-no and pet hate of mine?

I'll furnish you with an example to highlight it.

A blue friend of mine was perfectly appropriately upset that his beloved team had been knocked out of the Carling Cup semi-final (this was before they had broken their 35 year no-trophy hoodoo, remember, so they were "that far" [holds finger and thumb an inch apart] away from a trophy). In an effort to stay well clear of the match, come Final day, he foolishly agreed to be dragged along by his better half to the monolith of consumerism that is the Trafford Centre - merely a couple of miles from Old Trafford. It was surely a safe-haven on a day that the local team were at Wembley, where he could hide and forget football existed for a day...not so. To his utter amazement - and I believe him, for the record - during the actual match, there were people milling around the shops wearing their prized replica United shirts......DURING THE MATCH - A CUP FINAL!!

There are times when you can't get to the match. Times where money and circumstance just won't allow - but how can you seriously be walking around the shops wearing the home-town team's replica shirt during the final - with no public house in sight, even, to say you were on the way to watch - surely, of all the issues surrounding replica shirts - that is the biggest fashion faux-pas of them all.

twig

...and to you son, I bequeath...

Ahh, the joys of parenthood. Once you are through all the sleepless nights, whiffy nappies and gotten used to the loss of social life, there remains a couple of important issues to resolve.

Forget the "pretend the kids live at your mother-in-laws to get in to the preferred school" routine.

Nope, the issues that really need to be sorted are those of passing on the torch of football team and music. Now, generally speaking, we are old, therefore uncool. We are on a hiding to nothing trying to get the little blighters to appreciate the remixed audiophile version of Pearl Jam's "Ten" and accompanying replica demo cassette tape.

We also, with the benefit of 20 years hindsight, secretly struggle to promote the whole Seattle scene of the early 90s to their impressionable minds, when most of the protagonists of the said scene were desperate junkies with suicidal tendencies and a penchant for not going near a bath. It therefore leaves us with one true heirloom. The most important gift we can bestow upon those that follow us...the football team.

In my formative years, I lived around 5 miles from the city centre of Manchester. I was to be either red or blue - which one would come down to genes. My father and older sister (a Stretford-Ender in division 2 days) were Reds - therefore, as is natural, I had no choice. It was my birthright.

My first-born was a daughter, now a teenager. She had an impeccable football upbringing, I thought. Born in the early part of the fabled "treble season", she even enjoyed a trip to Old Trafford inside her then heavily pregnant mother's belly as we queued for tickets for the Barcelona home game that were going on open sale.

(how or why she queued for so long with me, I will never know - what a gent I was for asking her to do so! and how amusing when after 3 hours, the steward at the head of the queue saw her and remarked that we could have gone straight to the front!).

The away games were spent with her on my lap in front of the TV, running through the players names, teaching her the songs with all the swearing removed. Trips to open training sessions (where she fell asleep each time) also occurred. This continued for some time until, season ticket secured, I managed to used my Dad's spare ticket to take her to a match. She sat and ate her way through a bag of what I still like to call opal fruits, marvelled at the crowd, joined in with the songs and never asked to go again. (She does, however, display a healthy liking of loud guitar music, which is a good thing, even if I am a little disturbed by the new breed and their dodgy haircuts - even Kerrang! gives out shockwaves gel products as a gift when subscribing!!).

Then the glazers came along for United. And a son for me.

I took the militant decision of not handing money over to pay for uncle malc to buy the club. I thought many more might follow suit, but I realise now, it was just too hard to do. The fact I was skint and had two young kids and little time also had a big part to play in the decision, it must be said.

But what to do now? We moved to the edge of civilisation as we knew it (the outer reaches of Greater Manchester, in the hills beyond Rochdale and dangerously close to the Yorkshire border. The young man is 6 years old, with a wavering interest in football. I rescued him from the clutches of the blues (friends at school) a couple of years ago by singing him a few ditties. "They have songs, Dad?" - suitably cleaned up versions, naturally - "why don't city just go home?" - however, with the challenge for his attentions coming from Star Wars, things are going to be difficult.


He did become desperate for a football kit, after seeing so many friends swanning round the football parties, so eventually, I relented - despite my inner moral protestations. I bought him one for his 5th birthday. His FC United one just didn't cut the mustard with the other kids. But the 30 quid spent did at least cement a connection for him with the club.

It is only now that I realise I have created myself a dilemma of monolithic proportions. I follow United now and not support them - not in the truest sense, as a match-going fan. How can I bestow this gift on to the lad? Will he never have the excitement of walking up the stairs at Old Trafford to see the pitch sliding slowly in to view? Never be swept up in the tunnel under the stands, singing songs, nor listen to the roar as the teams come out?

Try a more local club, I hear people say. I now live further out - support a lower league club in need, pass on the torch that way.

I recently read a post and commented on the excellent www.girlonaterrace.com  where there was a poll to see if people had "second teams" that they support.

I don't. United are my team. I can't have a second team. As Leo's FC United shirt didn't fit right, neither did FC United the club fit for me. It just wasn't United. I applaud what they have done and have a passing interest in results, but...

I could take him along to Spotland to watch Rochdale. It is local, the club have good links with his school, we would probably have a great time. They may become his team in time, but they still won't be mine. Where is the shared history, the old stories?

what have I done?.......

twig