მერსისაიდმენისა და Co.-ს საყურადღებოდ:
A Liverpool Fan Reveals Why He Has To Respect Manchester United
By Owen Blackhurst
Posted: 24 July 2011
I felt dirty writing it and expect a shellacking, but take the blinkers off and you'll have to agree with some of what I've said...
Before you head straight to the comments section and attempt to eviscerate me with exclamation marks, text speak, questions of my parentage, sexuality and a veritable profanisaurus, I only ask you to hear me out. This is the first in a series of articles on the subject of having a grudging respect for your clubs bitterest rival, so I’m sticking my head above the parapet. For me, Everton are Liverpool’s bitterest rival, but I have no grudging respect for them. Pity perhaps for the Bluenoses who hate us so, but not respect. Well, maybe a little bit for Moyes, but that is a different story. No, I have had, for a long time, a grudging respect for that lot down the road, Taggart’s army, Manchester United, a team that in my lifetime has included braggarts, Beckham and, ahem, Bebe.
I’ll start by saying that I hope Manchester United never win another trophy. That Rooney succumbs to gout, Fergie’s nose swells to the size of a blood orange and impairs his vision and Ashley Young descends into a left-wing nightmare of Neil Young proportions. All ragged jeans, conceptual runs to nowhere and primal wailing about his environment. Now I have that off my chest, I should move onto the respect. Why as much as Manchester United and their supporters have enraged me, I have a guilty admiration.
For a start it has nothing to do with money. That Manchester United is constantly in the top 2 of the annual Deloitte and Touche rich list means nothing to me. Well done to the marketeers, I suppose, but I’m no student of business and decimal points and balance sheets hold little interest when held up against dinked passes and bicycle kicks. It is not even about success, you can’t ignore the amount they have won in the last 20 years but, even if they have knocked us off our perch, I’m more worried about how we counteract that than what they do next.
My admiration for Manchester United all comes down to one thing; football. For as much as I’m a Liverpool fan who cares only about what happens to us, it would be hard to ignore the football that United have at times played over the past two decades. They, of course, have had their swollen rump handed to them on a plate by Barcelona in the last three seasons but it is Fergie’s commitment to playing with wingers and the 10/9 front pairing that has constantly caught my eye and, when our chips have been covered in urine, had me punching myself in the face and wishing we could play like that. I’ve never punched the air though, these things have limits.
Then there was Cantona, a genius who played the game with the insouciant air of the tubby pub player who could’ve been someone but succumbed to the fags and pies, a man who did what we all would’ve done (except I’d have punched him) when he went for that Palace moron and also the footballer who sent me on a three-day bender of destruction after we lost the 1996 FA Cup final. Graeme Souness turned him down, apparently, because of team harmony. The same Graeme Souness who once allegedly clotheslined Don Hutchinson in training.
Yorke and Cole, two men I would gladly strip to the waist outside a boozer and tackle (didn’t Souness actually do that?), gelled together to become one of the most fluid front pairings of modern times. The fact that they used to call each other when they left for training and put the same CD on so they would arrive, music blaring, at exactly the same time still makes me want to go all Begbie, but the simple yet effective stepover – give and go routine they used to score bucketloads was blindingly effective.
And what about Keane and Scholes, a pair of midfielders I would have given my right knacker to play like, one a combative monster who drove the team forward time and time again, the other a ginger enigma, unable to tackle or run properly who had feet like hands and could score every goal in the book.
Then there are the wingers. Beckham, Kanchelskis, Giggs and Ronaldo were/are cracking players (I refuse to wax about Nani). Beckham gets a lot of hammer, and rightly so, but there was one goal of his, a lobbed half-volley with his instep over David James (at West Ham) that had me applauding his technique. For what it’s worth I think of Giggs as an average winger who struggled to cross the ball and who is a better player in his dotage than he ever was in his salad days.
Last comes Fergie, a man who is so Marmite he’s responsible for a severe outbreak of thrush everytime he speaks, a manager who has incensed large parts of the country with his ‘Fergie time’ and ‘mind games’ but, and this hurts, a dyed in the wool football man who has been obsessed with attacking football since watching Real Madrid batter Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 and has strived to get his teams playing that way. I wish Kenny had stayed with us for 20 years, maybe then I wouldn’t have to say all of this, but Fergie has been brilliant.
And for all you Manchester United supporters, who I’ve argued with in pubs, nearly come to blows with after a heavy drop and battled with in comments boxes; fair play to you. You care about United first, sod England and, even though you are a little too obsessed with us, I suppose you deserve respect for being there in the good times and the bad, unlike Chelsea head glory hunters.
As for Liverpool fans, I understand you thinking I’m a right biff. But listen, I love Fowler more than anyone, Dalglish is what my dreams are made of, I’d take Riise over Evra and would fight anyone who claims Rio is even half the player of Sami Hyypia. But I also like watching good football, and I’m happy to take the blinkers off and admit, with teeth breaking against each other, that Manchester United have been very good at it.
That, of course, is all history now. They’ve got 19 we’ve got 5. They’ve spent loads of money, so have we. They’ve got a red nosed Scot in charge, we’ve got a Scottish god in charge. Come October 15th, I’ll be screaming red murder and giving them some hefty invective, but for now, as a fan of football, I’m prepared to admit to this grudging respect.
Now if someone could pass me the soap, I’ll wash my mouth out and swallow the bar whole. It’s the least I can do…
* * *
ეს კი ნიკატო და კომპანიის საყურადღებოდ:
A Manchester City Fan Pays Grudging Respect To Manchester United And Roy Keane
By Stephen Tudor
Posted: 23 July 2011
To any Manchester City supporter Manchester United's Roy Keane is the devil incarnate. A glorified thug who epimitomized everything that was detestable about their hated rivals. But can there also be respect there too?
To any Manchester City supporter Manchester United’s Roy Keane is the devil incarnate. A glorified thug who epimitomized everything that was detestable about their hated rivals. But can there also be respect there too?
I am a lifelong City fan who has long held a begrudging respect for Roy Keane. There. I’ve said it. While that humiliating statement lingers in the air like a stale fart I’m going to scour myself with bleach, mutter numerous Hail Marys and flagellate myself in a hairshirt.
This was the man remember who savagely enacted a skewed revenge fantasy upon Alf-Inge Haaland in the Manchester derby, ending his career with a vicious knee-high stomp then showed no remorse whatsoever in his subsequent autobiography with these shocking words – ‘I’d waited long enough. I f-ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ****. And don’t ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries’.
This is the man who epitomized everything loathsome and rank about Manchester United, particularly from that era when every player seemed to possess the human qualities of Amon Goethe in Schindler’s List. The dressing room back then was a cesspit of thuggish, arrogant, cheating, bullying, despicable individuals – stormtroopers with studs – and Keane was the uber-villain. At least with Gary Neville there was a certain comedy value in his inability to grow a fully formed moustache and his surly demeanour that was reminiscent of a Chuckle Brother who’d downed a bottle of whiskey. Keane’s mien, and all he represented, was always far more noxious and never anything less than serious, brooding psychosis. He was Ferguson’s bitter bile incarnate and as such my hatred knew no bounds. Seeing him on A Question Of Sport was as surreal as viewing Gary Glitter on I’m A Celebrity. Watching him walk Bouncer from Neighbours down Cheshire lanes after yet another fresh controversy would never fail to get my teeth grinding with vexation. Dog lover? Pah, even Hitler adored canines.
Alas, despite me regarding the man as perhaps the biggest tool to ever sully my television screen or newspaper, he was also a truly incredible footballer. We have not, nor are we ever again likely to see, a player channel such incredible reserves of commitment into every performance; every challenge; every run he made. Keane was a phenomenon. A freak. A powerful, unrelenting turbine of ferociousness and energy who hauled, cajoled and intimidated his team-mates to glory whether it be on the lush green turf of Old Trafford or a 5-a-side kickabout at Carrington. Winning wasn’t just an insatiable desire; it was a necessity to briefly quell a deep-rooted demonic obsession. Once that glory was attained it instantly meant nothing at all.
Anyone who witnessed his majestic performance against Juventus in the semi-final of the Champions League in ’99 – during which he knew he would subsequently miss the final through suspension – couldn’t help but marvel in genuine admiration at such an extraordinary display of brimstone and belief. There was uncharacteristic fear amongst some of the Manchester United team that night. Being so close to their dream yet requiring a triumph in Turin – it seemed maybe a step too far for some. It was Keane and Keane alone who dragged them there – and ultimately the treble – with the same grim determination of a parent making sure his children go through the gates on their first day of school.
The Irishman’s complicated character flaws off-the-pitch made him the player he was on it. Although football heightened his moody, driven lunacy (it’s a delicious thought but its hard to imagine him being so possessed at home making beans on toast) it also made sense of it. It was an outlet for his demons. Yet once the whistle blew he remained the tyrannical leader, venting his outspoken derision on targets usually deemed off-limits to most. There was the famous ‘prawn sandwiches’ outburst aimed at his own supporters. The scorn directed at his own Manchester United team-mates for daring to celebrate a league title. He demanded an exceptional standard of excellence from everyone and everything around him and if such standards were met then congratulatory back-slaps were redundant because meeting such targets was the norm wasn’t it? Keane was an impossible man to please yet his fearful colleagues never stopped trying.
As such he perfectly embodied his manager’s personality on the field of play, a forceful iron will that was almost a ghostly possession. Ferguson has always understood and tolerated the need for mavericks but he has never countenanced anyone believing they are bigger than the club or detached from its group mentality. When Stam – at that point arguably the best central defender around – made some relatively harmless remarks in his book he was swiftly turfed out. When Ince hilariously declared himself the ‘Guvnor’ he was soon doing that weird style of running that looks like he’s messed himself in Italy.
Keane – until his persona grew a little too out of control and his legs became weary – was always the solitary exception.
I would not hesitate in selecting him in my all-time Premier League XI and would even consider his inclusion in more exalted company amongst the Maradonas and Peles in an all-time dream-team. After all, the greatest Ferrari ever made is simply a lump of metal without an engine.
So do I like the guy? Certainly not. But that, in no way, impinges upon the enormous respect I have for his ability and achievements. I am a staunch republican yet I revere the Queen for the manner in which she has conducted herself down the years. I admire Simon Cowell’s business acumen yet I’d happily pummel his smug face until my fists fell off.
There was no such confliction of interests once Keane retired however and I’ve since taken great delight in watching his managerial aspirations come unstuck (just how many times can one person sign Carlos Edwards?) and detecting a noticeable disenchantment with his lot.
I wish him nothing but unhappiness. I hope agonizing arthritis one day strikes the same knee that did for Haaland. A pox upon thee.
He was still some player though.
და საერთოდ დააფასეთ პრივილეგია MU-სთან ერთად ერთ ლიგაში თამაშის სკაუზერებმაც და ცისფრებმაც
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ინგლისური ფეხბურთის ფანკლუბი, My GF said, she doesn't like Defoe, Now I'm single
