‘Manchester United were not bad at Highbury, just not quite
good enough — largely the story of our season. So all United
are left to play for is second/third place and an FA Cup
semi-final. Or, as some of us Old Trafford season ticket-
holders might call it, not much.
‘And lo, the nation’s football fans cried with one voice:
“United are shhhh . . . Schadenfreude.” Almost everybody
seems delighted at United’s exit from Europe and the
Premiership race. As Sir Osimandis Ferguson stands, ever-
redder faced amid the ruins of the season, they look upon
his works and weep — with laughter.
‘They accuse us of being Moneybags United, Moan United,
Milton Keynes United, Manchester Arrogant. For the ABUs,
United stand for “everything that is worst about modern
English football”. Each to their own. But face facts — it is
United who have saved all of English club football from
being a laughing stock over the past decade.
‘Without Fergie’s United to set the standard and tone, there
would have been no Wenger’s Arsenal, Robson’s Newcastle or
Ranieri’s Chelsea. Without Eric Cantona, there would have
been no Thierry Henry. Who imagines that any amount of
marketing could have made a sexy Premiership product out of
George Graham’s Arsenal or Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds United,
the last champions before United took over?
‘Arsenal are a good team, although, on yesterday’s evidence,
no better than a substandard United. But you would have to
be a particularly one-eyed Gooner (admittedly not the rarest
bird in southern Britain) to swallow all this fawning
nonsense about “the greatest team ever”. Much of this stuff
looks, as perceptive foreign commentators have noted, like a
backhanded way to do down the achievements of Ferguson’s
United.
‘And suppose all you ABUs were to get your way and United
fell as far as Liverpool have done. What would you do
without us? Getting self-righteous about United’s excesses
and arrogance is the one thing that allows many fans to feel
good about themselves. As Duleep Allirajah, the football
columnist, says, the big thrill for most visiting fans to
Old Trafford is to chant about supporting their local team
“like village simpletons”. Where else are you going to get
such simple self-affirmation? “We support our local team but
want to sleep with gorgeously gliding Arsenal” seems
unlikely to give that same smug afterglow.
‘As for us fair-weather Home Counties fans disappearing when
the glory-hunting gets tougher . . . in August 1974, I
travelled from my Surrey home to watch United play the first
game of the season in the old second division — away to
Leyton Orient. It was 20 years before United were back on
top.’
‘In the unlikely event that it takes as long this time, many
of us will still be here. It is the rest of you ABU
parasites I would feel sorry for. As a wise man might have
said: if the trawler were to sink out of sight, where would
all the seagulls go for their sardines?’