ONE YEAR ON

Stuart Pearce had just done his first interview as Manchester City's full-time manager. He was articulate, passionate and newsworthy. As we walked through the bare concrete bowels of the City of Manchester Stadium, my colleague from The Sun said: "Don't think you'll get any of that in the paper. The Glazers have just bought Manchester United." It was a year ago today. Outwardly it changed Manchester United barely at all, inwardly, the club would never be the same.

It was Oliver Houston's birthday. On radio, television and in the press he had been the public voice of the anti-Glazer camp, operating under the banner of Shareholders United. Since the Glazers hoovered up all the available shares, the organisation reformed as the Manchester United Supporters Trust.

"We'd been working on our own plans to mount a buy-out of the club for weeks," Houston recalled. "We had the backing of the banks but it was long, exhausting work and I thought, 'it's my birthday, I'll take the day off'."

In his only significant interview since assuming power, Joel Glazer, the driving force behind the coup, asked to be judged in a year and argued that very little would alter at Old Trafford in that time.

Cosmetically, he has been proved right. Sir Alex Ferguson still sits on his granite throne, perhaps even less accountable than he was under the old plc, where he complained decisions took an age to ratify.

The dismissal of his captain, Roy Keane, and the casting out of his leading striker, Ruud van Nistelrooy, were Ferguson's acts. He described the Glazers as "excellent", and, when asked about the immediate debt of £265 million which more than doubles when you add in all the other commitments, he joked: "Why should I worry?"

If you ignore the old Anfield saying that "first is first and second is nowhere", which would place Old Trafford in a kind of Alaska - and ignore the calamitous performance in the Champions League - Ferguson could claim a successful season. To accumulate 83 points with a squad ruined by injuries was a significant achievement but it is the long term that worries Houston and others like him. If Ferguson is Matt Busby a generation on, the debts he will bequeath will turn any successor into a Frank O'Farrell. Sooner or later, they will bite.

"They have been squeezing gradually. By the start of next season, ticket prices will have risen twice; car parking has gone up," said Houston. "Old Trafford still sells out but tickets are available on the day of the game, which never used to be the case. They have cut back on staff but they will have to keep squeezing the supporters because they are the most obvious source of revenue.

"The argument that they would exploit new markets in America and Asia to make the deal work was always a mirage. As [the chief executive] David Gill said himself: 'There is no golden egg out there and if there was we would have found it by now.' The old plc had been very good in foreign markets."

Even if Ferguson does not lie awake at night wondering how the debts will be paid, the borrowing has to be refinanced. The family could sell the naming rights to Old Trafford or sell the stadium and lease it back, something Joel Glazer has pledged could never happen on his watch, but which would solve his problems at a stroke.

The first move may be a securitisation loan - borrowing money against future season ticket sales, which has been tried by, among others, Leeds and Newcastle. In Tampa Bay, where they run the Buccaneers American football team, the Glazers sold 10-year licences for the rights to buy a season ticket, a variation on the bond scheme that triggered anti-board demonstrations at West Ham in the early Nineties. The licences expire in two years and Buccs fans have been told to prepare for significant increases.