A LOT OF people have been wondering lately about whether Manchester United were really as exciting in the past as they are made out to be. This is in light of them being, as you may have heard, not very exciting right now.
Let me tell you how exciting Manchester United once were.
I got measles in the spring of 1994. I missed three weeks of school, which I spent either itchy or interminably bored. These were long, pre-Netflix days to fill, so my auntie helpfully dropped in a carrier bag full of VHS tapes, the pick of the local video shop’s wares.
Wedged between Lethal Weapon 3 and Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (obscure arthouse movies of the period) was something called The Very Best: Ryan Giggs and George Best.
This turned out to be a Manchester United in-house production, in which the late, great Best hung out with his would-be successor. It featured, as I remember it, shots of Bestie ambling wistfully around the Cliff training ground and Giggs looking bashful while clothes-shopping, spliced with clips of both in action.
The problem was that I wasn’t a Manchester United fan. Jimmy Johnstone (courtesy of a dubbed off copy of Jinky: The Jimmy Johnstone Story) was the only winger allowed devotion-by-VHS in our house. So why the Best and Giggs video? What was going on here?
A few weeks later, health restored, I went to the school disco. At the peak of the DJ’s set, somewhere between Chaka Demus & Pliers and 2 Unlimited, the gymnasium shook to the opening bars of soon-to-be pop classic Come On You Reds, by the combined musical talents of the Manchester United Football Squad and Status Quo.
This is getting a bit much, I thought. This is neutral territory; there are kids of all football colours and none in here tonight. Must we all dance to United’s tune?
But all around me, sweaty teenagers sang in unison: “Come on you Reds, Come on you Reds, Just keep your bottle and use your heads, For ninety minutes we’ll let them know, It’s Man United – Here we go!”
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These were strange times, and no mistake. Looking back, this early ‘90s period of Manchester United madness seems terrifying; like some propaganda-fuelled cult, demanding unquestioning adherence. With aunties and school DJs alike swept up in it, there was no stopping them.
United were the shock troops of the new Premier League era, a combined assault of a charismatic, thrilling team with a carpet-bombing of tacky merchandise.
EMPICS Sport
EMPICS Sport
They were just so damn exciting. They had ended the long wait for a league title a year earlier and were on their way to a memorable double, with Giggs, Lee Sharpe, Eric Cantona and Andrei Kanchelskis providing most of the thrills on the pitch. In the background an unknown youngster called David Beckham prepared for a loan spell at Preston.
Things continued in this vein for the rest of the decade, before the gambolling wingers and boyband haircuts of the 1990s gave way to Alex Ferguson’s late-period pragmatism.
After the defeats to Real Madrid in the early 2000s, Carlos Queiroz was brought in to serve as a tactical Thomas Cromwell to Fergie’s Henry VIII, burning monasteries and dispatching wives while the boss roistered and hunted.
2008-09, for example, has been mentioned of late as a season to compare with the current one for defensive parsimony. It included a 14 game unbeaten run between November and January in which United did not concede a goal and enjoyed eight 1-0 wins. Title-winning United scored 68 goals in the league, just six more than Van Gaal’s automatons managed in finishing fourth last season.
But the thrill wasn’t totally gone. Though the Van der Saar-Vidic-Ferdinand defensive vortex was their foundation, United could still excite.
Remember Federico Macheda in the 93rd minute against Aston Villa? And that season’s Champions League semi-final victory over Arsenal featured the breath-taking Cristiano Ronaldo counter-attack goal that stands comparison with anything of the swashbuckling past.
Much else changed in the intervening decades. Commercial domination by embossed pencil case and official club toothbrush has evolved into today’s sponsorship war machine, armour clad in global brands.
Official South Korean casual footwear partners? Check. Official Male Shampoo Partner in Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam? Because they’re worth it.
Other things are different too. While Ferguson tended to treat the media agenda like a mangy dog to be kicked along in his path, these days the club needs to brief and spin to shape their side of the story.
Pep Guardiola is unlikely to be coaching at Old Trafford next season even if he's exactly what United need. AP / Press Association Images
AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images
At the weekend a number of media outlets carried well-sourced stories concerning United’s lack of interest in the likely upcoming availability of Pep Guardiola as a potential manager.
“Despite growing scrutiny of the team’s style, there is strong support for Van Gaal behind the scenes at Old Trafford,” wrote Daniel Taylor in The Guardian. “The boardroom view is that the criticism has been overplayed and that it is satisfactory for now that Van Gaal has re-established the club as credible title challengers.”
The cynical observer might view these briefings as a pre-emptive PR strike against the possibility that Guardiola will commit his future to Manchester City. Taken at face value, however, the language is temperate and sensible – but not terribly exciting.
Every generation of Manchester United fan will have their equivalent of that early ‘90s craziness. The Best-Law-Charlton era; Bryan Robson single-handedly taking on all-comers in the 1980s, McGyver-style; the irresistible force of Roy Keane; Beckham charming the world, haircut by haircut.
The grumbling of the United faithful at what they are currently watching suggests a real fear that the very essence of why they support the club could be lost.
They would have long known that Ferguson’s departure risked an end to the sort of success to which they’d become accustomed; it seems like losing the sense of excitement that their club inspired is something more worrying and surprising. Being exciting is the whole point of Manchester United.
After all, who needs Van Gaal’s possession statistics or Ed Woodward’s portfolio of commercial partners when you can get a whole school to sing along with Gary Pallister and Steve Bruce?
Being exciting is the whole point of being Manchester United
A LOT OF people have been wondering lately about whether Manchester United were really as exciting in the past as they are made out to be. This is in light of them being, as you may have heard, not very exciting right now.
Let me tell you how exciting Manchester United once were.
I got measles in the spring of 1994. I missed three weeks of school, which I spent either itchy or interminably bored. These were long, pre-Netflix days to fill, so my auntie helpfully dropped in a carrier bag full of VHS tapes, the pick of the local video shop’s wares.
Wedged between Lethal Weapon 3 and Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (obscure arthouse movies of the period) was something called The Very Best: Ryan Giggs and George Best.
This turned out to be a Manchester United in-house production, in which the late, great Best hung out with his would-be successor. It featured, as I remember it, shots of Bestie ambling wistfully around the Cliff training ground and Giggs looking bashful while clothes-shopping, spliced with clips of both in action.
The problem was that I wasn’t a Manchester United fan. Jimmy Johnstone (courtesy of a dubbed off copy of Jinky: The Jimmy Johnstone Story) was the only winger allowed devotion-by-VHS in our house. So why the Best and Giggs video? What was going on here?
A few weeks later, health restored, I went to the school disco. At the peak of the DJ’s set, somewhere between Chaka Demus & Pliers and 2 Unlimited, the gymnasium shook to the opening bars of soon-to-be pop classic Come On You Reds, by the combined musical talents of the Manchester United Football Squad and Status Quo.
This is getting a bit much, I thought. This is neutral territory; there are kids of all football colours and none in here tonight. Must we all dance to United’s tune?
But all around me, sweaty teenagers sang in unison: “Come on you Reds, Come on you Reds, Just keep your bottle and use your heads, For ninety minutes we’ll let them know, It’s Man United – Here we go!”
These were strange times, and no mistake. Looking back, this early ‘90s period of Manchester United madness seems terrifying; like some propaganda-fuelled cult, demanding unquestioning adherence. With aunties and school DJs alike swept up in it, there was no stopping them.
United were the shock troops of the new Premier League era, a combined assault of a charismatic, thrilling team with a carpet-bombing of tacky merchandise.
They were just so damn exciting. They had ended the long wait for a league title a year earlier and were on their way to a memorable double, with Giggs, Lee Sharpe, Eric Cantona and Andrei Kanchelskis providing most of the thrills on the pitch. In the background an unknown youngster called David Beckham prepared for a loan spell at Preston.
Things continued in this vein for the rest of the decade, before the gambolling wingers and boyband haircuts of the 1990s gave way to Alex Ferguson’s late-period pragmatism.
After the defeats to Real Madrid in the early 2000s, Carlos Queiroz was brought in to serve as a tactical Thomas Cromwell to Fergie’s Henry VIII, burning monasteries and dispatching wives while the boss roistered and hunted.
2008-09, for example, has been mentioned of late as a season to compare with the current one for defensive parsimony. It included a 14 game unbeaten run between November and January in which United did not concede a goal and enjoyed eight 1-0 wins. Title-winning United scored 68 goals in the league, just six more than Van Gaal’s automatons managed in finishing fourth last season.
But the thrill wasn’t totally gone. Though the Van der Saar-Vidic-Ferdinand defensive vortex was their foundation, United could still excite.
Remember Federico Macheda in the 93rd minute against Aston Villa? And that season’s Champions League semi-final victory over Arsenal featured the breath-taking Cristiano Ronaldo counter-attack goal that stands comparison with anything of the swashbuckling past.
Much else changed in the intervening decades. Commercial domination by embossed pencil case and official club toothbrush has evolved into today’s sponsorship war machine, armour clad in global brands.
Official South Korean casual footwear partners? Check. Official Male Shampoo Partner in Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam? Because they’re worth it.
Other things are different too. While Ferguson tended to treat the media agenda like a mangy dog to be kicked along in his path, these days the club needs to brief and spin to shape their side of the story.
At the weekend a number of media outlets carried well-sourced stories concerning United’s lack of interest in the likely upcoming availability of Pep Guardiola as a potential manager.
“Despite growing scrutiny of the team’s style, there is strong support for Van Gaal behind the scenes at Old Trafford,” wrote Daniel Taylor in The Guardian. “The boardroom view is that the criticism has been overplayed and that it is satisfactory for now that Van Gaal has re-established the club as credible title challengers.”
The cynical observer might view these briefings as a pre-emptive PR strike against the possibility that Guardiola will commit his future to Manchester City. Taken at face value, however, the language is temperate and sensible – but not terribly exciting.
Every generation of Manchester United fan will have their equivalent of that early ‘90s craziness. The Best-Law-Charlton era; Bryan Robson single-handedly taking on all-comers in the 1980s, McGyver-style; the irresistible force of Roy Keane; Beckham charming the world, haircut by haircut.
The grumbling of the United faithful at what they are currently watching suggests a real fear that the very essence of why they support the club could be lost.
They would have long known that Ferguson’s departure risked an end to the sort of success to which they’d become accustomed; it seems like losing the sense of excitement that their club inspired is something more worrying and surprising. Being exciting is the whole point of Manchester United.
After all, who needs Van Gaal’s possession statistics or Ed Woodward’s portfolio of commercial partners when you can get a whole school to sing along with Gary Pallister and Steve Bruce?
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