Some memories from 2011.

Yesterday, appropriately enough, I read Julian Barnes’ “The sense of an ending”. Among many things it deals with is the diluting of memory.

One character quotes Patrick Lagrange when explaining history “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation”

Sport it can be argued is the counterpoint to this, though not perhaps the inadequacies of documentation bit. We all remember down to the smallest of details where we were when the most seismic of sporting shifts occurred. A moment shared by millions reduces itself into the most personal of experiences and as 2011 ticks over to the sporting monolith that will be 2012, here’s a few that crossed my mind.

To those of a red persuasion each time you wonder up the great citadel of Old Trafford melts into one memory. A great throng inches its way up past the swag sellers and sadly now, more and more walk past the fanzine sellers who bellow out their names. I’m proud of my own contribution to one such fanzine however small and it is one match day experience that should be treasured and protected.

Last February during the derby day the nerves that beset me were such that if the statue of Sir Matt Busby was a lot lower I may have planted a kiss at his feet a la Oliver Reed in Gladiator. Bring me fortune indeed.

I spent the next hour or so in a perpetual state of nervousness not helped by Wayne Rooney’s ineptitude. I was pestering a friend of mine to the right that he had to come off. His touch was wayward, his passing was abysmal and I failed to see what he was offering the game. Then it happened.

There is a millisecond after something extraordinary happens in a stadium where everyone confirms it did just happen before the carnage ensues. To be in line with Rooney that day as he arched his body back and hung in the air was to be blessed. To see the ball slam emphatically into the net as it did and to share in the collective ecstasy that followed was to know you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. Unless you wore blue and were stationed to my top left. Apparently they gained some measure of revenge lately but alas, my short term memory is imperfect.

I think I have successfully managed to tell everyone I know or everyone I have ever had any communication with that during the summer I covered my first and so far only match as a football writer. Forgive me but starting out at Manchester United v FC Barcelona at FedEx field in Washington was a little thrilling.

I dressed up and stayed quiet the first day as Sir Alex and Patrice Evra took questions. I leaned in a bit too much as Paddy Crerand and James Cooper from Sky Sports were discussing transfers though. Xavi Hernandez shook my hand as he left their press conference. It was an honour despite him torturing me at Wembley in May. Dimitar Berbatov raised a hand in an apology when a stray shot nearly took my head off in training. I wish it hit me.

Gary Neville told me to sod off when I asked him for five minutes of his time while I was ringside as Fergie and his hairdryer launched a seek and destroy missile at a Daily Mail scribe. It was nice to see at half-time too that I can take a better penalty than Kobe Byrant.

The day after the match I sat in the impressive surroundings of Nationals Park to watch the home team beat the Mets. It is easy to see why some of the best sports writing is about baseball; there is a slow brooding intimacy to the sport. Jason Werth was having a hard time during the game and during the season and wasn’t being helped by one spectator in front of him. He didn’t convey the look of a man ignoring the heckler well and when he reflexively plucked one ball out of the air in the fifth inning he marched towards the bullpen and the spectator and had eyes only for him. The heckler averted his elsewhere.

A misty night in November under the floodlights at Thomand Park will forever leave its mark too. The terrace moved as one that day as Munster churned through those forty phases. It was like watching a horror movie at times as some watched through their fingers fearful of the seemingly inevitable knock on that would end the game. When the ball was finally worked to O’Gara he still had it all to do but that red man writes his own script and Thomand yelled as one when the ball split the posts.

That’s just a few memories, most definitely imperfect and doubtlessly inadequately documented but its how I remember them anyway. 2012 will have to go some to dilute them.

Stuck in the middle with who?

“He can play there” has replaced “No value” or “I’m not getting into that” as the catchphrase during the Boss’ weekly press conferences.

Phil Jones can play there, Wayne Rooney too. Ji-Sung Park can play there while Ryan Giggs now calls it home. Yes it’s the middle of the United midfield otherwise known as the hole to be filled by any fit player in red who may possess the ability to trap a ball and occasionally pass it.

The mere notion that an injury to Tom Cleverley would cause a ripple of panic amongst reds would have seemed ludicrous last season. That is not a slight on the youngster who has displayed dynamism and a committed intelligence in every one of his performances so far in this campaign.

That Cleverley has emerged central to United’s game-plan is not a knock on the slightly altered way we are playing either. The ponderous passing of last season was swept away at the beginning of this in a tide of devilish triangles and physical pressing. There was pace to everything United did and a brashness not seen since ’08. Cleverley was often the tip of the triangles until a crude challenge from Kevin Davies put him out of the game, and knocked United’s rhythm.

The holes started appearing. The upgraded Anderson reverted back to the leaden one footed model we are all so accustomed with. Darren Fletcher has had to fight serious illness and with it weight loss and his form has suffered accordingly. The Scotsman has never been the all action figure that reds have yearned for anyway. He is a shuttler in the Ramieres mould. A man capable of covering a vast amount of space but ultimately one incapable of dominating in a two man midfield.

Michael Carrick seems unable to start a season in any kind of form. Sir Alex has mentioned before that the Geordie hits his stride in the winter and we need him to. He remains a polarizing figure amongst reds. Both sides are too extreme in their arguments. Carrick is a facilitator, a delivery system between attack and defence with the positional poise to protect his centre halves. If he gets over his autumnal blues then his restoration should be the starting point.

Then it becomes a numbers game. The sizzling form of Javier Hernandez has demanded that two strikers play but do United have the personal now for a two man midfield? Even if the Dutchman who shall not be named landed at Old Trafford it is difficult to imagine the midfield would have been transported into a Barcelona style carousel. It simply doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps that is the problem. Barca are the benchmark and we have to eclipse them yet the feeling is we have to eclipse them by playing like them. We can’t. Their philosophy is their own just as ours is. Barcelona at their best cut you with a thousand passes, United at their best need only three. It’s a high intensity, high pressure specialist way of playing. It requires a dominant general.

We have been raised under Fergie on a staple diet of Keane and Robson and maybe despite the incredible success enjoyed since, we have never really recovered from the loss of the former. The double of ’08 was formed off the back of the best centre half pairing in the world and the goalscoring of the best player in the world. Three were deployed in the middle, the passing of Scholes, the positioning of Carrick and the lungs of Hargreaves held the fort and got the ball as quickly as possible to the devastating trio upfront. In the absence of two of that trio and with the fading of that central defensive partnership, cracks have emerged.

People can point to last season’s success as proof that the middle cannot possibly be as weak as it is perceived and perhaps they would have a point. Having to continually rely on another Indian summer from Ryan Giggs though is surely not an option United can continue to countenance.

Perhaps Cleverley will continue his progress and United will join the latest trend across Europe and plum for a diminutive playmaker. It’s a snarling beast we need though. One mixed with skill and stamina with balls to boot. Who is that to be? Who knows, but we will know we have him when the gaffer stops saying “He can play there”.

This article first appeared in Red News fanzine : http://www.rednews.co.uk/ 

Time for Real to deliver a Barcelona moment.

The late novelist David Foster Wallace once wrote an essay on Rodger Federer entitled “Rodger Federer as a religious experience”. In it he defines what he describes as Federer moments. He explains “These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.”

In the midst of Barcelona’s five goal trouncing of Real Madrid last November Wayne Rooney admitted that his wife ran into his living room to see what the commotion was about. Rooney was on his feet clapping; having a Barcelona moment.

We have all been there. No side has delivered moments of mesmerising motion with such regularity as the current European champions. They have done so despite their eternal foes Real Madrid figuratively and sometimes literally, poking them in the eye.

Tonight though, might very well see Real and Jose Mourinho landing a knockout blow in the fight for the La Liga title. Should Real win, they will go six points clear of Barcelona with a game in hand. A possible nine point gap should not be insurmountable at this stage of a season but it will be given Real’s devastating form and the vast chasm that separates the top two from the rest in the league.

Mourinho’s side are experiencing second season syndrome under the Portuguese but it is the sensational kind. They are on a winning streak that now stretches to fifteen games. Hardly any have been close. Real’s matches are now defined by a wave of white shirts descending on the opposition with an almost violent glee.

Cristiano Ronaldo was often called upon last season to pull Real out of the fire, now he is merely the tip of the sword. Xabi Alonso is controlling games from his quarterback station. Karim Benzema said this week that Mourinho has turned him into a lion. Sami Khedira is flourishing; Gonzalo Higuain is scoring and Real frankly, have been better than anyone on the continent this season including Barca.

The Catalans have been brilliant at home, mediocre away. A perfect Camp Nou record has been balanced with only two wins away from there, both by single goals. Their dependence on Lionel Messi is starting to mirror Real and Ronaldo last season.

That said, they remain the benchmark and in a lot of ways remain Real’s Everest. It has been three and a half years since Madrid won a clasico. They have been humbled in a few of those. Barca’s possession game is a nut that Real have yet to crack and it will be fascinating to see just what Mourinho has in store tonight.

Everyone knows how Barca play but hardly any can stop it. Despite Pep Guardiola experimenting with three at the back this season, the fundamental way they play has not changed. Their two major summer signings Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez are a tad more direct and the latest star to roll off of the La Masia production line; Isaac Cuenca is also more of a classic winger. But they are merely strings added to the bow. The blueprint has not altered; it is up to Jose to finally crack it.

Last summer yours truly had a personal Barcelona moment. Standing pitchside at FedEx field in Washington, I was mere yards away from Andres Inestia and Xavi as they started pinging the ball to each other. They were soon joined by Sergio Busquets and Jonathan with the unfortunate youngster tasked with the impossible job of trying to win the ball. His effort was astonishing, and in this simple drill the Barcelona success story could be mapped out. Effortless one touch passing and a relentless drive to win the ball back.

Mourinho tried going toe to toe with them last November with ritual humiliation the result. He deployed Pepe as the cat amongst the pigeons in the champion’s league last March only to see the cumbersome centre half sent off and the two legged tie settled in the first.

Real’s assistant manager Aitor Karenka faced the media in Mourinho’s place this week and said they do not need to change anything and he may well be right. Real counter attack better than anyone and should their runners isolate Barcelona’s defenders than it could be a long night in the capital for the champions. That said, Real will need to be quick. When Barca hunt for the ball they do so in packs and high up the field. If however, the first pass is quick and accurate, away from that pack then space will open up, space that Real above all can exploit.

Pep Guardiola likes to spring a surprise in the clasicos and what that could be is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it will be that Barca will sit deeper without the ball. Real need space to power into. Barca could be content to keep the ball and work for a single opening instead of inviting the greatest counter attacking force in the world on them.

Of course many games of this importance are settled by a moment. Genius from Messi, or perhaps a Madrid sending off. There have been many Madrid moments in the recent history between the clubs. Pepe or Ramos being sent off, Mourinho poking Tito Vilanova in the eye. But now is the time for another Madrid moment.

One that will make or jaws drop and eyes protrude and one that has Wayne Rooney clapping in his living room.

Sands of time shifting for Rio.

At the beginning of this youthful, swaggering start to the season was a tired old sight. United are at the Hawthorns and are struggling to dispatch a spirited West Brom side. Rio Ferdinand takes off in pursuit of the ball. As he has done in his near ten years at United, he elegantly eats up the ground before doing what he has been doing in his last two years at the club; pulling up.

Rio’s latest hamstring trouble came immediately after Nemanja Vidic suffered a rare injury. But while only a season ago the loss of United’s premier centre-backs would have been seen as catastrophic, reds barely raised an eyebrow as first the rejuvenated Jonny Evans was summoned and then £16.5m of Phil Jones arrived.

All this while Chris Smalling who had the most stellar of debut seasons last season, was filling in at right back. United now have five outstanding candidates for centre-back. It must be assumed that when Vidic is fit he walks back in, but is it is no longer the case that Ferdinand is an automatic starter when fit?

Such a question may seem ridiculous when his overall United career is evaluated. A very strong argument could be made for the Londoner as the greatest defender in United’s history, or certaintly the one who had the greatest season. For all of Cristiano Ronaldo’s pyrotechnics in the double winning season of 07-08 it was the calm brilliance of Ferdinand in which the silverware was based.

That was him in his majestic pomp, swatting aside the likes of Samuel Eto’o and Fernando Torres as if they were mere Sunday league fodder. In the nine games from the round of sixteen all the way to extra-time in the final, United conceded two goals. Ferdinand was the architect behind that.



Sir Alex once waxed lyrical about Paulo Maldini after the great Italian had shut out Bayern Munich “ He gave a performance against Bayern where he didn’t make a tackle the whole night, it was art” How often do you see Ferdinand off his feet? How often do you see him frantically sliding to recover his position? How often is he booked? How often does he scythe down his opponent? All of these are rare things for Ferdinand because he comes from the Maldini school of defending like it is art.

Injuries however, ravage even the thoroughbreds. There was a stark contrast to the Ferdinand who destroyed Fernando Torres in a foot race in 07, to the one who was destroyed by the same player in the same situation in 09. His brutal back problems have forced him to miss nearly 60% of games these past two seasons and when a player develops that kind of record into his thirties, the dye is usually cast.

Stories of him standing upright for a flight to Porto in 2009 highlights the chronic nature of the problem but his performance the same night highlights the silver lining for Ferdinand. United went into the game after a goalless draw at Old Trafford and while it was Ronaldo again who stole the show, Ferdinand fitted straight in and played as if he was never injured.

His performances against Chelsea in the back end of last season came under similar circumstances. His pure natural ability means he can come in even after a lengthy spell out and deliver outstanding performances. When Antonio Valencia was pitched in at right-back for the last twenty minutes in the champions league tie at Stanford Bridge, it was Ferdinand who directed the rookie, cajoled him and when needed, covered him.

Ferdinand’s quality has never been in question, nor for me has his attitude. Roy Keane once took him apart in that infamous MUTV rant for believing his own hype because he played well for twenty minutes against Tottenham, but like a few of Roy rants it was wide of the mark.



He has of course, made some major mistakes. The missed drugs test cost him eight months and arguably cost United a title. A not so clandestine meeting with Peter Kenyon brought a visit to his house from a section of United support and those chants at Valley Parade. He did sign the deal. He got his head down and became a fantastic Manchester United player. The drugs test was mere stupidity, the contract negotiations especially in light of more recent scouse ones, were really no big deal.

He is one of only three who have captained United to a European Cup. He has last minute Stretford end winners against them and has that other rocket to boot. He goes proper mental whenever United score a big goal, he class in stepping aside for Giggs to collect the trophy at Wigan was just that; class. Yet some will never take to him. He isn’t United to those who project a more militant edge to their support. His name will never be sung like it is with Vidic or it was with Brown but next year will see Rio mark his tenth season at United.

Or will it? Is it conceivable that Fergie may call time on him? The excitement around Phil Jones at the moment has reason behind it. The kid is a monster. Quick, purposeful and with some genuine balls too. He will make mistakes, but his level of performance in Rio’s absence may dictate that he stays in the team.

Ironically it may be Rio’s transfer history that ensured Fergie moved for Jones. The Israel super-agent Pini Zahavi offered Rio to United before he moved to Leeds. Fergie admired the player but felt that in Wes Brown he had a better prospect. He soon realised his mistake and eventually had to pay Leeds £30m for a player who would have cost half of that had he moved sooner. He was lucky that Ferdinand went to Leeds originally and not to a club who weren’t in such a dire financial position.

Jones’s buy-out clause was well documented but with the posse of clubs waiting for him Fergie had to move now or lose any chance at ever getting him.


There were a lot of variables that swung our way last year on the way to number 19 but a major one was luck with injuries particularly with Vidic and Smalling. That horrid game at Craven Cottage the previous year, where United set out with Ritchie De Leat, Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher as a back three was the low point that convinced Fergie that more depth was needed to avoid any such repeat. In paying for that depth though, he may be calling time on one of his greats.

During a training session in Washington during the summer Ferguson approached Ferdinand. He put his arm around him and spoke to him for a couple of minutes. The next day as the team-sheets were past around we realised why. He was on the bench. A new sight for him but as the season progresses it may become an old one.


This article first appeared in Red News fanzine: http://www.rednews.co.uk/

McCaw has earned his coronation.

It is perhaps the most primal sight in world rugby. A player carries and crashes into the gain line. Bodies engulf him and force him to the ground. Following the action, with a shark’s sense for blood is Ritchie McCaw.

He arches over the stricken opponent and dares you to break him. The ball emerges soon after. Turned over literally by The man. That or the harsh shrill of a referee’s whistle. Penalty, black.

There are a few grey areas to the All Blacks. The Haka has grown more and more outlandish as the years have passed, while their belief in their divine right to win has not endeared them to the wider world of rugby.

That belief however, is eroded every four years when the William Webb Ellis trophy is contested. The choke mantle that haunts their dreams and destroys their prospects at the World Cup has given them an air of plucky winner’s this year. The over dog you want to see win.

They have been the best team in world rugby for the last seven years, and that may be underestimating it. Ever since Dan Carter reduced the Lions to kittens in 2005 the All Blacks have ruled barring the odd road bump. South Africa can point furiously to France ’07 but their fortuitous route and two losses to New Zealand that year suggest the All Blacks had their number.

That road bump is usually an injury to Carter or more especially McCaw. The influence he has over the greatest side in the world is obscene. Some players are leaders, their mere presence is needed to inspire. Others lead by their example, by their talent and deeds. McCaw is one of the rare breeds who does both. A genius player and a commanding general.

I was fortunate enough to see him play once. A freezing November evening in Croke Park, where true to form the All Blacks had their way with Ireland. To watch him in the flesh was something though. The accuracy and pure élan of Dan Carter is astounding but the violent hunter instincts of McCaw had me wide eyed. A Kiwi had typically told me in the pub beforehand we would lose “but you will see Ritchie mate, and that’s no bad thing.” It wasn’t.

He leads his side out against France on Sunday morning ready to embolden the greatest C.V in world rugby. A Lions series, record All Blacks caps holder. Tri nations, Super 14’s, they have all fallen to the captain. One remains, one that has eluded every All Blacks captain since 1987.

That it is France has a nice symmetry to it. The French, inspired by Thierry Dusautoir, and helped by New Zealand’s aversion to drop goals knocked them out at the quarter final stage in 2007. McCaw appeared immediately after the match, clouded in his grey shirt and unable to comprehend what had happened.

The ultimate redemption awaits and how he has earned it. Challengers have risen. Hendrich Broussow of South Africa had a particularly fruitful spell against him while an Australian commentator’s description of David Pocock as a freak looks apt at the moment. But Ritchie has scaled the heights and stayed there. Over a decade of knowing exactly what he is going to do and opponents still cannot stop him snaffling that ball.

The sight of the great number seven lifting the world cup on Sunday will be the perfect bookend to his glory years. Injuries are clearly taking their toll and he may find that his legs cannot get to that ball his eyes will forever see.

That is for another day, for now he has his greatest victory in sight.

Look for the black number seven on Sunday with the shock of hair emerging with the ball. Even his name sounds like a crow’s call. They are attracted to silver. Gold awaits for McCaw.

Capital gains in Washington.

David Gill estimates there are nine million Manchester United fans in the United States, a small percentage of the supposed 333 million worldwide. No-one knows for sure how United calculate these figures but one suspects the dictionary definition of fanatic is not applied.

The U.S is the new world when it comes to football and naturally United are at the forefront of exploring it. The game will never take hold of the country as fiercely as it does in Europe, but it has emerged from the wilderness to impact ever so slightly on the vast U.S sports landscape.

United love it there. The training facilities are first-class, the players are much more comfortable than they are in the Far East and as Gill so eloquently put it “Such trips offer the club the opportunity to work with our commercial partners in raising our profile in this part of the world”

They did try. Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand were dispatched to the top of the Sears Tower in Seattle for a coin toss while the Empire state building glowed red after Michael Owen flicked a switch. United scored a glut of goals and generally entertained as they dispatched the cream of the MLS. Barcelona in Washington was the end of the tour and its grandest point.

The re-run of that raw night at Wembley when 777 Catalan passes destroyed United registered with even the most disinterested in the U.S capital. Your intrepid Red News reporter touched down in D.C the day United were blitzing the MLS all-stars. One particularly chatty cab driver enquired “I hear that people are actually going to a soccer game in D.C Saturday night?” I explained that it was between the two biggest teams in the world. He smiled and didn’t agree.

The following day I ambled down to the Ritz Carlton just a block away from my more modest hotel, to attend Barca’s press conference. The English press pack were in attendance to gobble any morsel on the Fabregas to Barca story but were left disappointed by the diplomacy of Gerard Pique.

The one that got away was as ever, very complementary about United.


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Pining for a Depor.

In Phil Ball’s quite excellent book on Spanish football “Morbo” he uses the story of a young Galician women who upon being asked by a TV crew wheater she felt sorry for the incessant rain that was pouring down on the rest of Spain replied simply; “Que se jodan.” Translation: “F*** them”. The rest of Spain were outraged at the woman’s crass reply but were also amused by the typical Galician sprit.

That was in the summer of 2002 when Deportivo La Corunna regularly thumbed their nose at the perennial Catalan and Madrid powers in Spanish football. Depor had won La Liga in 2000 having challenged for it consistently before then. Javier Irureta, the man who makes Avram Grant look like a jester led Depor to the championship, Kings Cup and the quarter-final of the Champion’s league in a glittering three year period punctuated by the brilliance of Juan Carlos Valeron.

Depor and Valeron meekly slipped away from La Liga last season, and the memories of them toppling Spain’s big guns faded with them. It now seems a mere myth that a club like Depor once smashed the established order.

The top table in Spain used to be able to accommodate more than Barca and Madrid. But no longer. The chastening chasm between the big two and the rest appears to be widening even greater this summer.

We all marvel and appreciate we live in blessed times when watching Barcelona, while the box-office element of Real will always be there. But where is the competition? Athletico have lost David De Gea and Sergio Aguero. Valencia are forever in limbo. Villarreal have clung onto Giuseppe Rossi and made a canny capture in Christian Zapata but nobody expects the yellow submarine to emerge at the top.

Rafael Benietez’s Valencia were the last to really split the big two but that is not likely to happen again. Not as long as any bright youngster such as Sergio Canales is whisked away to Madrid at seventeen. Not as long as money remains a monopoly plaything to Barca. Yes their success is built upon the ideological rock of La Masia but let’s not gloss over the extraordinary spending that the Catalans have committed to in the last five years.

Rather depressingly it may be the new money of Malaga that registers a blip in the La Liga radar this season. But as they are likely to find out brutally in their opening tie with Barca, fusing a new team takes time. Gelling one that can take on the dominant duopoly will take years.

The new television deal, signed at the beginning of the year only cements the position at the top. The others will survive, but they will not thrive. The title will be decided by two games while the rest will jostle for the bronze medal.

Yet we can still hope that someone somewhere will put it up to those two. As the Galician lady said “F*** them”. It never seems to rain on them.

He scored goals; He didn’t care about being adored.

The retirement of Paul Scholes was greeted with an almost unanimous sadness and widespread respect for a career that encompassed technical mastery and an utterly professional attitude.

Selections of the ginger prince’s finest moments were pored over. Was it Bradford for you? Barca? How about Villa? When the ball parachuted from the sky and Scholes sent it rocketing into the net.

The great and good of the world’s game lined up to eulogize about the little man. Sergio Busquets, Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi literally lined up after the European cup final to get his shirt. Messi explained how Scholes was an example used at Barca’s famed La Masia academy. Zidane of course, once described him as the most complete midfielder of his generation. Samir Nasri aptly called him the English Zizou. A favourite tribute of mine came from the less celebrated Dave Kitson. Kitson rose from the Sunday leagues straight to the Premier League in a short period. He explained that he didn’t find any real difference in talent until opening day at Old Trafford “and Paul Scholes is pinging the ball around like it’s an extension of his body”

Johnny Giles, a pundit who loathes praising pretty much anyone never missed an opportunity to proclaim Scholes as a great player. Every teammate said they would want Scholes on their side in training because it nearly guaranteed a win.

The above isn’t a bad list of references for a footballer’s C.V yet Scholes ludicrously, was not universally rated. One magazine in particular last month said his retirement was greeted with unprecedented hyperbole. That Scholes had been indulged in recent years by Sir Alex. That he had been carried by younger, fitter teammates and was constantly caught in possession. The magazine in question purports to be a half-decent one but the article in question was anything but.

Yet there is sizable percentage of the footballing paternity that just didn’t get Scholes. For all of Fleet Street’s tributes this past month, the fact remains that Scholes never won the footballer of the year award. Go back through the references above. The problem was not confined to journalists. Scholes also never won a PFA award.

The fact that the verdict of him as a great player was not a unanimous one is down to two things. Cultural and period. Jonathan Wilson begins his seminal book on tactics “Inverting the pyramid” in a bar in Lisbon during Euro 2004. There has been speculation that a group of senior players have forced the then England manager Sven Goran Erikson to change England’s formation to a traditional 4-4-2. One English journalist remarks that the formation doesn’t matter; they are all the same players. Wilson and co are incredulous; an Argentinean next to him says tactics are all that matters.

He was wrong of course. There is far, far more to the game than tactics but Erikson’s decision or rather the cabal of players decision is a damning one for England. Paul Scholes, left midfield. The lung busting runs of Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard have always been deemed more important than the Scholes possession game. Gerrard and Lampard played together for far too long. The fact that they were too similar was only half the problem. The other half was they couldn’t keep the ball. Fast forward seven years and Jack Wilshere is the first name on the England team-sheet. He is praised for his abilty to keep the ball, to dictate the game. That is what’s important now.

It has taken Spain and Barcelona to keep the ball to teach us all the value of players who do so. This applies more in England but not exclusively. Xavi is now recognised as the finest midfielder in the world. Yet as he explained he was playing the same way years ago when he was admired but not a modern midfield deity as he is today. Some in Spain felt he was too small to play for the national side. He contemplated leaving and joining United, the club against whom he made his Barcelona debut in 1998. He started on the bench and watched Scholes score to put United 2-0 up. “If he was Spanish” one maestro said of another “he might be appreciated more”.

The period of English dominance in the Champions league was defined by power off the pitch, and power on it. European sides could not live with the raw surge of the Premier League game. Nimble technical Europeans were blown away by the likes of Michael Essien and Gerrard. Pace and power are the overwhelming choices when discussing the attributes of the Premier league. The honest plodder who thunder’s into challenges, who bares his teeth and whose shorts are never white are the symbol of the world’s most competitive league. Witness the Football writer’s award winner this season; Scott Parker. A middling, ordinary player who found his level with West Ham yet was deemed by the writing alumni as the best player in the country.

The culture though, thankfully has changed. If Paul Scholes was in his pomp now, the hyperbole would be far greater than what supposedly followed his retirement. Think of the fuss made of Jack Wilshere and then imagine if he could score goals. Spain’s success played its part in the change but in Premier League terms it was United and Scholes who broke the mould. Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea embodied the new money Premier League. The shameless power of Lampard, Essien et al rendered the rest obsolete. But Sir Alex put Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes in midfield and trusted them to keep the ball. The result was arguably the best of all United’s title wins and certainly our best football since the treble.

The league has wised up. We always had Scholes and will hopefully replace him with someone similar. Tottenham for the moment have Modric. Liverpool had Alonso and their slide coincided with his departure. Arsenal have Wilshere. Hiddenk’s Chelsea will want their own controller. The culture and period in which Paul Scholes was in his prime prevented him from universal acclaim. Like a lot of great artists, he was un-appreciated by some in his own time.

Not that it will bother him. He was out of the country when announcing his retirement. Reluctantly, he did some interviews and said he hoped that Cantona’s appearance in his testimonial would take the spotlight off him.

Throughout his career he did his best to avoid that spotlight and made it as easy as dropping his shoulder and avoiding the Scott Parker’s of this world. Maybe that was the problem. A few more interviews, maybe the odd advert and the plebs would get the message. He won’t read the tributes. He won’t care about the criticism. He merely played. In a 24/7 world when everything is dissected, where opinions are formed instantly maybe his disdain for the media ensured those not of a red persuasion would never be convinced.

No matter. Those mesmerising moments that he has left us stand as the pillar to his greatness. From subtle flicks to violent volleys, from scooping the ball over Nesta, to heading it past Given, his is a beacon that will shine as long as a ball is kicked in M16 ORA.

Hyperbole? No, just Scholes.

This article first appeared in Red News Fanzine. Go to www.rednews.co.uk for details.

America's game can be anybody's.

The acclaimed Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski spent a major part of last month going around the United States trying to figure out the everlasting appeal of Baseball in the country.

Posnanski spoke to all sorts, saw a few games and was present at Derek Jeter's 3000th hit and put Baseball's eternal appeal down to a lot of factors. But one above all; fun.

Ambling up to Nationals park last Sunday to watch the home team take on the New York Mets, it was hard to disagree with Joe. My better half had zero experience of baseball but after ten minutes at the ballpark she was proudly displaying her Nationals jersey and feverishly waving her foam finger. It was an witheringly hot day. Our seats were three rows back to the right of the bullpen. A reward for being frugal the night before.

As with any game seen live, it quickly shapes into your own experience. It was signature Sunday so stars like Ryan Zimmerman were happily signing autographs at different sections of the crowd. We chose the cool shade ahead of a scribble pre-game though.

The seats were boiling hot. The free programme I had gotten was rapidly placed between me and the seat to prevent any 3rd degree burns. A father and his three sons took their positions ahead of us and spent the whole game cheering on the Nats, and hoping for a foul ball. Hot dog vendors and Beer men constantly advertised their goods; "Don't be a meany, buy a weiny" "I got beer here, Miller, Bud and er, what is this? Amstiel light!"

The typical baseball experience is said to involve beer but I settled for copious amounts of water to combat the sun.

The first six innings came and went with mistakes, good catches and decent pitching. We were watching two average sides slug it out for mere respectability. The sixth inning came alive with a run for the Nats to take the lead. But that was not the significant event of the sixth inning. The three sons ahead of us had finally persuaded a player to toss them a ball. He nonchalantly looped it towards them and all three stuck out their gloves to catch. The little group around us were watching this and only this and there was an audible gasp as one glove hit another and the ball apologetically limped into the bullpen. Tears were spilled and blame was laid between all three brothers. They will be talking about that one for a while.



The Nats were two up by the time Scott Hairston stepped to the plate. He then did something magnificent. There are many that would dispute that hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports, but it is damn hard so when someone launches one into the stands it is a special thing to behold. Hairston crunched one over centre field to leave one in it at the top of the ninth.

By now the band of brothers had left their seats, their relationship indelibly changed and a particularly loud Mets fan had taken them. He insisted on standing despite being in the front row and so was a giant egg shape on my otherwise perfect view. Now I'm not one for complaining about standing. A football match in particular is not an event for sitting but this was different. He irked me even more by shouting at security staff and generally giving off the impression of being well, a Mets fan. The narrative was set. My previous Swiss like neutrality was obliterated. I wanted the Nats to win. I wanted him to slump in the very same seats that a boy's dream of a Nats foul ball was crushed. I wanted justice damn it.

The Scott Hairston stepped up. A home run is no longer a wonderful thing, not when its accompanied by this Mets fan hollering. It sailed away and we were level.Bottom of the ninth.

The Nats though, rallied and managed to put runners on second and third and after Ian Desmond returned a pitch to the Mets struggling Bobby Parnell, the game was up. He couldn't get there. Rick Anikel headed home for the run and the win. The Mets fan slumped in his stolen seat while I stood up and hollered.

We drifted away after. Happy and sun burnt. The better half turned to me at the metro station. "That was fun wasn't it?" It was, it really was.

The summer that was.

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided : who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting "Damn your soul"
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
"Here is the march along these iron stones."

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important ? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said : I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

Epic by Patrick Kavanagh.

That was the year of the Iraq bother. Bar-stool history. Epic moments in time dispensed with faster than it takes a pint of Guinness to settle. The throw away remark did have the desired effect of transporting me back to age seventeen, shocked and awed at the rain-fire that fell on Bagdad all broadcast live through Sky and CNN. War was live.

Not that it was of any real significance to me, my priorities at the time were girls, Manchester United and minor football. In no particular order. The leaving cert was a speck in the distance. At season’s end. Try as they might, Derek Mahon, Heaney or Patrick Kavanagh couldn’t elbow their way in. Though Kavanagh seemed to sometimes stick.

As with any GAA summer, it began in winter. Squelching sneakers pounding their way round the hall as techno music blasted its encouragement. We would be fitter, faster and stronger than any other side. The problem is every other team adopts this mantra and it is the dreaded skill and mindset that decides silverware.

I was a severe latecomer to football. The other code dominated my upbringing to such an extent that little attention was given to any other. Watching your friends cover themselves in glory however is a powerful incentive and I decided I wanted a piece of the action.

Every summer that a person recalls fondly seems to be a glorious one with the weather. This was no different. I had a job on the building site, lugging twelve inch blocks in the blistering sun, grabbing a bite before training and generally feeling as invincible as the building trade.

The league was fun. We were fitter. We were stronger. We were faster than the rest. Our first game will remain a vivid memory. Twelve point wins are common place in any league in any county around the country but to be part of one was a novel experience for me. I remember picking a breaking ball in midfield and glimpsing my opposite number just behind me. The dull sounds of furious studs approached. I would be reeled in at any stage. But I kept travelling before popping it to the corner-forward for a score. I looked back at my pursuer who stood bent over, spluttering in the same pose any one of us could perfect of a Saturday night. This is what power feels like.

The league came and went in an orgy of points, goals and applause. Trundling in the van of a Monday morning, we would take some stopping come championship time. I should have taken up “the gaa” much sooner as exclusive football heads marvelled at my ability to scoop up a moving ball with a flick of my right foot. How else was I supposed to do it? Bend my back?

The weeks before the championship were indulgent and mostly innocent ones. Lucozade sport was consumed everyday because a rep told us it would make the difference. Nobody flinched at the €15 it took for a fat frog. The standard €50 night out doubled. Ours was the world and everything in it.

Round one. The twelve point side. What chance did they have? Routes are mapped to the final. A bus to the ground no less. New jackets. The whole town watching you. But I was about to discover the old maxim that the championship is a different game to the league.

We started well, full of running, invention and a couple of points. But the points were coming a little tougher this time. The shoulders were harder, the tackles lingered a moment more, walking that line between fair and foul. My own marker seemed to think foul was fair. They had the cheek to take the lead before half-time. Quizzical brows during the break morphed into raw fear as our power slipped. I receded into a shell. Gobbled up and spat out by the championship. The muffled groans of the embankment shook every sense. I don’t want the ball.

It was simple shock as the whistle shrilled to signal the loss. It is not supposed to go like this. What’s a backdoor?

A route out. Which we took. Two comfortable wins had us in a semi-final. Against Doneraile. The eternal foes. The same night as the debs. Our dinner would be missed. A coach was hired to take us up after; we brought the tuxedos with us. They hung on the locker key while studs rattled and numbers were handed out. Number eleven for me. Directly up against the centre-back.

I don’t know what in the zone feels like. Nor will I ever, I’d imagine it a sense of serenity during battle. An utter belief that everything you try will come off. That not only the game but time itself will bend to your will. I’m not sure how to describe the complete opposite of that. How to sum up the quivering mass of indecision I was as I approached the field. Winners want the ball. I was the other kind.

I’m not sure how long I lasted; I think it was fifteen minutes before the coach called me ashore. I hadn’t noticed my replacement coming on. So I figured he was giving me some instructions. “You are going off Paul” was his curt reply to my enquiry. I softly walked around the field back to the dressing room with whispers of condolences in my ear. Once inside I threw my gear bag across the room and kicked the bench, displaying the aggression I needed out there. It’s safe in the shell.

We won. In the final. Had a blast at the debs. The game lost to haze of sambuca. The boys did their best not to discuss it around me. Focused on getting served and dresses. They had done their part.

The final came and went. The team we were facing had two Cork minors. There is something mystical about inter-county minors. Especially in Cork. As if they are some hybrid of boy and machine. No mention of their name came without minor attached. We were beaten early. I was hooked around the fifty minute mark this time. The boys nearly came back but the die was cast.

Tears flowed after. The summer was dying and reality would have to be faced. We were minors.

The league semi-final was the last chapter. Beaten out the gate. Our coach called us a disgrace after and said he was going to watch a real team in Newtown down the road.

I found room for Heaney and Mahon, but especially Kavanagh. That was the year of the Iraq bother. God’s make their own importance.

For your consideration; Five football reads.

This is not in order of preference, nor is it a list containing autobiographies. These are a peek at footballs less heralded lands and a couple of its more extraordinary tales.

Comrade Jim. The spy who played for Spartak.

The barely believable tale of Jim Riordan. Trained as a spy and fluent in Russian, Riordan charts his incredible story as a spy posted to Berlin on national service to eavesdrop on the Soviets. He subsequently falls in love with Russian culture.

Secret kick-abouts with Russian servicemen mushroom into a debut with the mighty Spartak in front of some 50,000 people.

A tale of cold-war suspense, treachery, copious amounts of Vodka and ultimately the power of football. It crosses any genre.

Dynamo, defending the honour of Kiev. Andy Duggan.

The gut-wrenching tale of a football match in 1942 that took place between the German Luftwaffe and the pre-war Dynamo Kiev in Nazi occupied Ukraine.

Duggan’s book's begins with an innocent party to celebrate a wedding with its laughter and food gradually giving way to the churning of German tanks.

A tense, emotional tribute to some extraordinary acts of courage. Having read it, the name Nikolai Trusevich is likely to never leave you.

When Friday comes, Football in the war zone. James Montague.

A football and travel memoir, Montague spent three years travelling throughout the middle east trying to understand its football culture.

There are crazy derbies in Egypt. Money being thrown around in Qatar and a list in Abu Dhabi telling spectators what they cannot bring into the stadium. It includes machine guns, cats, swords and newspapers.

Each chapter deals with a particular country or region and each have some jaw-dropping tales. The book shows how football can be divisive but also redemptive.

More than just a game, Football v Apartheid. Chuck Korr and Marvin Close.

A book recommended more for the story than the writing. It explains how prisoners of South Africa’s infamous Robben Island used football as a force to overcome their hardship and as a tool for their freedom.

The chapters dealing with how the prisoners set up committees and rule-books, and dealt with serious bureaucratic issues regarding their game make you forget for an instant where they are.

The seriousness in which they attacked every minute detail of the game, on and off the pitch forged an understanding and deep bond between them and ultimately made an unjust prison term easier to bear.

Feet of the Chameleon. Ian Hawkey.

The scarcity of books about football in Africa was helped when Ian Hawkey released this in 2009.

He dispels a lot of myths about the African game and helps us discover a continent brimming with magic and fanaticism about the beautiful game.

Some of Africa’s vast history and geography explained with precision through the prism of football.

Rory in rarefied company.

The golf swing is a complicated thing. We mortals that plunge into the ground every week know next to nothing about it. We can read up on it. Maintain stance, follow through, eye line, transfer of weight. But when all is said and done and when you face the first with a giggling horde behind you, you swing like a batsman, and the result is mostly in the lap of the gods.

There are pros that make you feel better. Witness the swing of Jim Furyk. It’s like watching Rafa Nadal hit a baseline winner, you can see with every stretched sinew, the effort that goes into it. Both winners. Both innately gifted. But Furyk offers hope on a misty morning at the driving range.

Rory Mcllory is the cold effortless reality. That moment when a man realises he will never play professional golf. Mcllory hitting an iron is now the purest, most poetic thing in Sports. Like a delicate wrecking ball, arched back waiting to destroy its target. He holds his stance for a second or two after, as if made from stone. That now iconic twirl of the club. He likes it alright.

The manner in which he destroyed the field at Congressional Park over the weekend seemed as effortless as his swing. -1 maybe -2 was the expert’s choice in picking a possible winning score. Show me numbers; -16. The records tumbled as quickly as his challengers faded. Any hint of weakness was swept aside by every approach, every putt, and every wondrous wedge. The fans that amassed in their thousands roared him on. “Get in the hole!” With Mcllory it didn’t seem such a ridiculous notion.

Augusta has been deemed the turning point. The brutal implosion at the grandest stage. When the surest of swings turned into a lottery. Was Augusta that important to him though? He learned of course, to close a back-nine. To get the job done. But in the aftermath of the Masters he spoke as if it was a mere speed bump on the road to greatness. A footnote in his inexorable climb. So I threw one away? I’ll win the next one.

Lee Westwood was the bridesmaid yet again and that should be noted. A magnificent player and clearly a decent man. His time will come is a line that he has heard far too much in his career. Just when the fierce shadow of Tiger Woods had faded along comes another tyro capable of another era of golfing tyranny.

Subconsciously the others cede to Tiger. They will also do now to Rory. Like David Villa does to Lionel Messi. Like Andy Murray does to Nadal. There he goes. The man.

We are left then hoping that Tiger finds fitness. That his demons are finally banished and we can get back to that knowing smile when we see him charge of a major Sunday. A young buck has stomped all over his territory. Smashed his records and is the talk of the town. Back nine of the Open on a Sunday or the PGA. Tiger and Rory. You want to call it? Golf is in the lap of these two gods.

Keep the red flag flying; ten great moments from Manchester United in the European cup.

10. Porto put to the sword. (1997)

PORTO ARRIVED AT Old Trafford for the quarter-final of the Champions league as the form team in Europe. United by contrast were still cutting their teeth at this level and had only scraped through to this stage by beating Rapid Vienna 2-0 in Austria with goals from David Beckham and Eric Cantona and possibly the greatest save in the clubs history from Peter Schmichael.

The blitz that swarmed Porto from the opening minute at Old Trafford shook the Portuguese to their core. David May bundled home from six yards, Eric Cantona scored soon after and Andy Cole and Ryan Giggs finished the rout in the second half. Sir Alex Ferguson’s United had started to stir in Europe.





9. The Massacre of Roma. (2007)

Sir Alex once described this game as the greatest night he has ever experienced at Old Trafford. It is not hard to see why. Roma arrived with a 2-1 lead from the first leg and confident from that performance. They were shredded by half-time. Michael Carrick struck two beauties from long-range, Cristiano Ronaldo scored two himself and tormented the Italians. Patrice Evra even got in on the act scoring the seventh in a performance and result that may never be bettered at Old Trafford.




8.Full-back enters folklore in Madrid. (1968)

Ten years after the tragedy of the Munich air disaster United stood on the cusp of the European cup final. Their opponents in the semi-final; Real Madrid were spoken of in reverential tones by most United players. Bobby Charlton once said “These people aren’t human” yet United won the first leg 1-0 at Old Trafford to take a slender lead to Spain.

However by half-time United trailed 3-1 on the night. David Sadler pulled a goal back and with the tie nearly over it was the unlikely figure of full-back Bill Foulkes who got on the end of a George Best cross to send United to Wembley.






7. Ronaldo tears up the Emirates. (2009)

It was a testament to just how dangerous Cristiano Ronaldo was in his time at United that a corner for the opposition sometimes ended with a goal for the Portuguese machine. In the second-leg of United’s semi-final against Arsenal, Ronaldo first laid the ball off to Ji-Sung Park before sprinting the length of the pitch to slam home Wayne Rooney’s cross. Devastating.






6.The Babes shine in Belgrade. (1958)

The last great light before the dark. The Busby babes of the fifties were the first English side to compete in the European cup in 1957. They reached the semi-finals beating Belgian champions Anderlecht 10-0 on the way. In 1958 many expected them to go one better and this 3-3 draw in Belgrade confirmed their place again in the semi-finals.

The plane that was taking the young team home however crashed in the icy runway in Munich after several stalled takeoffs. Eight of Busby’s immortal side perished in the crash while the manager himself was seriously injured.



5.Scholes breaks Catalan hearts. (2008)

The game; semi-final of the Champions league. The opponents; Barcelona. The mood; tense.

Ronaldo was running, Barcelona were chasing, the ball was hastily cleared to an onrushing Paul Scholes. The midfielder took one touch before arching a stunning shot into the top corner. The roof lifted from Old Trafford and United hung on to meet Chelsea in the first ever all-English Champions league final.



4.Roy’s keen in Turin. (1999)

Sir Alex Ferguson is not someone who heaps praise upon individuals. So when he said of Roy Keane in the second leg semi-final against Juventus that “It was a honour to be associated with such a player.” It gives you some idea of just how influential the Corkman was. With United trailing 2-0 after a disastrous start, Keane dragged them back into the game with a towering header and set the tone for perhaps United’s greatest ever performance on the continent.




3. Red Flag rules in Moscow. (2008)

An historic match in English football, the first ever all-English Champions league final was settled by a slip and a save. Cristiano Ronaldo headed United into the lead before Frank Lampard equalized. Both sides had chances to win in extra-time with Chelsea hitting the post and Ryan Giggs having an effort cleared off the line.
The run of exemplary spot-kicks was broken when Ronaldo’s staggered run-up failed to fool Petr Cech and the keeper batted away the penalty. John Terry had the chance to take the trophy but slipped on the drenched surface leaving Nicolas Anelka to be the fall guy and Edwin van der Sar to be the hero for United.



2.The journey ends at Wembley. (1968)

Ten years after the Munich air disaster United and Matt Busby had the chance to finish their fateful journey together at Wembley for the European cup final against Benfica. Bobby Charlton headed United into the lead but a Benfica equaliser forced the game into extra-time.

Goals again from Charlton, Brian Kidd and an iconic George Best effort won the tie in extra-time and gave England its first ever European cup winners.



1.Nothing and then everything at the Camp Nou. (1999)

The clock ticked over ninety minutes. The score in the final of the Champions league stood at Bayern Munich 1 Manchester United 0. A desperate Peter Schmichael stormed forward for a United corner. The ball bobbled, bounced and through Ryan Giggs squirmed its way to substitute Teddy Sheringham. He turned and scuffed the ball into the bottom corner. Ole Solksjaer was also on as a sub and recalled after that once Sheringham scored he was over the moon because he would play thirty minutes in a European cup final. He curtailed that to one. From another corner he extended his right toe and sent United to heaven.

What If....

the takeover had not happened?

Take your pick. The most profitable club in the world would have remained so. Instead of incurring Switzerland’s GDP as debt. Ticket prices might have retained some semblance of normality. A transfer strategy based on age profiles and sell on value would not have been implemented. Fergie wouldn’t say “no value” every transfer window as international midfielders are juggling balls at the Bernebéau for a pittance. Andersred would be some Scandinavian striker we might be in for. Green and Gold would bring back memories of Giggs scoring at Bramall Lane and Sparky kicking nuts.

Glazernomics would never have entered the red lexicon. We wouldn’t sigh and stare sadly at the sky sports news ticker on deadline day. A Bond issue would be the latest spy movie or a slightly dubious magazine. The business section of the newspaper would be restored to its rightful place beneath the breakfast. The ACS might be the name of some firm from London and not something that treats your credit card as an ATM. That blood boiling anger that lodged in the pit of your stomach when it happened would be a mere memory from a nightmare.

USA chants would be used by people from the USA. Swag sellers in Manchester would probably have gone under with the lack of Norwich trade. Red and Red would stay United. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers business wouldn’t be ours. Middle of the season jaunts to the Middle East with our skirts up may or may not have happened.

Fergie would be the Coolmore Mafia’s consigliere. David Beckham would miss a photo op. David Gill would be heralded as the lone voice in the darkness as his first book entitled “Debt is the road to ruin” is released. Man City wouldn’t win a trophy.

Announcements to the press would be for team affairs, not what winery in Chile has become an official partner. Red e-mail accounts would not be spammed by desperate attempts to sell tickets for the vital home tie against Crawley Town.

Some of that ten million paid out to the Glazer family for “management and administration” fees might have paid for an international midfielder to juggle the ball at Old Trafford.

Operating profits of 100 million that amount to a loss of 83 million would be a problem in a textbook for a P.H.D economics student. No one would care what PIK stood for. The Red Knights and their utopian vision of supporter ownership but with private investment, would be deemed a possibly unworkable plan as Fergie advises J.P and co to buy a couple of more shares.

There would be bitter complaints around Europe as under UEFA’s new fair play awards United are far and away the richest club in the world. Having left Newcastle, Michael Owen states he could do a job for United, who try and hide their derision as David Villa is showcased to the press.

United would win three league titles, one European cup, three league cups and a world club cup.



Alan Shearer signed for United?






This is a two-era question. The first of course, goes back to the summer of 1992. Alan Shearer is the bright young thing of English football. Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers confirm their interest in signing him. For reasons passing understanding Shearer chooses Blackburn. What if he hadn’t? Fire up the Delorean reds, and let’s imagine the dour-faced one signed.

There would have been goals. There is no disputing that. Say what you like about Shearer, he found the back of the net at will despite playing for some poor sides. United were suffering a goal drought of biblical proportions in the early part of the 92/93 season. Shearer would have undoubtedly eased that but he would not have been the answer. Fergie wrote in Managing my life that had he signed him it is unlikely that he would have signed The Answer in Eric.

There is the doomsday scenario that was avoided. There is a Simpson’s episode where Homer gets transported back in time through his malfunctioning toaster. By merely squashing a fly and transporting back he ensures that all humankind is enslaved to Ned Flanders. Shearer at United instead of Cantona would look roughly like that. Imagine a press conference with dear Alan giving monosyllabic answers while Eric creates art at Leeds. Then take a deep breath and drink a drink a drink…

There was a second chance to sign Shearer of course. After his superb Euro ‘96 it was widely believed that he was going to finally don a red shirt. But due to love or stupidity he chose his local club Newcastle and spent the rest of his days as an onlooker while the silverware was handed out.

It is difficult to say just what would have happened had he made the move then. The only thing that can be said with certainty is that he would have won a medal or two. But would Ole Solskjaer have gotten the chances he did had Shearer been in the team? The 96/97 season is perhaps the most overlooked of the Ferguson title wins. Sandwiched between the fledgling’s double and the incredible treble, it is remembered as the passing of one legend in the King and the birth of another in the baby faced assassin.

It is not fanciful to assume Solskjaer’s career at Old Trafford may have come to an abrupt end had we signed Shearer. He was almost out the door without him in ‘99. Would Dwight Yorke have been signed? The whole dynamic of the team that was responsible for the impossible would have changed.

So give thanks to Alan Shearer the next time he is droning on Match of the Day. Even thinking of him now all you are left with is goals sure, but also that bland celebration. One arm-up, running away. I’ll take the guy with his collar up and chest out thanks, and while I am at it I’ll take that kid sliding on his knees at the Camp Nou. Fate can be so cruel but my god it can also be so kind.


Terry Venables took the United job, not Fergie?




Scoff as you may but “El Tel” was a man in demand back in 1986. He had led Barcelona to the Spanish league and would lead them into a European cup final, that they lost having missed every one of their penalties in the shootout with Steaua Bucharest.

So no real differences there, Fergie’s United have been (Moscow aside) rubbish at shootouts. It could certainly be argued that short-term success could have come under Venables. Perhaps Saint Lineker would have joined and maybe the presence of trendy Terry would have persuaded Paul Gascoigne to ignore London and make proper use of his talent.

So it may have been sweet but it would definitely have been short, and we would miss out on the greatest period possible of supporting the shirts. It is difficult when thinking Manchester United not to think Sir Alex Ferguson. Indeed it is hard to even conjure an image of another man prowling the Old Trafford touchline, but let’s try.

There may or may not have been the worse goatee in the world. In that silly Sun advert that was airing a while back Tel accompanied ‘Arry and Big Cas in black in white mouthing something and trying to sound like an authority on the game. Man United managers should not have a goatee. Benitez and Venables are the only two I can think of that have one and that’s a strong enough barometer for me.

Press conferences would be cliché filled nonsense. The phrase “Venables gets out the hairdryer” would merely mean he is drying his hair. Mind games would no longer feature. He would play with three centre-backs. Tapping his watch would mean he is late for an appointment, possibly goatee related.

He would smirk in that uncontrollably smarmy way when something goes right and do the same if something went wrong. He would leave after two years having won an FA cup and supervised another slump down through the table. Martin Edwards would rush to phone that Scottish bloke that is doing well. He would have taken the Arsenal job.

United would appoint another flavor of the month manager, possibly Howard Kendall or someone like that and nothing much would change. Arsenal would dominate the next twenty years of English football. Arsene Wenger would be made Japanese prime minister having outgrown the Grampus eight job and wowed the Japanese political landscape with his grasp of other languages.
We may have stumbled across someone who could have won us a league title but it would have been a fleeting success. The greatest asset Ferguson has is his ability to destroy and rebuilt great football teams. There is not a manger today that has done it with such success and with such regularity.

The day is coming though reds, forget what if? What will we do when he’s gone?

This article first appeared in Red News. Manchester United's first fanzine.

A war chest or penny pinching? United and transfers.

This article first appeared in Red News. Manchester United's first fanzine.

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It has been difficult to define the Manchester United transfer policy for the most of Fergie’s reign. Value was always a prerogative. But if Ferguson was absolutely sure that a player would improve his side then he was prepared to put it all on the table. From £2.3m for Gary Pallister to £7m for Andy Cole, right the way through to £30.75m for Dimitar Berbatov. United and Ferguson have gone for that “marquee” signing when the time suits.

But he is also not averse to a cheap punt. For better and for worse. Henrik Larrsson was paraded in front of a stunned Manchester press pack in January 2007 having signed on loan from Helsingborg. Jaap Stam; that great big Dutchman was jettisoned for the creaking legs of Laurent Blanc. Going by nearly every account, the King himself was signed during a flash of inspiration while listening into a phone call. Fergie, the horse owner does like the occasional bet in the transfer market. His gambler’s instinct has failed him recently. While Javier Hernandez may have seemed a gamble at the time, he was scouted extensively, Bebe was Fergie ignoring the form and going with a trusted tipster.

Bar anomalies such as Bebe United have certainly become more meticulous when signing players. Researching everything physical (Owen Hargreaves is the exception that proves the rule here) to the mental (Ditto Gabriel Obertan) the club has to be certain that the player will fit in at a place where scrutiny takes on an almost manic zeal.

Reds everywhere were underwhelmed last summer when our business was concluded. Only three relatively unheard of youngsters came in. No Ozil, no Villa and certainly no Snejider. But as the season rumbled on and we stared in disbelief at the deadline day madness, last summer’s business turned out to be mostly inspired.

Soon the rollercoaster of this season will end. A sunny day in May in the city of rain may very well see the champions of England again. But we all accept that changes are needed to sustain this fantastic run of ours. Are there any indicators to what we can expect this summer?

As outlined value has always been important to United with transfers. But there has been a definite stiffening of transfer policy since the Glazers began calling the shots. We heard soon in the aftermath of Berbatov’s transfer that he would be the last of his kind. No longer would a potential transfer be judged by mere performances on the field. “Sell on” value is now key. The Glazer model of prudence is buying youth; Hernandez and Smalling, supplement that with an outlay on established; Hargreaves, Van Der Saar, Carrick and pay for the established using a flow of fringe players. Zoran Tosic, Gerard Pique (A monstrous mistake) Gussippe Rossi and any first team players that still command a fee.

The young players act as an insurance. Take Nani and Anderson. Signed amongst much fanfare in the summer of ’07, both have retained their transfer value and in Nani’s case enhanced it. Hernandez is now a walking dollar sign for the Florida natives. At 22 with a reputation growing by the minute, he has arguably quadrupled in value this season alone. While nobody wants to reign on the parade of devotion to the little pea, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that in a few years he gets itchy feet and heads to Spain. The circle will have to start again.

Faith in youth is bred in United. It is part of the very fabric of the club. It certainly appeals to Ferguson. Anyone who watched him as that great youth side of ’92 began to flower could see the beaming pride of the man. He spoke of the likes of Paul Ince being a great player but how the great thing in football was when a young boy turned a corner and became a man. It is hard to believe that a man who has ruled with an iron fist endorses this particular transfer policy but his continued defence of the Glazers suggests he does believe it is a prudent one.

Back in that season where the double was won with kids, he pondered whether he should give into the fans craving for a big money signing and splash the cash. Darren Anderton was his choice to replace Andrei Kanchelskis but he thought better of it. He would stick to the plan. The masses craving for flashbulbs and jersey presentations would not sway him.

Edwin Van Der Saar was one of the first players signed under the Glazer ownership though the deal was believed to be in place before the takeover and they hardly wanted to rock the boat further by quibbling over £3.5m.

Would the Dutchman be signed now? If such a question was put to Fergie the answer would be a resounding yes. He has control, yet the name continually being linked with United to replace Edwin is David De Gea. The 20 year old Atletico Madrid keeper is an outstanding prospect. Similar in height and build to Van Der Saar and very good with his feet. So physically he is sound. Mentally we have read about his maturity, how he has only been debating whether or not to take the challenge of Old Trafford not because he doubts his ability but if it is the best step for him at this stage of his career, So mentally again United have done their homework. But can anyone seriously say that his age isn’t a factor? All going well De Gea could be number one for ten years and United would still make a profit when he decides to head home.

Is Fergie comfortable having three goalkeepers with no experience in the Premiership? Isn’t that the one area where established must be a given when deciding on a player. We all remember trying to replace Schmichael, the mere notion that a players sell on value is now a factor in deciding our new goalkeeper is a disturbing one.

There has been some argument that now the Glazers have reduced Fergie’s bullets, he must be more accurate when he is shooting. Gone is the scattergun approach of Djemba-Djemba and Kleberson replaced with quality for half the price in Evra and Vidic. There may be some merit in that argument. If restrictions are in place it would definitely focus his mind. It would help to explain his reluctance to enter the market last year, though the monstrous spending of city and Chelsea is perhaps the real reason.

The signing of Dimitar Berbatov may be an era-defying one for United off the field. Having got his man despite the advances of city on deadline day Fergie hailed it as “A terrific bit of business by the club” He wasn’t referring to value just reminding the owners that sometimes you have to push the boat out.

So get the marquee out? Maybe, but only if the numbers add up

An ode to a prince.

The Dutch appreciate space more than any other. Century’s of foraging for their own has given them an undeniable sense and acute awareness of space and how best to utilize it. In his tremendous book "Brilliant orange" David Winner marks space as the unique defining element of Dutch football. Flexible space was the mantra of one of the greatest club sides ever seen, the hypnotic rhythm of Ajax led by Cruyff, Neeskens et al passed and moved their way to three consecutive European cups, and as one casts their eyes over the current European champions it is that same spatial awareness that is the hallmark of a ginger beacon that has shone at Old Trafford for more then a decade.

There is something magnetic about watching Paul Scholes kill a football with his in-step move away from the plodder hunting him down and then play a simple pass which will inevitably roll onto a team-mates foot. "Fantasti" or the controller is what the Italians used to describe Gianni Rivera, maestro is the only apt word to describe Scholes. A player so horribly under-appreciated not only by the masses in England but also by some of fleet streets finest that it verges on criminal. He has been the finest midfield player in England in the past fifteen years yet he has no individual awards to show for it. No matter, he has delivered moments of mesmerising motion that will live long in the memory, three of which best sum him up.

There have been so many seminal Scholes moments, many involving the perfected volleying technique so devastatingly shown against Bradford and more recently Aston Villa yet my three Scholes moments do not involve goal scoring, strange as that may seem given his penchant for the spectacular. My argument for Scholes being an all time great is based more on his peripheral vision then say that arching arrow which broke Barca hearts. The first is the most recent and it is the most simple in both its premise and execution. Wes Brown is taking a throw-in twenty metres in the Chelsea half in the 2008 Champions league final, He throws it to scholes who is being heavily marked, Scholes flicks the ball back to Brown who returns the favour. Scholes is now backed in with Brown on the move. Any other would have controlled tried to turn and win another throw-in, this is not any other, Scholes darts a flick between two Chelsea players to send Brown into an acre of Dutch heaven, the rest is history. It is a moment already forgotten by most yet this simple flick could only be executed by Scholes. It was understated almost modest yet it was compelling.

The second moment is again from this years Champions League, this time in the hostile environment of the Olimpico in Rome. Scholes finds himself on the left-hand side of Roma's penalty area, he and every other United player is surrounded by the suffocating Italians, Scholes clips a cross over the penalty spot to no-one in particular or so it seems, Cristiano Ronaldo arrives like a steam train to shudder an unstoppable header past the goalkeeper. Ronaldo's header is heroic but his superman act would never have taken off without the perfect human launch pad.

If there is one moment to encapsulate the celebration of pure technique that is Paul Scholes then it was surely conceived in the mammoth Champions league semi-final tie in April 2007 between United and A.C Milan, Losing 2-1 to the Kaka inspired giants United were on the ropes. Cue the ginger prince, picking the ball up just outside Milan's box the options seemed bare, until one swish of a right boot scooped a delicious lob over the hapless Nesta and onto the onrushing Rooney's chest. The rest as always was simple because the little man makes it so.

Dogs of War belong in the past.

"The shit's chess, not checkers!"

Denzel Washington, Training day.


The comparison was fitting and stark. Stationed at the heart of Real Madrid's midfield Wednesday night in the Champions League semi-final against Barcelona was the central defender Pepe. Nothing too strange about that, centre-half's often step into the middle if an injury or tactical situation demands it. But Pepe is no Paul Magrath or Mathais Sammer. His rangy running, brash attitude and snap tackling was deployed against the Barca maestros to disrupt. A piranha dropped into a serene aquarium.

Screening in front of the Barca back four was Sergio Busquets. The Spanish world cup winner is an essential cog in the Barca machine. He has effortlessly kept his place this season despite competition from Argentine captain Javier Mascherano. There are few, if any, better ball winners than Mascherano but that is not enough today. He has struggled to adopt to the Barca passing game, the movement and one touch nature of it is often too much even for a player of his undoubted class. Xavi praises Busquets first touch and how he is always on the half-turn ready to move the ball. His ability to retrieve the ball without making a tackle and thus possibly conceding a foul is also an invaluable tool in an ever more disciplined game.

Pepe best encapsulated Jose Mourinho's approach over three of the latest clasicos. After the drubbing inflicted on his side last November the manager reverted to type and played two dogs of war in the centre of midfield. Having bowed to pressure to go téte a téte with Barca and suffer for it, he was out to stop and then mug a clearly superior foe. What the special one underestimated was the chances of a red card changing the game. With a player like Pepe snapping at the likes of Xavi, the chances of a booking or worse increased ten-fold. It is hard enough to live with Barca with eleven men never mind ten.

Destructive teams can work. That was best captured in last weeks Copa Del Ray. But that is a one off situation. Ten, fifteen years ago, players like Pepe and Lassana Diarra would get away with shunting a passing team off the ball. There are many that claim the game is too sanitised, that any semblance of a harmful tackle is dealt with too harshly. But the advantage it carries is negating the influence of destroyers. Jose Mourinho certainly didn't think Pepe's challenge merited a red card but upon repeated viewing the decision is justified. Had it been Granero challenging a decision would not be needed.

Busquets rarely, if ever tackles with the regularity or force that the likes of Pepe does. He doesn't need to. He best represents the change of midfield players. With the laws as stringent as they are now, where even intent in the tackle is enough for a sending off, the calm interceptions of Busquets are the way forward. He shadows a move waiting to pounce. Pepe and his ilk smash the glass to take the loot, Busquets unlocks the front door. He will likely face Micheal Carrick in the final. Another exponent of calm.

The board is set. Take note Jose.