United, They Fall

Advance apologies for any lack of impartiality readers may detect in this fortnight’s bulletin. Two days ago, I had the exquisite pleasure of watching the all-Manchester FA Cup semi-final in my local pub on an absolutely glorious April afternoon, and I haven’t stopped grinning since. In attendance were several actual Mancunians freshly landed in Dublin for a stag weekend, all very vocally of sky-blue persuasion, who discomfited the pub’s largely pro-United clientele by belching forth an unrelenting spitfire barrage of foul-mouthed anti-Reds invective.

Native Irish ABU’s would tend to be reluctant to engage in this sort of behaviour for fear of sustaining a split lip or broken tooth, whereas here it went unchallenged: there was an instinctive sense that these people were fully entitled to voice their opinion. After all, being from Manchester, they hate United more than most. The result may have been badly received in Singapore and Japan and San Diego and wherever else they sell United replica shirts by the truckload, but by and large, it will have gone down a treat in Manchester.
By seven o’clock, ‘Blue Moon’ had given way to several lusty choruses of “You can stick your fucking treble up your arse”, echoing mellifluously around the normally sedate hostelry, while the camera repeatedly cut to the figure of Sir Alex Ferguson looking as if he’d swallowed a wasp. In truth, he should feel partially culpable for his team’s exit, given that the 11 players he picked could by no stretch of the imagination be described as United’s strongest line-up. The non-selection of Ryan Giggs and Javier Hernandez suggested that the Cup was a distant third on the red-nosed Scot’s list of priorities, and perhaps hinted at a desire to rub City’s face in it.
And of course, Reds fans can argue that it mattered more to City because United have bigger fish to fry this season, echoing Roy Keane’s scathing dismissal of the FA Cup as a meaningless trinket while they go in pursuit of serious prizes such as the Premier League title (surely now a done deal, but we’ll get back to that) and the Champions League (not very likely). Still, the United side which captured both those prizes in 2008 isn’t remembered by Reds fans with anything like the warmth they feel towards the Treble-winning crew of 1999. To be blunt about it, they needed the Treble to round off a perfect season, and City kiboshed that.
Any realistic possibility of United ending the entire season empty-handed surely disappeared in smoke the following day with Emmanuel Eboue’s 99th-minute fit of insanity in the penalty box, gifting Liverpool a lifeline and thus throwing away what remained of Arsenal’s fading challenge. We can now probably salute (‘acclaim’ would be too strong a word) United as champions-elect, and you would have to fancy them to outwit Schalke in the Champions League semi, notwithstanding their atrocious record against German teams (Dortmund, Leverkusen, Bayern Munich).
They will certainly be underdogs should they progress to face Real Madrid or Barca, but stranger things have happened. And yet, whatever happens from now on in, the FA Cup exit will stand as a blemish on their campaign. Back in the dog days when United couldn’t mount a meaningful League challenge to save their lives, they seemed to win the Cup very frequently. Now, the sands have shifted: they’ve won the thing once in the last 12 seasons.
But enough about United. Across town, the mood will be feverish for the next few weeks, as City’s success-starved army of devotees strap themselves in for the roller-coaster ride that awaits in the Cup Final against a wonderfully whole-hearted (and certainly whole-elbowed) Stoke side, whose display in dispatching Bolton 5-0 in the semi was nothing short of magnificent. Attempting to dampen the hysteria that will surely escalate between now and the big day, Roberto Mancini and the City hierarchy are publicly insisting that the League campaign takes priority, that the financial necessity of landing in the top four and gatecrashing Europe’s elite next season far outweighs any short-term glory offered by the Cup. But try telling that to the hordes who have been waiting 35 years for a trophy. It can be said with certainty that, if forced to choose, most City fans would opt for the silverware.
Stoke are not renowned for their flowing play, yet they produced plenty of it against Bolton in what was arguably the best display they’ve ever delivered. Though they will nominally enter the Final as underdogs, they have every chance of winning and they know it. City have been a thoroughly Jekyll-and-Hyde entity this season – their recent 3-0 surrender at Liverpool was lamentable in the extreme – and they are completely capable of fucking up on the big day. Indeed, their tradition almost demands it, irrespective of the undeniable fact that this current collection of footballers is by far the most accomplished in the club’s modern history. David Silva, Yaya Toure, Carlos Tevez – these are mighty players, who are in the curious position of being heirs to the legacy of Shaun Goater, Kevin Horlock and Paul Dickov.
And an unbelievably grim legacy it is too, perhaps matched in terms of pure tragic hopelessness only by Hibernian’s ongoing 109-year Scottish Cup drought. My first football memory is of being deeply upset when City lost 3-2 to Spurs in 1981’s epic Cup Final; I am told by reliable witnesses (ie my parents and sister) that I wept at the time. I can also very vividly remember sinking to relegation on the last day of the 1982/3 season, when (needing only a point at home to stay up) a goal from Luton Town’s Radomir Antic wielded the guillotine with about two minutes left. This strike saved the visitors’ top-flight skins and prompted their boss David Pleat to perform a demented dance of delight on the Maine Road turf, while the gobsmacked hosts attempted to come to terms with the prospect of slumming it against the likes of Carlisle and Mansfield. These would become very familiar destinations over the following two decades of unrelieved torment, a leap into the abyss straight out of a Ken Loach script, a saga which rewrote the rules of footballing black comedy, though there wasn’t a great deal of laughing at my end.
There is a passage in the classic Irvine Welsh novel Trainspotting where the smack-ravaged anti-hero, having just got laid for the first time in many moons, reflects: “He speculated that his drug problems might be related to Hibs’ poor performances in the ‘80s”. Looking back over the wreckage of my first 36 years on the planet, I can now clearly see that – though Hibs and the Republic eventually came to dominate my affections – it was City who got the ball rolling, a ball which went on to ricochet horrifically from one catastrophic own-goal to the next, apparently with no end in sight, while I anaesthesised myself against the unfolding horrors as best I could, usually with whiskey or wine.
There are a few highs that stand out – numerous promotions, and a couple of days in the sun against United – but for the most part, it has been a magical misery tour. And for this reason, I am fully expecting nothing other than a defeat on the big day. The Cup has Stoke’s name all over it. Dispassionate analysis of the footballing merits of the 20-odd participants doesn’t come into it. City will go down in flames, purely because they are City. As if to confirm my suspicions, my iPod has just landed on Johnny Thunders’ ‘Born To Lose’. We don’t do happy endings.
And yet... Well, fuck it, I’m going to Wembley. Let the madness begin!!