Man City can make their own history whatever United think

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jan/20/manchester-city-united-rivalry


The question of the week, now that the financial tables at least are thoroughly turned, seems to be whether Manchester City can ever be bigger than Manchester United.

Roberto Mancini doesn't see why not, although he would say that, wouldn't he? David Beckham says definitely not, never ever, though the loyal and slightly mischievous lifelong United supporter was not exactly speaking as the voice of impartiality.

What Beckham said was interesting, however, because he said it can never be about just money, it is all about tradition and history, and in those areas United can never be caught. He certainly knows how to put the parvenu rivals in their place, yet, just as with Liverpool's taunts to Chelsea whenever the pair meet in the Champions League, mentioning history always sounds a little desperate, a tacit admission that while the present may be unpredictable and unsatisfactory, at least the past is unchanging and inviolate. It is safe for United to assume, in other words, that oil will run out in the Middle East and Craig Bellamy will grow tired of arguing with people before City overhaul Old Trafford's rich accumulation of trophies, legends and memories, no matter how successful they intend to be.

He is probably right, as it happens, though maybe not completely right, for this is a highly subjective area. Beckham was speaking for himself and his generation when he said United would always be top dogs in Manchester. The situation may not appear so clear cut in 10 years' time if United have spent that period in slow decline and City have been to a few Champions League finals. Yes, the history books and statistics will still show United in the ascendancy, but history books are not necessarily what spark the imagination of football-mad schoolboys. Beckham may have idolised United from afar in his formative years, but who is to say future generations will not grow up venerating the deeds of Carlos Tevez and Shay Given instead? Right now there must be hundreds of 13- and 14-year-olds who think that Chelsea are a far better side and a much more dynamic club than Liverpool, whatever the Kop might have to say on the subject.

Chelsea have never won a European Cup, which puts them miles behind Liverpool and United in the English pecking order, yet they are Champions League regulars with a habit of reaching the later stages. This puts them miles ahead of, say, Spurs, in the London pecking order, despite the fact that Spurs are supposed to have all the history. Spurs have never even played in the Champions League, let alone lost a final on penalties and been robbed of a second by some iffy refereeing. Whatever you think about where their money comes from (and bear in mind Chelsea were playing Champions League football before Roman Abramovich's takeover) or how they have gone about their business, it has to be admitted that Carlo Ancelotti's team are the capital's big cheeses at the moment and it has all come about in a relatively short space of time. The season that Liverpool last won a league title, 1989-90, was Chelsea's first up from a short spell in the Second Division. No one at Anfield or Stamford Bridge 20 years ago would have imagined the next couple of decades would pan out in quite the way they have.

Say what you like about them lacking class or manners, Chelsea have also given themselves a history. In addition to their ancient history (1955 title and 1970 FA Cup), the Blues can now boast four more FA Cup triumphs, back-to-back league titles in 2005 and 2006, and (almost) back-to-back Champions League finals in 2008 and 2009. So the house is hardly empty, and the decorators are still at work. Manchester City's house, it must be said, is achingly, groaningly empty, as a banner updated at Old Trafford every season joyously points out. But things can change, and even a Carling Cup final would be a start. Win the thing and that banner will have to come down as well – every journey starts with a single step and all that. City do have a sort of history in any case, apart from the couple of titles and handful of FA Cups they accrued before United got their act together. Matt Busby used to play for City, how's that for starters? Before he moved to Liverpool, of course. Maine Road was not only the largest club ground in England when it opened, it was temporarily home to United after the second world war while bomb damage to Old Trafford was repaired.

City are not complete arrivistes, in other words; they have not come from nowhere. One can easily understand resentment in less well-connected circles about the way they suddenly came into money, and certainly the way they have been trying to throw it about, but there is no morality in football at the moment, only cash or the lack of it. Look at the mess Liverpool find themselves in at present, after all those years of careful husbandry, doing the right thing by their fans and building up a base for outstanding achievement through solid footballing principles. All United's current woes can be traced directly to the club's own decision to raise money by floating itself on the Stock Exchange, becoming a publicly owned company and therefore a saleable commodity. City have simply been taken over by someone with more money, though it is possible United fans are also piqued by the fact that City's owners follow football a tad more closely than the Glazers.

Precisely because football success is now more likely to stem from the bank vault rather than the boot room, it is unsafe to say history cannot be challenged or quickly rewritten. Ask Arsène Wenger or Rafa Benítez about how hard it is to compete with opponents who can keep buying rather than building, constantly topping up their quality level by an expensive process of trial and error. Or ask Wolves about history. With Manchester United, Stan Cullis's side could claim to have been the team of the 1950s, with three titles, the captain of England and some pioneering European exploits, but since then they have been to the bottom division and back, and are now owned by a businessman who really wanted to buy Liverpool. When David Jones went to Molineux in 2001 he took down the pictures of the Billy Wright era from the walls, because he felt the club should not be living in the past. Sam Allardyce, in contrast, has just had photographs of Blackburn winning trophies under Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness restored to Ewood corridors, because he wants his players to be proud of the club and does not imagine the past will be returning any time soon. "Everyone knows what Jack Walker did for this club, but anyone wanting to do the same now would have to pump in £150m or £200m, not £30m or £40m," he said. "It would be very unusual for anyone to want to do that, don't you think?"

Blackburn always were an anomaly in the Premier League. But if there are two major clubs in the same major city, and one is filthy rich while the other is so mired in debt it is considering selling the family silver, it is at least possible, let's not put it any stronger than that, that the next 10 years will be nothing like the last. History, like everything else in football, can be bought.
 

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