what the fuck is it about asia, its hardly a football hotbed is it? the reply to gill is.. come to south america, they know a bit about footy there, and what do you see in the streets... city and chelsea shirts, liverpool shirts do not exist down here and united and arse shirts are a rarity , so basicaly fuck asia they know nowt about footyGreat post Chris. Something I forgot to add the other night about David Gill's complimentary (though presumably through gritted teeth) remarks about City was that he ended with "But they'll never be bigger than us. We are the biggest club in Asia with Liverpool second and they've won nothing for 10 years". Shame that I couldn't ask the obvious follow up "Which would you rather be - PL champions on a regular basis or the biggest club in Asia?"
Great post thatLong post. Sorry.
The rivalry issue is an interesting one.
Does anyone who is say 40 or older remember United saying that Liverpool were their main rivals in the 80s? Me neither. To Liverpool, the rags were insignificant in the 80s. They (Liverpool) considered themselves (with some justification) a cut above all other teams. Their only true rivals were Everton, who were not just their closest rivals geographically but in the mid 80s in particular were as close to being on a par with Liverpool as any team. Sure any Manchester/Merseyside clash was a big affair, but then so was a game against Spurs or Arsenal. The real debate at the time was whether the Merseyside derby, the Manchester derby or the North London derby was the most intense affair. Probably in the 80s the Merseyside derby was the honest answer as they had trophies to fight each other for as well as local pride. But the supposed Liverpool-United rivalry was simply non-existent as a talking point in sport.
Ferguson changed that particular landscape. His stated intention on taking over at United was, famously, to 'knock Liverpool off their fucking perch'. Nonetheless as is well documented his first few years at the swamp saw him closer to getting axed than to challenging Liverpool. This of course was the time when he spent £20m (which in today's market would probably come it around £200m) on a new team that got stuffed 5-1 by us in our first season after promotion. He described that in his first autobiography as the most embarrassing and humiliating defeat of his career. (There's been a worse one since but that's another story.) This is IMHO important and I will come back to it.
As time went by, the period in which the rags became noticeably stronger coincided with Liverpool's star beginning to fade and the rise of Arsenal first under George Graham and later under Wenger. There were however a few years in the early Ferguson period when Liverpool and the rags were direct rivals in league terms.It is interesting that in that period, the very early 90s, Ferguson rarely said anything controversial about the Liverpool-United rivalry. He certainly did not talk it up at that point in anything like the manner he would do in later years.
This is where Ferguson's own personality comes into the picture more clearly. Ferguson rarely said anything without an ulterior motive. 'Fergie's mind games' became by-words for it. So it is interesting to look at the point at which he started to talk up the Liverpool rivalry, and compare that with how he talked up (or down) other rivals and rivalries.
But first, back to the 5-1. You got a clearer insight into Ferguson's views on us and that particular defeat after the rags beat us 5-0 at the swamp in a midweek game in about 1994/5. Ferguson said afterwards he felt for our manager at the time (Horton?) because, said Ferguson, he would be 'goaded for months'. This IMO tells you a lot about Ferguson - all the times he would be out with his wife, or stop to put petrol in his car and a City fan asked him 'what time is it? Five past United!' hurt, and hurt deeply. One of the ways in which Ferguson - never one to turn the other cheek - got his revenge for that particular humiliation was by emphasising and highlighting how insignificant we were to them - and of course, humiliating City with their insignificance in the process. He made the point immediately after that 5-0 defeat that United had bigger fish to fry. It wasn't the result that defined their season (as by implication, and in fairness with some justification, it had been for us in 1989). The insinuation was that we were small time in our mentality for looking at that win as the be-all and end-all of our season and not simply a particularly satisfying three points. 'We're bigger than that, and you're not' is basically what he was saying. It was a calculated insult, as all Taggart's insults tended to be.
Of course City have always been United's direct rivals, it is mischievous or idiotic to pretend otherwise, but rarely has that rivalry taken any form other than the historic/geographic. In my lifetime, only in the late 60s have we been direct rivals in terms of challenging for honours prior to the takeover. In the 70s each had limited success in the cup competitions but IIRC City had by a distance the better of it in the league most of the time - we were challenging for the title while they were being relegated - and by the 80s we had started to become a yo-yo club. However the fierce rivalry between us and them despite neither being a direct competitor of the other during that period needs no explanation.
The mid 90s was really IIRC the point at which Ferguson really started talking up the United-Liverpool rivalry. We of course spent the second half of the 90s outside the top flight, and whilst Blackburn and in particular Arsenal were more credible title challengers to the rags, ferguson was keen to talk up a rivalry in which United more often than not would be the winners. This is interesting: the way in which Ferguson belittled his actual challengers by talking up the rivalry with a team who in purely footballing terms was much less of a threat, and bigger up United by pointing to a rivalry with inferior opposition. Sure Liverpool would win games against United from time to time, but they never really threatened United's dominance during the mid 90s and have not done ever since.
You can see the same pattern repeating itself in the United-Arsenal rivalry of the late 90s/early 00s, where despite there being a huge amount of antipathy between (say) Vieira and Keane (fights in the tunnel, pizzas being thrown around etc) Ferguson talked up not the very real and very intense rivalry with Arsenal but the Liverpool rivalry (which was also real and intense but did not involve a fellow title challenger). Later, when Chelsea and United were the main title rivals to each other in the mid-late 00s, I remember Ferguson saying that United-Chelsea games had none of the spice or history of the "great United-Arsenal" rivalry of some years previously, which of course at the time he had talked down. Funny, you don't hear much about the United-Arsenal rivalry these days unless you're watching repeats of the Premier League Years on Sky.
You can see this pattern continuing through to the end of the Ferguson era. There is simply no question but that City were United's main rivals on and off the pitch from about the time Mancini took over until the end of the Ferguson era. (There may be some truth in the idea that Ferguson went when he did because he saw what the future held.) However he maintained his tactic, employed for the previous 20 years, of belittling his main rivals in favour of some fierce rivalry with a team who weren't actually a direct threat. Once again, the Liverpool rivalry was talked up and the City rivalry minimised.
And this is the point: when Ferguson gave his 'opinion' on the state of United's rivalry with AN Other club, he did not do so as a sort of football historian, keen to ensure the current state of the game was captured for posterity, he did so in order to obtain a competitive advantage on or off the field. He belittled us by reduced us to the status of 'irrelevant', even though we have been the rags' main geographical rivals for over a century. (If you're a kid growing up in Greater Manchester in the late 90s/early 00s, why would you want to support an irrelevance?) He largely ignored the rivalry with Liverpool for the brief period they were actually direct competitors only to talk it up when their title threat had faded and died and he had a number of titles under his belt. He minimised the rivalry with Arsenal when it was real only to talk it up when Chelsea were the main threat. He maintained his tactic of belittling us as the noisy neighbours (another of his turns of phrase that has passed into football's vocabulary) when Chelsea were struggling after Mourinho's departure and we were challenging them in the latter stages of both cup competitions and in the league.
And United supporters, in the main, have swallowed this.
So when some rag pops up, as this laughable incident shows, and says 'Barcelona and Liverpool are our rivals' it is neither true historically, nor in geographical terms, nor is it true in terms of either team being direct competitors (unless he is talking about whether Liverpool can pip them to that fourth Champions League place). It is simply swallowing and regurgitating a myth Ferguson built for his own purposes.
In the same way, United were our historical rivals even when we were two leagues apart, they are our main geographical rivals and always have been. We are competing, even more so now both clubs are global entities, against them for supporters in Ardwick and Adelaide, Beswick and Beijing, Castlefield and Calcutta.
But in footballing terms, Chelsea are plainly our rivals now. Barring the same six points that are available in our two games against them that are also available in our two games against leicester, the rags are a complete irrelevance.
I've asked me Father about this topic in the past as he has a brother who is a United seasoncard holder and one of his best mates is a Liverpool seasoncard holder (I don't like either of them when it comes to talking football!haha).Long post. Sorry.
The rivalry issue is an interesting one.
Does anyone who is say 40 or older remember United saying that Liverpool were their main rivals in the 80s? Me neither. To Liverpool, the rags were insignificant in the 80s. They (Liverpool) considered themselves (with some justification) a cut above all other teams. Their only true rivals were Everton, who were not just their closest rivals geographically but in the mid 80s in particular were as close to being on a par with Liverpool as any team. Sure any Manchester/Merseyside clash was a big affair, but then so was a game against Spurs or Arsenal. The real debate at the time was whether the Merseyside derby, the Manchester derby or the North London derby was the most intense affair. Probably in the 80s the Merseyside derby was the honest answer as they had trophies to fight each other for as well as local pride. But the supposed Liverpool-United rivalry was simply non-existent as a talking point in sport.
Ferguson changed that particular landscape. His stated intention on taking over at United was, famously, to 'knock Liverpool off their fucking perch'. Nonetheless as is well documented his first few years at the swamp saw him closer to getting axed than to challenging Liverpool. This of course was the time when he spent £20m (which in today's market would probably come it around £200m) on a new team that got stuffed 5-1 by us in our first season after promotion. He described that in his first autobiography as the most embarrassing and humiliating defeat of his career. (There's been a worse one since but that's another story.) This is IMHO important and I will come back to it.
As time went by, the period in which the rags became noticeably stronger coincided with Liverpool's star beginning to fade and the rise of Arsenal first under George Graham and later under Wenger. There were however a few years in the early Ferguson period when Liverpool and the rags were direct rivals in league terms.It is interesting that in that period, the very early 90s, Ferguson rarely said anything controversial about the Liverpool-United rivalry. He certainly did not talk it up at that point in anything like the manner he would do in later years.
This is where Ferguson's own personality comes into the picture more clearly. Ferguson rarely said anything without an ulterior motive. 'Fergie's mind games' became by-words for it. So it is interesting to look at the point at which he started to talk up the Liverpool rivalry, and compare that with how he talked up (or down) other rivals and rivalries.
But first, back to the 5-1. You got a clearer insight into Ferguson's views on us and that particular defeat after the rags beat us 5-0 at the swamp in a midweek game in about 1994/5. Ferguson said afterwards he felt for our manager at the time (Horton?) because, said Ferguson, he would be 'goaded for months'. This IMO tells you a lot about Ferguson - all the times he would be out with his wife, or stop to put petrol in his car and a City fan asked him 'what time is it? Five past United!' hurt, and hurt deeply. One of the ways in which Ferguson - never one to turn the other cheek - got his revenge for that particular humiliation was by emphasising and highlighting how insignificant we were to them - and of course, humiliating City with their insignificance in the process. He made the point immediately after that 5-0 defeat that United had bigger fish to fry. It wasn't the result that defined their season (as by implication, and in fairness with some justification, it had been for us in 1989). The insinuation was that we were small time in our mentality for looking at that win as the be-all and end-all of our season and not simply a particularly satisfying three points. 'We're bigger than that, and you're not' is basically what he was saying. It was a calculated insult, as all Taggart's insults tended to be.
Of course City have always been United's direct rivals, it is mischievous or idiotic to pretend otherwise, but rarely has that rivalry taken any form other than the historic/geographic. In my lifetime, only in the late 60s have we been direct rivals in terms of challenging for honours prior to the takeover. In the 70s each had limited success in the cup competitions but IIRC City had by a distance the better of it in the league most of the time - we were challenging for the title while they were being relegated - and by the 80s we had started to become a yo-yo club. However the fierce rivalry between us and them despite neither being a direct competitor of the other during that period needs no explanation.
The mid 90s was really IIRC the point at which Ferguson really started talking up the United-Liverpool rivalry. We of course spent the second half of the 90s outside the top flight, and whilst Blackburn and in particular Arsenal were more credible title challengers to the rags, ferguson was keen to talk up a rivalry in which United more often than not would be the winners. This is interesting: the way in which Ferguson belittled his actual challengers by talking up the rivalry with a team who in purely footballing terms was much less of a threat, and bigger up United by pointing to a rivalry with inferior opposition. Sure Liverpool would win games against United from time to time, but they never really threatened United's dominance during the mid 90s and have not done ever since.
You can see the same pattern repeating itself in the United-Arsenal rivalry of the late 90s/early 00s, where despite there being a huge amount of antipathy between (say) Vieira and Keane (fights in the tunnel, pizzas being thrown around etc) Ferguson talked up not the very real and very intense rivalry with Arsenal but the Liverpool rivalry (which was also real and intense but did not involve a fellow title challenger). Later, when Chelsea and United were the main title rivals to each other in the mid-late 00s, I remember Ferguson saying that United-Chelsea games had none of the spice or history of the "great United-Arsenal" rivalry of some years previously, which of course at the time he had talked down. Funny, you don't hear much about the United-Arsenal rivalry these days unless you're watching repeats of the Premier League Years on Sky.
You can see this pattern continuing through to the end of the Ferguson era. There is simply no question but that City were United's main rivals on and off the pitch from about the time Mancini took over until the end of the Ferguson era. (There may be some truth in the idea that Ferguson went when he did because he saw what the future held.) However he maintained his tactic, employed for the previous 20 years, of belittling his main rivals in favour of some fierce rivalry with a team who weren't actually a direct threat. Once again, the Liverpool rivalry was talked up and the City rivalry minimised.
And this is the point: when Ferguson gave his 'opinion' on the state of United's rivalry with AN Other club, he did not do so as a sort of football historian, keen to ensure the current state of the game was captured for posterity, he did so in order to obtain a competitive advantage on or off the field. He belittled us by reduced us to the status of 'irrelevant', even though we have been the rags' main geographical rivals for over a century. (If you're a kid growing up in Greater Manchester in the late 90s/early 00s, why would you want to support an irrelevance?) He largely ignored the rivalry with Liverpool for the brief period they were actually direct competitors only to talk it up when their title threat had faded and died and he had a number of titles under his belt. He minimised the rivalry with Arsenal when it was real only to talk it up when Chelsea were the main threat. He maintained his tactic of belittling us as the noisy neighbours (another of his turns of phrase that has passed into football's vocabulary) when Chelsea were struggling after Mourinho's departure and we were challenging them in the latter stages of both cup competitions and in the league.
And United supporters, in the main, have swallowed this.
So when some rag pops up, as this laughable incident shows, and says 'Barcelona and Liverpool are our rivals' it is neither true historically, nor in geographical terms, nor is it true in terms of either team being direct competitors (unless he is talking about whether Liverpool can pip them to that fourth Champions League place). It is simply swallowing and regurgitating a myth Ferguson built for his own purposes.
In the same way, United were our historical rivals even when we were two leagues apart, they are our main geographical rivals and always have been. We are competing, even more so now both clubs are global entities, against them for supporters in Ardwick and Adelaide, Beswick and Beijing, Castlefield and Calcutta.
But in footballing terms, Chelsea are plainly our rivals now. Barring the same six points that are available in our two games against them that are also available in our two games against leicester, the rags are a complete irrelevance.
Gary, it was an enjoyable and interesting way to pass a couple of hours.
The tone was set early on when Simon Wadsworth rolled out the "City aren't our rivals, we still view Barca, Bayern and Liverpool as our rivals". His comments didn't quite elicit the indignant outrage from the (predominantly blue) audience he clearly hoped. Instead of shouts of protest, loud curses and threats of retribution there were a few wry smiles and a ripple of embarrassed laughter. Such is the measure of how much the balance of power has swung towards the blue side of Manchester over the last few years.
Following that opening gambit I thought it was difficult for the panel to establish any deep hatred between the two sides. Everyone from panelists to audience seemed to be in agreement that City have fantastic players, fantastic facilities, play fantastic football, have fantastic owners and a fantastic manager and United are shit. Difficult to disagree really. Everyone spoke well, particularly (and don't tell anyone I said this) Neil Custis who was remarkably unbiased and rational, that may have been a case of him 'adapting to his audience', but even his pro Mancini stance was not without some merit.
The only moment of concern came from the rag who offered the theory that, based on his (worryingly limited) financial expertise, the Sheik may well find himself up shit creek financially due to the crisis in China. To be honest, I reckon he's probably got someone looking out for that kind of shit and (with 30 billion quid or however much he's got) I figure he'll scrape through this particular crisis the same way he has done with every other crisis that's come and gone. So I doubt we'll be saying "goodbye and thanks for everything" in the near future. The Glazers of course are immune from that sort of stuff.
That was it in a nutshell, some interesting anecdotes but nothing like the 70's, no fighting, no bottles thrown or even any insults hurled, just the bus home at 9 o'clock.
Give that man the Blue Moon Post of the Year Trophy!
I take your point about the United in the 70s, but they had a huge beef with Leeds as well at about the same time. You don't hear much about that.
This was the golden era of football violence, smashing up train carriages, pitched battles etc but you wouldn't single the United- Liverpool clashes above United -City, Liverpool- Everton or United -Leeds.
As I see it, Ferguson rewrote history for his own purposes, the swamp dwellers swallowed it and the media still hype it up for their own gain.
One of the points I made the other night was that Liverpool-Utd rivalry is a modern thing and established by Fergie. Basically, if you look at it sensibly, Fergie's ambition in Scotland was to break up the Glasgow duopoly and make Aberdeen a credible force. When in England he saw LFC as the team with all the success. So it was inevitable that to be the most successful you have to challenge the best.
To me the LFC-Utd rivalry was a little one sided with the least successful side desperate to overcome the successful one. Then that rivalry became stronger as Utd equalled and then past liverpool's domestic record.
In the 30s Arsenal were City's main rivals, attracting greater crowds for Arsenal City games than Manc derbies. In the 50s Wolves were Utd's rivals, and in 60s Leeds were the Reds main rivals. Today Chelsea are City's you could argue, BUT that should never downplay the Manc derby. Let's be honest Manc derbies have hurt Fergie more than his rivalry with LFC.
The Liverpool-Utd rivalry rid not exist before the late 70s and wasn't particularly bitter then. The 2 teams have often been allies for various reasons. These moments include - 1915 the match fixing which meant that Utd stayed up when the 2 teams fixed a game; the busby-Shankly-paisley connection which meant they were close; the early 20th century agreement between them re shirts (basically, they lobbied the League to prevent teams from wearing anything but red or white; their idea being that home teams must all wear red and away white!) and so on.
If the LFC-MUFC derby was this great big historical rivalry going back to ship canal etc then why were their games not intense affairs pre 70s? Why weren't City and Everton bitter rivals when they were both challenging in early 1900s and 1930s? Why were LFC and MUFC so close?
I wanted to talk more about this the other night, especially about the match fixing, but United weren't really a threat or challenge in the debate. Maybe next year we'll stir things up with a mcfc-Chelsea rivalry debate. Perhaps we could say this goes back to the industrial revolution, and link it with "what Manchester does today....". Actually, we could easily claim a long rivalry with Chelsea, bringing up several grudge games over the decades, linking back to our Div 2 battles in 1983-84 and the fmc in 1986. That would be as credible as the LFC-MUFC history!
Er… golden era? Is that quite the way you wanted to put it?
Anyway, on that point, I'll tell you this. There were only two grounds in the country where I ever felt seriously in danger. One was West Ham. We know about that. They were organised for violence.
The other was, most definitely, Anfield.
Everyone spoke well, particularly (and don't tell anyone I said this) Neil Custis who was remarkably unbiased and rational, that may have been a case of him 'adapting to his audience', but even his pro Mancini stance was not without some merit.
Simon is a Manc red who knows exactly what the history is. We didn't debate it much because, in truth he knows the real situation. At last year's debate I was neutral and chaired the event and we had another red Daniel Harris on the panel. He has a completely different take, believing everything Fergie says as gospel, whereas Simon was more critical of Utd than the rest of us. He reminded me of real reds like some of my relatives - the ones who were born and raised in Manchester and remember Div 2 etc. Daniel is a red because of some convoluted story involving his dad, and he of course has only know Utd under Fergie.Hi Gary.
Did Simon Wadsworth have any sort of cogent answer to this? I mean I appreciate that he was probably mischief making/trolling/shit stirring when he said 'City aren't our rivals, Liverpool and Barca are' but that seems to me to be a simple continuation of Ferguson's 'don't acknowledge them, belittle them' approach. Did he, in other words, have any serious answer to the point that the Liverpool-United rivalry was taken to new levels by Ferguson, and then only after he had got the upper hand?
Simon is a Manc red who knows exactly what the history is. We didn't debate it much because, in truth he knows the real situation. At last year's debate I was neutral and chaired the event and we had another red Daniel Harris on the panel. He has a completely different take, believing everything Fergie says as gospel, whereas Simon was more critical of Utd than the rest of us. He reminded me of real reds like some of my relatives - the ones who were born and raised in Manchester and remember Div 2 etc. Daniel is a red because of some convoluted story involving his dad, and he of course has only know Utd under Fergie.
Real reds know, modern reds don't. Maybe we'll be like that in the future when we talk of our great rivalry with LFC - much more important than the derby ;-) hmm!
I think if you're a red who has never lived in Manchester and come from a family without Manc roots then I think it's difficult to grasp. The other way around works because, let's face it, most football fans have a reason to hate united, so it's not as obvious, but if you're a modern, non-Manc red you probably will never grasp the Derby's true significance. Their loss I guess.