I had not read this thread before I watched the documentary so I was not particularly disappointed with what I saw. I expected a programme about the Manchester derby presented by Cantona to be extremely one-sided and if truth be told it was actually quite a bit more balanced than I had expected it to be. I was interested to hear the players (Giggs and Cantona at least) and even Taggart himself actually saying how much this derby means to their fans. I was also quite impressed that it focused on the Manchester derby at all, given what Taggart has been saying for years about Liverpool. It is interesting that the ITV executives who wanted to feature the rags/dippers game were actually taken in by all the ‘we’re not bothered about City, they are not our real rivals’ mind games, and yet the programme they eventually made shows Fergie’s mind games to be exactly that.
What amazes me is that from what Gary James says, the editors have actually gone out of their way to adapt the original french programme to make it more United friendly – eg airbrushing out our success and their failures in the 10 years after they won the European cup and rewriting the history of the birth of the two clubs to make United look older. (Did everyone else find that frankly pathetic? I don’t have a problem with them screening some idiot saying ‘that’s the biggest council house in the world’, because let’s face it we don’t think much of the swamp either, but ignoring inconvenient facts turns this from a documentary into a piece of fiction. ) In other words, some prick at ITV has decided to change the editorial slant of the programme. Why? Who gives a shit. I’ve got more important things to worry about.
So to the blues who were in the programme last night, it is good to hear that you took part in a programme which was fair and balanced and informative and not simply a 30 minute advert for the rags. It’s just a shame they didn’t show that programme last night.
