No matter what embarrassments Joe Royle and City suffer on the opening day of the Premiership against Charlton, Manchester will not be turning pink this Saturday evening - nor any other Saturday. The Pink is dead. Long live the Sunday Pink.
For decades the Football Pink Final of the Manchester Evening News has faithfully charted the ups and downs of the Blues and Reds and in its heyday, when websites were found only on the fringes of park ponds and Saturday night television reporting meant a talking head, The Pink was mandatory reading.
Students leaving the city for far-flung universities, polytechnics or teaching colleges demanded their mothers parcel up The Pink and send it on so that nothing was missed. Up to last weekend it was an institution, its glory faded but still much loved and cherished.
Now it is gone, buried a week before a particularly titillating season, with both City and United in the Premiership. It is bizarre timing.
And, even though the soccer fanatics of Greater Manchester have been promised a "fantastic new-look Sunday Pink", it will never be the same. For Saturday Pinks or Greens or Blues and occasionally Buffs are dangerous animals, produced on a tightrope, with the thrill of the chase from reporter to printing press to shop counter or street corner redolent of thinly disguised panic.
The first place to look is always the late scorers column, for a front-page headline proclaiming "Tense struggle for United" might disguise an 87th-, 88th- and 90th-minute hat-trick.
Football Finals are a modern marvel, with match reports reaching the public not much more than an hour after the final whistle. Ceefax and the internet may have bruised the magic but a warm Pink 'Un after one's team has won is as lingeringly loving as any other Saturday night caress.
My footballing youth did not include away matches, which made the rush for the Football Final all the more memorable. The Grimsby Evening Telegraph always included on its front page a simple, child-like representation of a face whose mouth was upturned for a win, down-turned for a defeat and in a straight line for a draw. I can still feel that lurch of the stomach when the mouth signified the Mariners had sunk.
For close to 40 years David Meek revelled in the challenge of writing his Manchester United match reports for The Pink. "It wasn't exactly an exercise in quality writing but it was the most exciting part of the week for me."
And he remembers how Tom Henry, a football-daft former MEN editor, would check the front page of The Pink and often rewrite the headline. One painful afternoon at St James' Park, after United had been thrashed 6-1, he came up with: "United lose seven-goal thriller".
This may not quite match the Dundee Evening Telegraph's blazing "Broughty ferryman dies in sea tragedy", run with a smaller, subsidiary headline: "Titanic Sunk In Maiden Voyage", but it underlines the wonderfully one-eyed nature of football pinks.
The new MEN Sunday Pink promises "more in-depth match analysis". Meek takes umbrage. "Our match reports were entirely our own thoughts and not influenced by what the managers might say later, or the players."
The story is told of an elderly MEN news editor who, as a boy, was sent to Old Trafford on a Saturday to attach the reporter's match report to the legs of homing pigeons and despatch them to the office a few miles away.
To stop the birds flapping he clamped their wings with elastic bands. After attaching the first couple of paragraphs he rushed to the back of the stand and released the pigeon with a steady throw. Splat! He had forgotten to remove the elastic. This Saturday it would not have mattered.
that's how it was for me go the match and line up at the newsagent with the same faces each week to wait for the men van who would launch them an screech off .even our finals went up to about 85 mins ,sometimes you might get to see the final scores in the stop press ,any pictures of the match were taken in the first five mins of the game whatever happened after that you never saw a picture or you were lucky to even read about it till sunday.just thought was anyone's mum a miss pink ? wouldn't that be funnyarmadillo495 said:I recall that the version they printed outside the ground right after the final whistle, had match reports that only went up to about 85 minutes!
Then when you on your way home, you'd see people waiting outside newsagents around 6pm for the 'final' version of the pink to be delivered by a Manchester Evening News van which arrived at high speed.
mrtwiceaseason said:just been reading about the boys in blue song and the kippax flag got me thinking what happened to the pink final remember them printing it up by the supporters shop at full time .remember it still going early 90,s too .did they use to have a miss pink similar to page 3 as well ? were they local girls did anyone marry one or sister embarrass them ?
I remember that lanky long haired bloke from outside the platt lane stand in the late 70s. He was doing it for decades. I'm sure I saw him relatively recently at COMS giving something out or whatever. He hadn't changed a bit, still even had the long hair.theinvisibleman said:mrtwiceaseason said:just been reading about the boys in blue song and the kippax flag got me thinking what happened to the pink final remember them printing it up by the supporters shop at full time .remember it still going early 90,s too .did they use to have a miss pink similar to page 3 as well ? were they local girls did anyone marry one or sister embarrass them ?
I remember a yellow MEN truck with a mobile printing press in the back parked up near the Souvenir Shop printing out the final scores. There was always the same lad with lanky long hair, looked like Frank Gallagher, flogging the Pink shouting "final scores!" at the top of his voice. The challenge was to get them printed off and on the street before the crowd all disappeared. I suppose the leave 5 minute early brigade missed the Pink because they wanted to get back to their cars before 5.00pm to get the results from Sports Report! I also remember earlier they had a photo of part of the crowd from the previous home match with some spectators ringed and if it was your face ringed you won ten bob?
Didsbury Dave said:I remember that lanky long haired bloke from outside the platt lane stand in the late 70s. He was doing it for decades. I'm sure I saw him relatively recently at COMS giving something out or whatever. He hadn't changed a bit, still even had the long hair.theinvisibleman said:mrtwiceaseason said:just been reading about the boys in blue song and the kippax flag got me thinking what happened to the pink final remember them printing it up by the supporters shop at full time .remember it still going early 90,s too .did they use to have a miss pink similar to page 3 as well ? were they local girls did anyone marry one or sister embarrass them ?
I remember a yellow MEN truck with a mobile printing press in the back parked up near the Souvenir Shop printing out the final scores. There was always the same lad with lanky long hair, looked like Frank Gallagher, flogging the Pink shouting "final scores!" at the top of his voice. The challenge was to get them printed off and on the street before the crowd all disappeared. I suppose the leave 5 minute early brigade missed the Pink because they wanted to get back to their cars before 5.00pm to get the results from Sports Report! I also remember earlier they had a photo of part of the crowd from the previous home match with some spectators ringed and if it was your face ringed you won ten bob?
theinvisibleman said:I also remember earlier they had a photo of part of the crowd from the previous home match with some spectators ringed and if it was your face ringed you won ten bob?
TGR said:The Pink used to be sold on the street where we lived (Droylsden)
you could here the lad selling it for miles as he walked around
shouting 'FOOOOTBALL FIIIIIINNAAL!'
Yeh tits out Jackie used to flog it in the bogs ( men's) in the buff lolmrtwiceaseason said:just been reading about the boys in blue song and the kippax flag got me thinking what happened to the pink final remember them printing it up by the supporters shop at full time .remember it still going early 90,s too .did they use to have a miss pink similar to page 3 as well ? were they local girls did anyone marry one or sister embarrass them ?
Bluebee2 said:TGR said:The Pink used to be sold on the street where we lived (Droylsden)
you could here the lad selling it for miles as he walked around
shouting 'FOOOOTBALL FIIIIIINNAAL!'
I was one of them lads, that was my round near the Haddon Hall etc !
bellbuzzer said:if you missed the Pink there was also the Empire, a bloke used to walk down the street (about 9 o clock in Withington) bawling at the top of his voice. Billy Meredith was always in the queue on Burton rd in the early sixties. Most of the Pink was pre-printed, the outer 4 pages being left for the 3oc kick-offs, and the final scores put in the outside column on the back, actually in the vans. The vans delivering to the shops got treated like ambulances with other drivers pulling over to let them pass, and then at the shop the driver would fling the bundle out without stopping. A lot of people then used to bet on the pools and made up a fair few of those waiting.
Out of thousands of headlines, the one i remember " City go down like nine-pins" after West Brom thrashed us 9 - 2
bellbuzzer said:if you missed the Pink there was also the Empire, a bloke used to walk down the street (about 9 o clock in Withington) bawling at the top of his voice. Billy Meredith was always in the queue on Burton rd in the early sixties. Most of the Pink was pre-printed, the outer 4 pages being left for the 3oc kick-offs, and the final scores put in the outside column on the back, actually in the vans. The vans delivering to the shops got treated like ambulances with other drivers pulling over to let them pass, and then at the shop the driver would fling the bundle out without stopping. A lot of people then used to bet on the pools and made up a fair few of those waiting.
Out of thousands of headlines, the one i remember " City go down like nine-pins" after West Brom thrashed us 9 - 2