A little story.
A good few months back — it was the home game against Tottenham (that weird game where the slide began, maybe, although we didn't believe it at the time — I was at the Market St tram stop waiting for a tram to take me out to the campus (I know, I know, wrong stop, I was half-asleep or something). This couple clocked my colours, and she started talking to me. Her bloke was down the end of the platform. They'd had a jar — or ten. Anyway, they were United fans. The banter was ok, nothing too aggressive (I've often been ok with rag mancs, rather than the other sort, from Ulan Bator or wherever, funnily enough). And we got talking seriously, while I waited for this tram that was never going to come.
She worked for them. Something to do with events managing, marketing, something of that sort. I asked her what the financial situation was from the in-house point of view. She said outright, without mincing her words, that it was disastrous. All the perks that everybody working for the club had benefitted from for years had been cancelled. The Christmas party for all backroom staff had been cancelled, first time she'd ever seen it. And so on. She said there was a general sense of financial doom hanging over the club (not her words, but give me some leeway to interpret, I like the apocalyptic language).
It was a bit weird because before I moved off she insisted on giving me a big hug — her bloke was standing a few yards away by that time — then he did. Now I'm not a big hugger, even with my nearest and dearest. Never have been. Almost never with friends, except for one who insists on it. What was I going to do? Be churlish and refuse? As I say, they'd had a skin full. Anyway, that's a detail…
I don't believe the effect of last night can be exaggerated. The repercussions will be felt for years, maybe. I'm not just talking about United's ability to recruit genuine quality players — although that too, they've already lost a huge amount of the drawing power they once had — but their financial situation. Very possibly for years to come. I could see that lot spiralling into a slide, perenially being in the bottom half of the table. Or worse — the unthinkable, relegation, is now thinkable. Probably won't happen, they'd buy their way of it in January I suppose. But it can be envisaged. Above all, they're not getting that huge slice of the pie from the Premier League that they were so happy to invent (along with several others), merchandising (although that still probably functions up to a point in Phuket, Brisbane, Xian, etc.), and more or less assured CL qualification year in, year out.
Can I find it in my heart to feel sorry for them? Nope. I search every corner of my heart, and I find no trace of pity. Instead, this comes to mind:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions red
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— P.B. Shelley
