What is it exactly that we hate about em ?

[MCFC BOB]

More people searching for ammunition. If you don't know why you hate them, it's because you do it because you think you are supposed to.

We've had fucking essays written about this in the past:

You are hypocrites, glaringly obvious to anyone with a modicum of intelligence.

You welcomed Michael Knighton on the pitch.

You didn't want Sky.

You let Martin Edwards take his pieces of silver.

You let it become a PLC.

You weren't happy when it was delisted.

You were happpy when racing tycoons took control.

You weren't happy when said tycoons decided to get back at Fergie and sell to the Glazers.

You are now not happy because they don't have the funds to do the job properly.

You are happy because another bunch of opportunistic businessmen sense a chance to cash in on a tidal wave of your hypocrisy, kidding you they have the club's best interests at heart.

You are a sham group of supporters, whose own sense of entitlement, leaves you bereft of any normal footballing sensibilities.

You want United to be rescued, by the very same set of circumstances that you ridicule ickle old City for.

You say you can't buy history, yet have done for more than 60 years.

Well on this occasion by old teletext red, your history is your own downfall. A giant who gorged itself to the point that the real financial predators out there couldn't resist carving you up into little pieces.

You can't buy history, well thank fuck for that, because to put into context, your going to be paying off that history for the next two generations.

And I for one, can rest easy, knowing a configuration of perfect circumstances have transpired which allows me and fellow blues to just sit back and watch you implode from within.

Possibly, but we will never lose the core City fans attitude, and that is our greatest defence against the criticism.

The problem is, most United fans are under the age of 30. These fans have been used to winning trophies for the past 18 years, most of their adult lifes. Finishing second is an absolute disaster for them, as is three trophyless seasons in a row. This makes them incredibly blinkered and arrogant to the rest of the footballing world. It's not their fault, it's the culture of the club that has fostered under Ferguson. An undeserved sense of grandeur, an unwillingness to take anybody else's opinion, a complete refusal to laugh with other fans at their own team. For them, football is serious business, and winning is the only thing. You know what? I don't think this is a particularly good trait in a fan.

City fans of the same age have seen year upon year of shit. We have been forced to grow up with a gallows humour, and an acceptance of our faults. We can't just sweep them away when they are glaring directly at us. The whole culture of our club is different, as is shown by the jibes at City now coming out of the United fanbase. 'Undeserved, no history, small club' are all tenets of a fans who has no appreciation for the history of their own club. Martin Edwards was the Sheik before the Sheik. United were known as mega-spenders all the way back in the early 20th century (if Gary James is reading, perhaps he can confirm or deny this). United's fanbase was always smaller than City's in the Manchester area, back when that sort of thing was important. I distinctly remember my grandad telling me how people used to laugh at United for 'importing fans' from Ireland and London back in the pre-war days.

The United fans of today know only success, whereas City know both sides of the footballing coin. In a sense, United fans really don't appreciate the full game, and can probably name about two teams below the Championship without looking them up (and they will either be local/United have played them in a friendly recently). If I ask the typical United fan who has just won League 1, most wouldn't have an idea, whereas a lot City fans would (in my experience).
United are a global club, and revel inside of that. They are essentially a nomad club, with no real roots in a city. of course, the Newton Heath days were different, but as the 90's took off, the club lost it's connection to the area.
When we welcome Tevez to Manchester, we don't just do it geographically.

All of the signs coming out of City are different, we are making a connection to our heritage and our city in a previously unknown manner. We are associating the brand of Manchester City with the city of Manchester. Cook has said these exact words himself.

Yes, we might inherit 50,000 plastics. That's fine, they can buy the shirts, the mugs and the bedspreads to boost our already overwhelming coffers. But the one difference between United and City, is that we will never lose our connection to our city, and sell out it's own people in favour of the other markets. Spiritually and geographically, we will always remain MANCHESTER City.

They can't help it, they're a whole club full of slime, scum and leeches built off of the back of a tragic plane crash 50 years ago, who pervade an attitude of gross arrogance, despite their ineptitude, that attracts the lowest form of the human race to them.

United fans prove that devolution towards bacteria does happen, and that the most popular thing is often the shittest. We prevail because we are a class above them, in social terms, in biological terms, in football terms, in family terms, in terms of respect, and in terms of human decency.

If I had my way, I'd wait until they played Tottenham at OT, and burn the stadium down with Napalm, as this is the only way that we can raise the IQ of Britain, Ireland, Singapore and China simultaneously, whilst disallowing them to interbreed and create more robot wanker clones of them and their disloyal, ignorant, glory hunting, mass marketing, cheating, subversive, two faced, back stabbing excuse for a bankrupt business that happens to have a football team attached.

Fuck United,

No, seriously, FUCK United.

I don't like FC United either:

I'm gutted I missed this thread.

Just to make things clear; wodda, no matter how you try to frame it, no matter how inept your board of directors maybe, no matter how disillusioned you are with the United created realities of football now, no matter how you like to think of yourself as a 'proper fan', the fact remains that you turned your back on your own club.

The only time that United has actually needed its supporters to stand up and be counted in the past 50 years and you and your big FCU mates walked away. YOUR club fell into debt and seems to be falling apart at the seams, for the first time as a fan your loyalty was tested and you failed in every possible sense of the word. You're like the big hardmen at the front of the scrums, always mouthing about how big of a fan you are, about how it's United, Kids, Wife, and as soon as your club; the one who not only gave us Fergie's Fledglings, but also the Busby Babes, THAT club is the one that you turned your back on and encouraged others to do.

You are a despicable excuse for a football fan. You're actually WORSE than glory hunters. They are fairweather and come and go with the wind, you as a 'proper fan' were supposed to be there for life, in sickness and in health.

The Red Knights and the Spirit of Shankly groups won't change the world; they have a large problem changing anything in their own clubs. However, these are fans who saw the legacy of their clubs as been more important than the here and now, and tried to do something about it. The option of walking away never crossed their mind, it is absolutely unthinkable.

What you did however, was get upset that the owners of Manchester United weren't perfect (welcome to the real world by the way), so fucked off your club to go and create a cheap imitation. You complain about the state of football, then run off an create an imitation football club. You may as well have "Made in China" on your backs.

You spat upon Busby, Best, Charlton, Ferguson and Giggs the moment you walked away. The club is bigger than any one individual or owner, it's an ethos and an atmosphere that surrounds our clubs which brings us into them. You were either always a plastic and never understood this, or even worse, you were a proper fan and it didn't bother you.

The FCUM fans speak of how they are all still big United fans who are just protesting by not going and not paying any money. It's bollocks. United are in debt now more than any other club in history. What they need now, is for the proper fans to get themselves down to the games more and help them through a difficult patch. You lot however, are withholding money, and even you traitors must realise that you are forcing your own club into bankruptcy with this stuff.

That's the be all and end all. You are actually trying to wreck your own club, then have the cheek to say that you're all massive United fans.

You aren't massive United fans. Those are the guys who hate the Glazers but stayed anyway because it's their club. You guys are the equivalent of the kid who wanted to play up front and when he couldn't, went out and formed his own shit team.

You are all a bunch of disloyal turncoats, and I hope that your club goes bankrupt, you Judas bunch of *****.

I used to love Damocles. Now I think he's perfect.

What a guy.

 

[Gary James]

Somewhere on this thread I saw mention of average support and my name. Worth mentioning that I've analysed average support for City, Utd and the other local league sides for the new version of "Manchester A Football History" (published last Thursday).

Utd's all time average is just over 37,000, City's is almost 30,000. The difference has gown significantly since the late 80s when the capacity of Maine Rd plumetted and then in the 90s when OT rocketed to its current figure.

I think that's a very acceptable difference and shows that City are enjoying about 17k more than their all time average, while Utd have attracted double their all time in recent seasons.

Pre-WW2 City were by far the best supported side overall - Utd only bettered City's average on 4 occasions pre-ww2.

This doesn't mean much today other than it is possible to change the current situation.

 

[southern muppet]

Arrogance is the key word. Now, they are two reasons for arrogance.

1. As a defence mechanism, everyone else is against you etc. This is why I've actually cut them a lot more slack since we were taken over, I've seen this happen to some of our own fans, perhaps sometimes even including myself at times.

2. You are simply an obnoxious person who needs the status or illusion of status that comes with your own boasts, too compensate for some kind of insecurity of your own. This is what makes up the arrogance of the bulk of United fans. What grates even more about this is that in a lot of cases, it's UNENTITLED. Why?... Because anyone could decide to 'support' the most successful side of our generation, and thus claim bragging rights and upper-handmanship (did I just make up a word?) in the football conversations and banter at work, school etc. It's the easy way out. It's as easy as simply saying the words ''I support Man United'' in many cases because they haven't been to a game, they haven't stood there in the cold, they haven't sung for their players while they were abjectly bad and hope was nil - aside from buying the odd replica shirt, they haven't actually contributed to 'their' club in any tangible, bona fide way whatsoever.

So, with all that in mind - surely it isn't THEIR success. They are essentially stealing, taking credit for something that doesn't belong to them. It's actually not too far removed from claiming benefits while working, or something like that. It's parasitic, on top of this lack of character it displays.

I could forgive arrogance from a guy that's been to several games, and supported them from 1970-93 while not seeing them win a title for nearly a whole generation. I'd still think he was a bit of a tosser who lacked humility - but at least he's earned the right to be that. Some 17 year old who's never been, despite coming from an average-to-affluent background and living in the UK? Fuck off. There are no reasons for 'supporting' United in that sense to engender any respect, and plenty for it to engender active disrespect.

 

[Omiclops]

Damocles you are a legend.

 

[mcfc4title]

Everything.

I don't know how better to explain it but to give an example of this weekend. I was soooooooo pisssssssssed that They got 7 : 1 against Blackburn - the fact that all the news was featuring them. And that we only drew. I was happy with our resullt mind. Just more fed up because the them over there! City is a fantastic club that I love to support. Can't help it. And can't help hating them either.

 

[Wheelsy]

That rant against Soccer Club United of Manchester is the best fucking post I've read here.

 

[mancunial]

Most of them are inadequate in there lives in some way and the only way they can brag about being winners is through there club

the winning statement for me s b?
one of my best mate suports united, give him his due when i used to snap when we lost he used to say get behind them al/ but most of them are the most horrible ignorant tossers i have ever come across, i had loads of united mates in the 60s 70s, there were some good lads back then, but now they all think because they have been following united since the days of cantona they are untouchable, most think they are in some sort of club which gives them cart blanche to bully even to the extreme of teaching their kids to be as ignorant?

 

[Matty]

Throughout the footballing world there are local rivalries, they range from the small scale, Bristol City v Bristol Rovers, Blackpool v Preston etc to the big scale, Arsenal v Spurs, Liverpool v Everton, Barca v Real. Most of these will follow the normal process of “why do you hate your rivals?”. Local pride, territorial superiority etc.

City v United, however, is different. Of course I’d say this, I’m a City fan, and this is the rivalry I feel most acutely, but that doesn’t make it any less accurate.

United are unique, but not in a good way. They polarise opinion. You’ll not find another club that is so universally hated. City fans hate them, that’s to be expected, but so do Liverpool fans. So do Tottenham fans. And it’s not just teams that play them regularly that hate them, fans of all 91 other League clubs, if asked, would list United as one of their most hated clubs. They probably haven’t played them for decades, in some cases they may never have played them competitively, yet their fans still hate them. Why?

United fans will claim its jealousy; people hate them because they’re successful. Sure, for some this will contribute to it, but if that were the case then every club that enjoyed a period of sustained success would be hated, if not still then certainly at the time. Did people hate Blackburn, Blackpool, Huddersfield, Preston, Leeds, Liverpool, Forest, Villa etc when they were winning league titles, European trophies, FA Cups? Maybe a little, but nowhere near the level felt towards United.

So, if it’s not success then what is it?

It’s how United have achieved and dealt with success, that’s the crux of the issue. United fans attack City for trying to “buy the league”, yes, we are. However what they fail to understand is that they’ve been doing this for decades. The source of the money isn’t really relevant, that doesn’t change the outcome, United have consistently spent more than anyone else, and they’ve won trophies on the back of it. People don’t like that.

Then you reach the question of how have United handled success. Poorly is the answer. Everyone knows the term “a bad loser”, well United are an example of the other extreme, a “bad winner”. United win with arrogance, both the club itself and the fans thereof. Victory is seen as inevitability, something to be treated with blasé, something to use to mock and cajole opposing fans. It’s seen as a RIGHT. They don’t understand what it is to struggle, a point emphasised by their current plight. Yes, the Glazers aren’t healthy for United, and things certainly aren’t ideal, but please get a grasp on reality, you could be a HELL of a lot worse off. Look at Portsmouth, at Leeds, at Sheffield Wednesday, at Scarborough Town (most United fans won’t get that last one, but that in itself is symptomatic of their arrogance and lack of perspective). If you want to see real hardship try surviving in the lower divisions, without the tens of millions handed out by SKY and UEFA.

Hypocrisy and arrogance. That’s why people hate United, and that’s why we hate them too. We thrown in the standard local rivalry stuff too, but, hand on heart; I’m convinced I’d hate United whether I came from Manchester, Mansfield or Malaysia. Maybe not to the same vitriolic degree, but it would be there, and it would be fully justified.