Paul Flynn
Red Devil
I WON’T contribute to the fuss being made over Wayne Rooney’s spectacular winner against Manchester City but for this: it was beautiful; and that’s what football should be all about. If you can’t get that, go pore over your stats and balance sheets.
Sunday’s newspapers were awash with hyperbole, and football websites are humming with the back-and-forth of partisan invective over Rooney’s overhead kick. But nobody can say that in its conception and execution, it won’t be talked of as one of the most thrilling sights, one of the greatest goals ever seen in this fixture. A thing of beauty.
All week I had a sense of unease about this game. Apart from its relevance in the race for the title, it is us against them. And ever since I was a United-mad nipper, kicking a ball against the perimeter wall of City’s Kippax Stand, this fixture has always had my insides heaving like the dance-floor of the Hacienda. It is our Agincourt; our Gettysburg.
This is a strong, athletic and lairy City team, and I felt maybe United’s midfield bantams would struggle to compete. As things turned out, it was pretty even after a shaky start. Vidic and Smalling stood firm and were the well-spring of United’s belief. Not even this United will let you push them around in their own house. City have bought talented individuals, but United are united.
Rooney’s balletic offering will, I fear, overshadow Nani’s sleek finish in the memory, but it will serve to ram home the idea that United’s genetic indomitability delivers even when their customary flair deserts them as it has done for worryingly regular occasions this season. United will usually pull some wee bit of magic dust from the bottom of the bag.
United’s slide into disciplined functionality may have been a necessary evil in order to get through a transition period between Ronaldo-inspired verve and a renewed covenant with our core values, and it may even have helped Fergie to bed in a promising back four. I like the look of Chris Smalling alongside Vidic, and if Evra’s torpor is arrested, there’s a good look about the defence.
Rooney’s season started when his overhead kick silenced the Berties on Saturday: Berbatov will thrill and enrage as ever, then there’s the Man United version of Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknown: Xavier Hernandez ... the Little Pea. They don’t know how he’ll score but they know he will. So with further adventures in Europe looming and with a Chelsea and Liverpool away, this narrow victory couldn’t have come at a better time.
Sometimes a footballer will score a goal which not only wins a game but galvanises a team and spurs them to greater levels. The sight of Rooney’s ample frame shaping to make contact with the ball will live on in the memory: like a levitating pig, bless his lardy-arse. For Manchester United, hugely in debt, never could an overhead be more welcome. Enjoy your football.
