The battle for Manchester begins

Manchester’s battle begins


Paul Flynn
Red Devil

MY old man said ‘be a Citeh fan’, and I said, ‘b******s, you’re a ****!
This tart and unedifying couplet stars a song which has rolled down from the Old Trafford terraces for nigh on 40 years and perfectly encapsulates the deep antipathy the red half of Manchester holds for the blue half.
Admittedly the opening lines of a pretty gruesome ditty which makes me squirm, does, with its George Formby jauntiness and toxic sentiment, nail the messianic scorn United fans feel for their resentful neighbours.           
It is the scorn the teenage indie-kid feels for the biff at the bus-stop with a ‘tache and white socks: the scorn of one known the world over for the neophyte.
It isn’t particularly admirable but it serves to remind us that although the two clubs have always had a pretty amiable relationship, ‘Rags’ and ‘Berties’ rarely get beyond mutual loathing.
United fans, in the main, see the club as an iconoclastic, swaggering, and mercurial expression of their own selves. The team which took the name of Manchester all over the globe and made it sing.
City fans trumpet the virtue of staying close to their roots, ‘the  real Manchester club’, steadfast in adversity, droll, but always at pains to portray us as cult members worshipping at  the altar of success, and worst of all, as inauthentic Mancunians. Both are generalisations.
Many of United’s ‘clients’ dutifully trudge to the boozer in replica shirts and spoon up every bit of commercial dross the club put their badge upon and yes, there are wonderfully laconic and  clued-up City supporters out there (Andrew Murphy, take a  bow).
So what? Well, with City’s sugar-daddies buying up a bus load of world-class forwards (Aguero is brilliant, Silva a little genius) and a shed load of big bar stewards at the back, the rivalry between the fans is going to morph into new territory.
New suburbs of spite; an Arndale of antipathy. No longer is it chippy little City snapping at United’s heels. We sit first and second, and I can’t see anyone else getting a look in. And it’s only October.
They don’t have our team ethic but the power and talent is there already. The Tevez debacle should blow over but it’d be just like City’s suits to turn old Kettle Neck’s minor naughtiness into a Coriolanian catastrophe, causing all sorts of mayhem.
Balotelli is due another nutty and poor Dickie Rock lookalike Mancini must be wondering what’s next?         
Meanwhile, that sagacious paragon of restraint, Sir Alex, has a host of attacking options to ameliorate the shakiness of the back four. Norwich really should have punished the ever-sloppy Jonny Evans and the out-of-position Antonio Valencia on Saturday.
I think old Antonio spent most of the second-half in the megastore. A very duff win. The only highlights for me were the Norwich fans’ chants of ‘can we have our scarves back?’ and the delightful but surreal sight of the great Stephen Fry at a football match.
That just makes me smile. Dunno why.          
But we’re doing our stuff and with Liverpool and City up next, there’ll be plenty  of fireworks on the pitch and hopefully in these pages.
It would be remiss of me not to welcome City columnist Paul  Flynn to our little part of the store. Welcome Paul. It can’t be easy writing your column bouncing up and down with your back to the keyboard.
Enjoy your football. You too, Carlos.