Every week the away section are guaranteed to sing two things. “We support our local team” and “Your support is fucking shit”. Doesn’t matter who the opposition, doesn’t matter how many songs we’ve sung, those two chants will get sung.
Once upon a time I could have got wound up by that but you become immune to it. Home game after home game, it’s always the same shit. Talking to the 70,000 and odd people sat inside Old Trafford as if we’re all from Kent or Ireland.
Now, I’ve made my stance on glory supporters fairly clear in the past. Whilst of course supporting your local team is something that should be encouraged, I don’t think I’m in a position, with Old Trafford literally as the closest ground to where I live and was brought up, to tell people from the middle of nowhere with some Conference side as their local team, that they should support them instead. Supporting your local team is a lot easier to do when your local team happens to be one of the best and biggest in the World.
Regardless, because of our success and history, we do have a lot of people outside of Manchester supporting us. Funny how the opposition use this as a stick to beat us with.
It’s like they’re saying “you’re a glorious team, with glorious history, a filled trophy cabinet, which would make people from our city choose to support your team rather than ours! Ha ha! People would actually rather suffer the abuse of being a glory supporter, have to travel miles upon miles to watch your team play, than support the team we do! Ha! So there!”
I flicked over to the Spurs vs Wigan match tonight to see Zokoro lying flat out on the ground. With the fans becoming bored and restless, a chant started up. “We support, we support, we support our local team!” What the fuck?
I can only assume it was the Spurs fans on the receiving end because I really can’t see how anyone would think Wigan were drawing in crowds from outside the locality. But then, are there lots of people outside of London, travelling to White Hart Lane, to watch Spurs on a Friday night?
So, is this a chant that does the rounds at every Premiership ground every weekend? The fans of the team perceived to be the smaller of the two starting it up everywhere they go? It’s pathetic.
It goes without saying there are more than enough people in Old Trafford who could return the chant, singing truthfully that we too support our local team, but what’s the need? What point do we have to prove? Which is why in response we don’t sing about our team, the Champions of England, Europe and the World, but theirs instead.
“You support, you support, you support a load of shit!”
Don’t forget about Banana Skins For Terry
Man Utd News 24/7
“We support our local team” and “Your support is fucking shit”. is the biggest load of bullshit we get chanted at us, we outsung wigan and blackburn all game but the one chant they decided to sing was ‘your support is fucking shit’ yet for the whole match we’d been out singing them, and the “We support our local team” isn’t actually a fact even the MASSIVE city fans alot from stockport then i saw Yorkshire blues flags and macclesfield blues flags no team has purely local based supporters, even though Manchester is RED.
spurs fans are gobshites so whatever abuse is sung at them can be justified, even though i do agree with you its a stupid chant to sing
Just got in from a mates, how’d Campbell do? I don’t give a shit about moronic chants, i’m proud our club is so well supported, just makes us a bigger team.
I’m a United fan from Sussex. Everyone at school supported a big premiership team. The nearest one is probably Fulham, but that’s just as far away as Manchester to a kid on the south coast. Did anyone support Eastbourne Borough or Lewes Town (both now in the conference but at the time both 3 tiers lower)? Fuck no. They weren’t in sticker books, merlin magicaps, or even on the TV (well they are now on Sultana sports twice a season, but still).
As a kid you just want to support a team you can banter other kids about and you can’t banter about teams you know shit all about because you can’t get a lift to their ground and they’re not on TV etc.
I chose United because I was a left back at school and at the time Denis Irwin was thumping in free kicks and penalties at United. Much to the grief of my Chelsea supporting father.
But I guess my point is, these twats who chant “we support our local team” etc should count themselves bloody lucky to have had that option. I didn’t, but if I had I would have done – likewise had they been brought up where I was they would have supported one of the “big four”.
I am a United fan from India…started supporting United since 1997…m 21 now…and with each passing year I have become a staunch Red Devil….staunch enough to get into fist fights and beat the crap out of anyone who abuses my club…who says things about Sir Alex…staunch enough to live for the sole reason that I may one day become a season ticket holder at The Theatre of Dreams…where The Busby babes played…where Bestie weaved his magic…where Duncan Edwards was rightly regarded as the best in the world…I wish to live among my fellow Mancunians and sing the songs…Take me home United road…Glory Glory ManUnited…Wayne Rooney-the white Pele….Even though I am from a different country thousands of miles from Old Trafford…United is what I live for and that is never going to change..my mates also support United…This country has got a massive United fan following and most of them are not Glory hunters as they are made out to be…We are proud to be United fans and we hate scousers as much as You do…We abuse Stevie Me as much as u do…John Terry is the butt of jokes here too….
And that is a massive reason why Manchester United is THE BIGGEST club in the world…Real Madrid,Chelsea,Barca,Pool,Arse…these scumbags aint a patch on us and long may it continue…
Keep the good work up Scott…May we meet some day at the Stretford End mate….Cheers!!
The other moronic chant we hear is “Shall we sing a song for you ?” when they can not, invariably, muster more than a single song for their own lot.
My seat is in the East Lower, not too far from the away section and coming out after the Stoke game in mid-November, I overheard one of them say ” I can’t believe how we outsung 75,000″. Maybe the accoustics give them a distorted effect – apart from anything genetic !
Those of us from overseas can support whomever we like right? You wouldn’t actually expect me to support an MLS team now would you?
I’m Greek. Have you checked Greek “football” lately? Am I obliged to support my local team?
This is rubbish. People sing this song just because they’re jealous of our success.
Curt, i have alot of sympathy for you being a football (or should i say soccer) fan over in the states it has to be the worst league EVERRRRRRR no offence intended.
I’ve supported United since 1958 -yes, Munich – but I’m not a Manc, sorry. I grew up in Amersham in Bucks, about 30-odd miles from London, miles from any Div I clubs. I did actually support my local team, Chesham Utd in the old Corinthian League, and occasionally went to see Watford in the old 3rd Division South, but everything changed after the Crash. Most kids at that time supported the FA Cup winners/ Finalists of the time, rather than the League Champions, probably because they’d get the chance to see the Cup Final and very little else on TV. So I had pals who supported Blackpool (’53), WBA (’54), Citeh (’56- boo), Villa (’57 -hisss), and even, God help us, Bolton (’58). There was one kid who supported Fulham because of Johnny Haynes of England, my brother went for Spurs because of Tommy Harmer, and there was one guy who supported United because of the Babes in Europe. I don’t recall anyone supporting Arsenal or Chelsea or even West Ham. For those who sneer at me as a Glory Hunter these days, all I’d say is you should have seen United when we had players like Ronnie Cope or Joe Carolan in the team. I mean no disrespect to them as they were good honest triers thrown in at the deep end after the crash, like even more talented players such as Alex Dawson, Mark Pearson, or Jimmy Nicholson (briefly touted as ‘the new Duncan Edwards’, poor sod), who all struggled to some degree to live up to what had gone before. I saw some dire performances in those early days, and it was impossible to believe things could ever really get much better we were so lacking in quality or consistency. With hindsight it may seem inevitable that Matt Busby would bring back the Glory Days, but in those early seasons after Munich it didn’t feel like it at all, at least until Denis Law came. It was almost humiliating to see the Spurs Double team thrash United 4-1 in 1960. After that drubbing an elderly United fan was almost in tears as we talked in the Underground coming away from White Hart Lane and waiting for the train.He passed over to me a bag full of United memorabilia , including a team photo from ’56 (the coloured one from Charlie Buchan’s Football Monthly) with a couple of autographs, plus some big, pristine glossy original press stills of United and a big bunch of old United programmes. He gave them to with deep emotion etched on his lined old face, and I’ve never forgotten him or his gesture of kindness.I don’t know his name or where he came from although it was certainly in Manchester, and I was too young and shy to express my thanks to him properly at the time, so I do now. It felt like he was passing a torch, knowing he couldn’t face the bleak years to come at his age, as he grieved over the loss of Duncan and all the Babes he’d seen growing up into the best team he’d ever seen. I treasure that moment, it somehow gave me a connection to the pre-Munich United and a kind of legitimacy in joining the Red Faithful. Of course there were good times, even then, and it was great to see one of the best ever forward lines, Bradley, Quixall, Viollet, Charlton, Scanlon, in the old-style W-formation, but mainly it was pretty dire around 1960 and for some time afterwards. I remember one spell when United didn’t win a game for about 10 matches, and Matt Busby was getting death threats, yes, DEATH threats, can you believe it, only 3 or 4 years after the Air Crash? That’s not often remembered these days. I wrote to Matt to give him my support and say how shocking it was that he was getting abuse. I got a lovely letter back from him , thanking me. Mind you, he ignored my suggestion for team selection! Anyway, the bad days of the early 60s and much of the 70s (the Doc gave us a couple of good years, but in truth we were far behind what we should have been) , and even some of the 80s make the Fergie years (once he learned the United way) all the sweeter. It was especially good when I saw United pull back from 3-0 down at Tottenham to win 5-3, with my Spurs-fan brother one one side of White Hart Lane and me on the other, knowing I’d have to be gracious in victory when we met after the game. I was so gracious I generously sent him a copy of a press photo of Beckham’s goal in that game, which just happened to have me in the crowd in the background. For some obscure reason he didn’t appreciate the gift. Football eh, bloody hell!
As one of the “dreaded” Norwegian United supporters, I have strong feelings on this issue. Im 35 years old, and I have been supporting United for close to 30 of those years.
The football season in scandinavia is the summer. And when I was young, even shorter than it is now. In the early 80s it was late april to early october. The rest of the year we had english first division football on tv. At the time, Norwegian football was amateur, and thus even further behind the PL than it is now. Now, my dad is football mad, and will happily spend an afternoon watching the german 3. division, so every saturday I had football, either from England on TV or at the local stadium, supporting one of our local teams. This was repeated all over Scandinavia, so anyone interested in football usually have a favorite team in England in addition to our local team.
The Scandinavian branch of the United supporter club has over 37000 members, which means United are better supported than any Norwegian club. But Liverpool has 29000+ members, the Arse close to 6000 and so on. Even someone like Macclesfield has a Norwegian supporters club (A mighty crew of 35)
One of my colleagues is an Everton supporter, and he laughs every time he tells the story of when he stood outside a Liverpool hotel and shouted “F-ck of back to Norway!” to a few unlucky tourists wearing the wrong shirts.
Hear, hear. Your Soccerlens article on glory supporters was brilliant btw. I completely agree – It doesn’t matter how you became a fan of your team, as long as you support them with all your heart. Glory hunters (or “fair-weather Fans”, as I call them) are people who will switch teams at the drop of a hat.It matters not where or why or when you pick a team to support. Only that you then stick with them. As everyone else here has said, it is an accusation leveled by those who are jealous of the fabulous wealth of worldwide support the great Manchester United Football Club enjoy.
Rooney the best: Top post. its amusing and quite unbelievable to think that over in India you still hate and take the piss out of the scousers!! fuckin top
My earliest United memory is the run up to and including the 83 cup final. I remember the first game 2-2 where Ray Wilkins got that belting curler and Gary Bailey made that last minute stop against Robinson?. Then the replay where we hammered them 4-0 with Robson, Stapleton and an Arnold Murhen Penalty. Other than that and the 85 F A cup final win the next 10-12 years were pretty barren so you can’t call me a glory fan.
PS Excellent post on Soccerlens Scott.
I’m one of the thousands who travel to watch United – in our case it’s a round trip of about 300 miles. And I make no apology for it.
But I’ll tell you who should apologise – a certain bitch called Thatcher.
I was one of the many thousands turfed out of my job in Lancashire and on to the scrapheap by that old slag. Go south, they said, and after eight months on the dole, and with two young lads to feed (and a third on the way), I had no choice but to do just that. They were even closing down the local school just as my youngest was about to go into year one.
So once we were down here and the boys were well set in school, there was no way I was going to uproot them a second time. But my wife and I have never settled: we always think of ourselves as northerners on loan to the south and will return one day. And we say loyal to our northern roots. So I’ll never desert United.
The only fly in the ointment is that my two older boys, who were born up north, support Spurs and Arsenal respectively. The irony is that the youngest, born in Aylesbury, is a United fanatic and travels with me not just in England but during our European adventures as well (including getting our heads cracked in Rome)!
I’m from Singapore, I’ve supported United since I was 6, and I hate the scousers, regardless. My dad introduced me to United, and that’s the only way to go from there.
(I mean please, Singapore football??)
the funny thing bout this is the fact that aren’t other clubs trying to sell there image to generate support in other countries, the fact we get revenue from great support all over the world is down to the clubs history, having the greatest manager ever(imo) and being a club with great moral’s, thats before you take into account of our success. if i watch basketball or american football i’m probably goin to (sort of) support an american team, if i were to like ozzie rules football, i am more than likely goin to support a ozzie team, etc etc. my point being with our league being the most watched league all over the world people with an interest in football are goin to follow a team that plays good football.
I’m a United fan from Iceland. I’ve been supporting them since 1991. I’ve got two older brothers, one is a Liverpool fan, the other is United. It was just a matter of how well they could brainwash me I guess, but I sure am glad that United was on top. I never miss a game on tele (the variety of live PL games in Iceland is amazing) and I’ve been to Old Trafford twice. I took some time to learn the chants before I went on those amazing trips, visited Bishop Blaze to get me in the right mood. I don’t look at me as a less of a supporter than some local guy although I can’t show up for every game like they do. I know a lot about United’s history and I’m very passionate about football. Most Icelanders have their favorite team in England, the two biggest being Liverpool and United. The rest is Arsenal, Tottenham, Aston Villa, West Ham and Chelsea (although the Chelsea support has languished after Eidur Gudjohnsen went to Barca). I’m 24 by the way…
I’m from syria i supported MU since i was 11 at 2000 .every one here supports either barca or real .i stayed supportinm them for over 2 years without even knowing that we won a trible its hard to know these things for a non english speaking kid then when i started to use internet the first site i logged to was manutd then i started to learn about the clubs history which made me fall in love more with the club i spent hours just reading about the club i even STUDIED it .and it was 2004 when i really became a true united fan breathing the love of the club .my point is when i became 15 and thats when u really start talking about football with your mates i was called a glory fan times and times even that the ones r callin me that r barca or madrid fans and it was hard to shut them we went three seasons during my high school days we only won fa and carling cub and we hit a low at 2005-2006 crashing out of all competitions in a rather bad way and i never stopped supporting the club does that makes me a glory fan?NO
I would never stop supporting the club even if they went down and until now i meet ppl tellin me that i only support united for their trophy’s and its always hard to explain the feelings i have for this club when .I dont know about other united fans but i think about united more than i think about sex .every time on my way to the cafe where i see united i have this feeling that wants just to run and scream UNITED as loud as i can .every day i imagine my self scoring a goal 4 the club and celeprating it with Kissing the badge .supporting the club is affecting my social life my studying i’d prefer to watch a united than anything .AM I A GLORY FAN? no .and no matter how much i’d get taunted about it i’ll never stop supporting them .SO these stupid fans that sing those chants can just go and fuck themselves MANCHESTER UNITED is the biggest club in the world of course u’ll see manutd fans that r even from the farest place of old trafford .i know that i wrote a long comment some might find it nonscense but i really had to write it to express my feelings for ppl who might get me .thats if there’s anybody read it :d
your dissing of singapore football is really disappointing. just because they can’t play like united doesn’t mean that their soccer doesn’t deserve to be given a chance.
it sounds to me like your soccer skills are better than singapore national team footballers. if you can diss on them on the pitch then fair play there. but if you can’t do the stuff they do, do show some respect to them as footballers.
@ Besher, I read your blog mate. Good one. I am from Mauritius and I would have liked to live in Manchester. But at the end, it does not matter where you live. You stay in Timbuktoo or Manchester, United will remain the best in the world. Yeah, we are talking about the world now. That’s the whole point. Cheers!
lovely story Giles, fair play
I have supported the Reds since our the ’68 semi-final of the Old European cup when i was first allowed to stay up to watch a live football game…. of course I fell in love straightaway with Man U and was esctatic when we went on to win the cup against Bennyfica… that was it for me, red till I die. And I still say the best game I ever saw was Man U versus Derby when we were 2 – 0 down and we came back to beat them in extra time and that cunt Bruce Rioch was chased off the park by am angry Man U fan intent on kicking his fucking head in for his bad tackle on Gordon Hill.
Best goal ever? Legend that is Giggs beating half the Arse-nil defence then banging it past Seaman.
Best tackle ever? Keano doing Haaland…. !!
Best kick? Cantona into the crowd ….I know it was wrong ..but fuck me, I was proud of him not to take shit from that twat in the stand.
Best manager? Wilf Mcguiness…. joking.. Sir Alex Ferguson of course
Best player? between 2…. Cantona for kick starting everthing, and Georgie Best
Manchester United. My team. The best team on the fucking planet.
One thing I’ve noticed is that those supporters who seem most vociferous about supporting their local team are those who only fill their grounds when United visit.
Every successful team attracts support from afar. In Italy, Juventus attract support from all over Italy (and get the same jibes as us). In Germany it’s Bayern Munich who attract nationwide support. In Spain, there’s Barcelona and R Madrid.
I once met a Bristolian and we (naturally) got talking about football. I asked him who he supported, expecting to hear one of the Bristol teams or Arsenal, Liverpool, etc. He told me he supported Wolves. I must have looked astonished because he explained that they were the glamour team when he was growing up.
My first games at OT were in the season we spent in the old 2nd division and my formative years were spent listening to non-scouse Liverpool supporters lording it over us. As I’ve written above, all successful teams have their ‘glory-hunter’ supporters, but it seems to be only us that get singled-out in this respect by the ABU nation (and media).
PS: good post Giles Oakley.
All I can say here is that I’m glad we have fans around the world.
I agree art, but what really annoys me is that we hear these fans who say they are the real fans because they go to games and have a season ticket, I don’t go too games for my local team because I am busy and I cant afford it anyway, well for 1 it costs a fortune and some of us have important things too do then spend a fortune to go to games. and fans don’t mind players especially great ones who were not born from that area say I supported that team has a kid, were there any united fan’s complaining when giggs said he was a united fan has a kid is he a glory hunter, beckham the same and he was from london. would any fan have any problems if ronaldo said he supported united has a kid, if man utd or liverpool just had fans from their area would they make the money they make today I doubt it.
Besher: funny post mate. The reason I laughed was because a study was conducted here in the UK and the results stated that men think about sex on average every 7 second. When I heard about it on the radio, “Fair enough”, I thought,”I probably think about United in the 6 seconds in between!”, so your comment about thinking about United more than sex brought back that moment for me!.
Michael: I think they would, yes. Local fans are forced out by price issues, true, but also by availability. We locals might complain about prices, but there are still enough of us willing to pay to make it very competitive to get tickets. If it was ‘locals only’ there’d be absolutely no problem filling Old Trafford, IMO. There are roughly 2.5 million people in Manchester. Halve that for women and again for kids and OAPs it leaves you with about 750,000. Accomodating even the most optimistic of Citeh fans, halve that again and you have 350,000 men possibly supporting United. Let’s take another 100,000 off for men who don’t like footy and/or couldn’t afford it and you’d still have 250,000 people competing for 76,000 tickets.
My own position is similar to Scott’s. I live in Crumpsall, which is a 25 minute bike ride for me every home game (it would’ve taken the same time to get to Maine Road before anyone starts). True, I’m one of the ‘spoiled’ generation having been born in ’85, but my close family are Red, so there was no other choice where I was going to on match days. I have extended family who are City fans (of which, one uncle who even tried to make a bluenose of me, unsuccessfully).
I used to be oh-so-bitter about OOTs (and still am, to some extent, especially when I hear an accent from ‘Darn Sarf’ at OT) until I spent a year in Bordeaux recently as part of my degree. It was there that I met French United fans, some who’d never set foot in Manc, but who spoke with the same passionate conviction about their hopes and fears for United’s fortunes as I do. It forced me to re-assess my point of view and I hastily came to the conclusion that if you came from outside of the UK, supporting United was OK if your own league was a pile of shite.
But then you have the Giles Oakleys of this world. How do you stop someone who has lived and breathed United for so long, having been to OT long before even my dad was a twinkle in my grandad’s eye, just because his postcode doesn’t start with an ‘M’ like mine?
JCLs and daytrippers are easy to spot and I despise them as much as the next proper Red, and I still (irrationally) give OOTs a hard time, but logically it’s not really fair to cast aspersions on the degree of someone’s support based on their accent/place of birth.
For me, the chants are bitter, and in some cases, sadly, true (how many times have I seen our ‘fans’ sat on their arses not willing to make the slightest effort to sing? Looking around at pockets of United support who are stood up and clapping/chanting away thinking “Why are we the minority here?”), but at the end of the day, we get our revenge (as it were) when we go to their grounds and sing the likes of ‘Here to see United” and regularly outsing their home support with anywhere between 1,500 and 7,000 away fans.
Finally @ TonyBee; Given you’ve supported United so long, I’m surprised you still refer to us as ‘Man U’ …
Eaststandmanc…. just easier to type Man U thats all… some of us are not as quick typing, I use just the one finger… Anyways, dont matter a frig what I type, you lot get the gist of my passion. !!
The reason United supporters dont like the term ‘Man U’ is because other teams used it to mock Munich, Man Utd aint that hard to type surely.
Okay I take the hint, but there aint no way I would ever ever diss
MAN UTD.
I have been supporting united since 1995. I can say the main reason I was attracted was because of Cantona. Now a days the two most supported teams in Ethiopia are United and Arse. Supporters of Arse grew in number after their unbeaten season (thanks to RVN10). The average Ethiopian can not afford to have satellite TV at home so everyone goes to places where they show the game live. A lot of people usually sit crowded in a very small shanty house. These kind of places are located in each neighborhood but sometimes these places will be closed because of power cut or technical problem. This happened on the day of last year’s Champions league final so I have to walk for about 3 km at 09:30 PM to find another place and I reached 10 min after kickoff.After the medal ceremony (already 1 am), I joined a group of United supporters who were singing on the streets and walked home feeling immense joy and pride.
when asked in our graduation bulletin what he wanted to achieve in the future, my friend, who is a passionate united supporter answered
“To watch United at Old Trafford”. I am writing this just to give you an idea of the strong feeling people abroad have about United.I wish you could see the passion of the united supporters over here. Just because we live far from Manchester, we should not be labeled as glory supporters. We are connected with all United fans in the world. So Glory Glory Man Utd!! United Ignited!!!!
Tonybee fair enough, i weren’t trying to say you was disrespecting the club, it just upsets some supporters mate.
At first i didn’t like the idea of out of town reds, i just couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t support your local club as i could never see myself deciding to support the likes of chelski/liverpool/arsenal as i live nowhere near them as im from Manchester, but the more i think about it i just feel proud to know Manchester United is such a great club that we’re supported and loved worldwide, IMO Local supporters should get first refusal on tickets that doesn’t mean i dont want OOT reds in Old Trafford i just think its only fair Mancunians get to see their local club, but i met a few French Reds aswell when i went over to Lille away a couple of years ago and they truly do love United as much as the rest of us, if you know the history the chants and the tradition of United and love the club no matter what it doesn’t matter where your from. I love United away trips in Europe as i always end up meeting proper top reds and it just makes you accept them all alot better and understand why they love United so much.
MUFC The Religion
That was a great read.
Awesome to hear everyones stories.
I feel priviliged to hear your stories Giles oakley.
I thought I was doing it tough putting up with the dippers winning everything in sight when I was a kid.
thanks mate.
Plus you have your head put on the right way vidic will get ya 15.
Plus hows “Ronney the best” taking a stand in India.
UNited have the best fans.
Some fantastic comments there.
I am from India as well and I swear I haven’t missed a single game for the past 8 seasons. Be it at mid night or 4 in the morning. We love to hate the scouser as much as you do. We too love seeing City get stuffed by Nott.Forrest.
India is a goldmine in terms of overseas revenue waiting to be exploited. There people here to religious follow football and most of them aren’t glory hunters.
Red-Manc; I agree with your comments about dissing MAN UTD also agree in part with your comments vis-a-vie tickets and first refusal to Mancunians.
Whilst it is true some of us haven’t been to many games or in the case of our overseas fans not being able to, all fans should, if able, to obtain tickets, be able to support their team. Now the fuckers I feel are taking the piss, are the corporate visitors who get hold of tickets through business or through them bastards at the FA giving out freebies and coming to OT when they dont even support us. Keano was right when he said that there was too many corporate visitors ‘eating prawn sandwiches’, meaning that the true MAN UTD fan never gets a fucking look in.
And don’t forget that as we are the most supported club in the world with fans all wanting to see our beloved Reds, there are only just so many tickets available. Perhaps a word in the Glazers earholes to make OT bigger and better. If we could somehow make it a 150,000 stadium or even bigger we could deffo fill it week in week out….
Fergie has already said he plans on asking for Old Trafford to be extended i just dont understand how it could happen though would be good because like you said (tonybee) we would fill it week in week out and it would allow more people to come and support United, my only concern on it getting even bigger is the atmosphere will suffer worse than it already has done, when i went to Barca away last season for the semi considering they have what 100,000? the atmosphere was pretty dire because its just so big the noise just fades out, they then came to our ground and the atmosphere was amazing that match.
@TonyBee: I’ve read enough of your comments on this site to know you weren’t slighting United, it really was genuine surprise. Most of the ‘older’ fans are the most anti-”ManU” lot I know, you see. As Red-Manc rightly points out, it was used by ABUs (notably Leedscum and the ‘dippers) as part of their “ManU Never Intended Coming Home” jibes.
No United fan in their right mind with that tidbit of knowledge would ever see fit to use that moniker ever again.
@Red-Manc; Believe me mate, I’ve been through the whole Republik of Mancunia thing in mind head countless times, givin’ Mancs first refusal and all that, but it in practice, it simply wouldn’t be viable. Anyway, who’s to say a Manc is going to be as loud and vociferous as say, a Cockney Red? Or a Norn Iron Red? I worked at Woolies for 8 months back in 2004 and we had a Manc season ticket holder who wouldn’t say ‘Boo!’ to a goose. It’s a romantic notion that all Red Mancs are as passionate as you or I, but in reality, I’m afraid it isn’t so mate.
Also, there’s something to be said for the Manchester Calypso. Many people who *did* get themselves down to their local footy ground to see football taught by Matt Busby fell in love with United there and then, becoming match-going fans for decades after in the process.
It’s a difficult one, it really is … I’m torn by Manc pride in my heart which sometimes leads to irrationality and the logic in my head which generally prevails.
Red-Manc
you know how real madrid have done the bernebeu, they have a single tear stand and from the outside it bends in wards they should try that at old trafford, and cant they just have some bridges going into the stadium like you see in ajax and other stadiums. it may not get to 100,000 but it gives the stadium balance.
Giles Oakley…mate…you’re stories and history are just riverting as always…..Your posts always rise to the top…unmissable
“We are proud to be United fans and we hate scousers as much as you do”
why do we hate scousers? does it make you much less as a fan if you don’t hate scousers?
i’m united fan and i don’t hate liverpool. stoned me if you want, but i’ll keep on supporting united. and i’m not a glory supporter, i have been a fan for five years when william prunier had a loan spell with us. cheers.