The 99s... MUTV's Band of the Year

The 99s are the MUTV ‘Band of the Year’ winning by a public vote by reds earlier in the year.

These lads from Saddleworth (you know, Oldham way) are lifelong United fans whose name is obviously inspired by our wonderful Treble winning season.

Tim Burgess, who had a chat with RoM not so long ago, has also given the band his backing.

Want to know more? Well, if you’re going to the Sunderland match at the weekend, you’ll see them perform live, otherwise, read on…

So, how long have you been following United?

Since we were little. My dad, granddad & all our family are all United fans. Also, we were all born in Manchester, so who else were we going to support??

Didn’t you hear? All ‘proper Mancs’ support City. Anyway, get to Old Trafford much?

As much as possible! Been skint this season so far though like many other Reds, so our last visit was United against Barca in the semi’s last season.

What is your all time favourite match?

There have been so many! But United against Barca last season was pretty incredible, if only for the sheer volume of the United faithful. And the end result wasn’t bad either! Apart from that, the Roma game and Tottenham in ’99 were great memories too.

Of course you had to get a 99 game in there eh? So, who’s your favourite player?

It was Roy Keane for a long time as he was a perfect captain, but a couple of our favourite players right now are Rooney and Vidic. They always give 100% for the club and you can’t ask for any more than that. You could say the same about Tevez at the moment too, so hopefully we’ll keep hold of him.

He can’t do much more to prove he’s worthy of a place than his performance on Wednesday! But what do you think we will win this season?

We should win it all with the squad we have! But I think we have to pull our socks up in the league now. We haven’t got off to a flyer and we can’t let Chelsea and the scousers open up much of a gap at all. I think Fergie has his heart set on retaining the Champions League though.

I’m sure Ferguson wants to beat Liverpool’s title record too before he packs it in! Who should replace him?

That’s the hardest question for any United fan I think. No matter who you say, there will be a lot who will disagree with you as Fergie is so popular. But….how about Martin O Neil? I’ve heard Jose Mourinho’s name mentioned a few times!

So, United questions aside, tell us more at the MUTV stuff.

Well, MUTV asked us to play on their ‘Good Morning Manchester’ show late last year. We played a track called ‘One Man Show’ and towards the end of the season we went up against all the other bands that had taken part throughout the season and the public got chance to vote on who they thought were the best. The public were kind to us and we won MUTV’s band of the year! It was superb. We got a session on XFM with Clint Boon, which was also filmed for MUTV, tickets for the Barca game and now we’re off to do a gig at OT!! In fact, our local pub landlord said he’s seen us on MUTV in a packed bar in South Africa on United’s pre-season tour. Apparently we got a big cheer in the bar!

Is any of your music inspired by United?

We are called The 99s after the famous treble winning season! That was completely inspired by United. My landscape gardening boss wanted us to be called The Whitesides, but we ended up changing it to The 99s as it sounded more original!

Check out The 99s Myspace page and check them out on Saturday at Old Trafford!