derby day

Derby Day Dawns


But first it was a busy weekend after picking the zines up from the printers and delivering to Aleef, who had a few KK196’s left even though we sold out on the street. Popped into the City store to pick up a pressie for grandson Joe’s birthday, 14 on the big day, let’s hope that City reward him with a win. Congrats to Eric Nixon for getting his book into the shop only a few weeks after publishing as I predicted some time ago. Begs the question why did it take 5 months for Us and Them to appear? Anyway look forward to reading Eric’s tales.

So the blank footy weekend was spent getting the subscriptions sorted – all now in the post though Saturday night was a Supporters club do, jointly with CITC . We had Andy Morrison and son on our table plus Archie Kelly the comedian. There was a good sprinkling of ex players, oldies like Johnny Williamson, Steve Fleet, Roy Cheetham, Stan Horne, Joe Corrigan, Franny and Buzzer. Fairly newies like David Oldfield, now at West Brom looking very fit, Nigel Gleghorn, ex manager Brian Horton bravely turned up after Macc were relegated, The Goat, and Uwe Rosler had flown up in his grandad’s Focker (which bombed O/T) athough this Focker was a Messerschmidt (boom boom!). The event was chaired by Gary Owen with Fred Eyre doing interviews and Alex Williams and Lakey on hand together with the very glamorous Natalie Pike and City square fanzone Danny. Nice touch was Patrick Vieira outbidding a Blue for a signed pic of Mike S and George B, then handing it over to the lucky Blue who he outbid!. Great night thanks to Kevin, Christine and all who organised.

Future opponents Newcastle got tonked at Wigan, and QPR at Chelsea.

So to tonight, and hasn’t this been a long, long week waiting for the big one. We got a lifeline and MUST take advantage.Here’s the it’s A Fix extract :

36) MONDAY APRIL 30 TH RAGS (HOME) KO 8 PM

Second mid-week COMS derby in a row. What was everyone thinking of? Still at least the weather looks better than yesterday!

They’re ever present since promotion in 1975, last pot the title last season. Recent connections Owen Hargreaves and (Fergie, Fergie, sign him up) Tevez. 146th rd lg meeting

This season so far: They won the Community Shield beating us 3-2 at Wembley. Lescott (38) and Dzeko (45) opened the scoring but Smalling (52) Nani (58, 90) clinched it for them. So they went 2 down, got the winner from a daft mistake in injury time but classed it as “giving us a footballing lesson!” No wonder everyone hates them.

Over at The Swamp in October it was the much awaited derby preceded by the usual boasting from rags. However it turned out to be a fine day. Mario opened the scoring (22, 60) Sergio made it 3 (69) Fletcher pulled one back (81) then bang bang bang David and Edin with 2 made it six, six, six the number of the beast! Johnny Evans was sent off just after the break (“he should never play for united ever again”) and Clattenburg turned down a stonewall penalty when Micah was brought down in the box shortly after. Crowd was 75,487 (70,000 empty seats at the end) with 2996 Blues.

In the FA Cup they went 3-0 up after Vinny was sent off after 12 minutes through Rooney (10 and 40 pen – there’s a surprise) and Welbech (30) when it looked like they’d get revenge for the 6-1. However a spirited fight back saw the Blues pull 2 goals back through Kolarov (48) and Aguero (65) with Costel Pantilimon coming close in the last minute from a corner. Crowd was 46, 808 with 5961 rags (less than Scunthorpe brought) As it happens they lost 2-1 in the next round at Liverpool.

Currently they’re in top spot with 83 points from 35 games and 12 wins 3 draws and 2 losses away from home.

In the Carling Cup they beat Leeds away 3-0, rags’ fans disgracing themselves in the process, Aldershot away 3-0 but lost at home to Crystal Palace 1-2 in the 5th round.

In the Champs league they got the easiest group, Paul Scholes telling us “it’s proper teams in the Champs League!” However against Benfica it was 1-1 away, 2-2 home; Basel 3-3 home, 1-2 away; Otelul Galati 2-0 away, 2-0 home to go out with 9 points.

In the Europa Cup despite playing teams who “weren’t proper” they played a mid table (at the time) Ajax (who’ve won the Champs Cup a time or two or three) winning 2-0 away, losing 1-2 at home and Bilbao who no-one’s ever heard of before (not), losing 2-3 at home and 1-2 away, proving they can’t win f* ck all with proper refs.

Our form at home to the rags : Last season at COMS on a November Wednesday night it was a 0-0 bore draw in front of 47,228 with 2617 rags Previously we’d lost the last two, 1-0 but prior to that we’d had 4 wins and 2 losses.
Current songs include :

“It’s only 4-1, only 4-1, 50,000 empty seats, it’s only 4-1, it’s only 5-1, only 5-1, 60,000 empty seats it’s only 5-1
It’s only 6-1, only 6-1, 70,000 empty sears it’s only 6-1

“It should have been ten, should have been ten, you lucky bastards, it should’ve been ten”

“He dives when he wants, dives when he wants, Ashley You-ung, he dives when he wants

But we seem to have moved on from :

Take me home Carrow Road, The city is ours….U-N-I-T-E-D, that spells f*ckin debt to me…. 37 years and you weren’t there… Que, sera, sera, you’re heading for bankruptcy…

Comment : They threw a wobbler at Christmas so something had to be done, step forward Chris Foy, Howard Webb, Michael Oliver, Martin Atkinson and others.
How wonderful it must be going on to the pitch to know that no matter what, decisions will go your way? How great to know that you’ll soon be playing against ten men, you’ll get dubious penalties, not one but two if required, instead of your player being booked for diving. There’ll be no chance of the opposition getting a penalty, you won’t get a player sent off or rarely carded and the opposition will have goals disallowed whist you’ll get away with a player being offside and STILL getting a penalty and the opposition player sent off, and not even later rescinded. Good to know you can constantly snipe in the referees ear to get players booked or sent off. That your manager can rant and rave on the touchline to intimidate referees into decisions going your way, also that your players can run over to the opposition supporters and goad and gloat and there’ll be no repercussions either way. But if an opposition player as much as winks at you after you’ve lost you can go apoplectic and everyone will blame the winker. On top of that there will be no witch hunt against you on the radio, on telly or in the press. You can also drag out all your players, ex players, coaching staff, rapists, granny shaggers, sister in law shaggers, piss artists, counterfeiters, perverts, ticket touts, drug test dodgers to proclaim how great you are knowing full well that the media will fawn all over instead of exposing the drivel you spout. You can be happy that one of your fanzines can come out with the most crass and bad taste front cover and content imaginable, which will be shamefully lauded by the Sportswriter of the Year to give you the publicity you crave, because all this, my friends, is how you win titles, and is classed as mental strength. However all this does is class you as the most despicable club in the history if the game, and it’s “No wonder everyone hates you”..

They once proudly went 37 years without winning a trophy, remind them.

WTWTWShite? Crowds were down to an average of 11,685 in 1930/31, and the current average is 75,379.