Anxious Listeners in Manchester : Episode Seventeen

"I was absolutely flabbergasted by that performance. I did not expect that at all. I am not interested in giving reasons or mitigating circumstances. It was just a very bad performance." (Sir Alex Ferguson)

A splendid word, "flabbergasted", which I was told covered two entire pages in one of my sister's books when she was a small child, and which she proclaimed with gusto whenever those pages were turned. Perhaps she and SAF read the same book, being of similar generations. The etymology is unknown, although the word dates back to at least the 18th century; a collision of the roots for "flabby" and "aghast" in a Germanic construction seems the most popular guess.

Because the bus was over an hour late, and I was standing in the pouring rain, I must count myself lucky enough to have missed the first chunk of this match. I hadn't thought to take a radio with me (and anyway I haven't got a portable DAB yet).

So by the time I got home, we were a goal down and obviously playing achieved rubbish. The Sun the next day had a pointless piece about our playing a reserve side (and at the same time forcing the season ticket holders to buy a ticket to watch it), but this wasn't really a side of inexperienced kids. It had six internationals; it had a defence with considerable experience on loan to various clubs; it had a midfield worth a small fortune; it had John O'Shea. It had no strikers to speak of, of course, but that is our current approach. Presumably, if they'd stayed, Rossi and Smudger would have had a game, so you can't really blame them for going.

I can fully understand why SAF thought the side was "good enough to win", and that has more to do with overestimating our own players rather than underestimating the opposition. But it is has happened too often; for SAF to say he "didn't expect it" is surely disingenuous. He should expect it by now, because we have done it so often.

In fact, if we look at the history of SAF's teams, he has never shown himself adept at rotation. Our greatest successes have been achieved with a settled side, most of our blips when that side has been disrupted by injury, suspension, the rules of European competition (in the early days) or managerial meddling.

Although we were the first team to have the brainwave of using the League Cup in its various guises to play our younger reserves, we have never demonstrated notable success at the practice (as distinct from Arsenal, for instance), whether in the League Cup or the early rounds of the FA Cup (0-0 Exeter City, for example) or indeed some dead group ties in Europe. The recent year when we won the League Cup was when injuries virtually forced us to play a stronger side at an early stage.

I really thought he might have given Rooney and Tevez a few more minutes together against Coventry, even from the bench, although bringing on Rooney and Ronaldo last year didn't help. And maybe he should have started with Wesley and Carrick. Even so this is simply the curse of Mickey Mouse again.

Because, generally, this competition has been cursed for United. We were one of the last teams to enter the League Cup when it started and have shown it little affection, enthusiasm or success ever since. Look how long it took us to win it and then only in a fairly shoddy performance in a dreadful powder blue shirt.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the end of Phil Bardsley as a United player. I can well imagine he will be on his way out of the transfer window in December. "Defenestration" is another splendid word. You must have a word for throwing someone out of the window.

It certainly shows us that the quality of our reserve strength is lacking en masse. A number of them may be capable of slotting into an established and settled side and doing a job, but we only seem to grow squad players these days, not players with any touch of greatness. Who was the last great player we produced through our own youth set-up? Scholes, I would suggest. And Giggs before that.

Anyway, as I was saying, I missed the first goal. Apparently "Best's crossfield pass picked out Michael Doyle inside the United penalty area and Doyle hit the ball to the far post, where Mifsud was lurking to turn the ball past the stranded Tomasz Kuszczak". Who would have thought we'd ever hear of Best and Michael Doyle playing on the same side? From the highlights, it didn't appear startling defending, particularly by Johnny Evans. And not long after that, Mifsud hit the post.

Overall, we matched them for goal attempts, apparently, but I suspect many of those were Nani having a blaze from nowhere in particular. It may likely take a season or so to harness his talent, but I suspect we are always going to suffer from the occasional spectacular goal in the middle of rather too many dreadful efforts. Ronnie was wasteful in the early days, but Nani is older and should already have learned better.

The changes for the second half seemed to give us a bit more shape, and it looked as if we might even get away with this sort of thing again, and at least take it to extra time.

There was the one moment when Coventry keeper Andy Marshall produced an outstanding fingertip save to deny Dong after 69 minutes, when a header was floating into the top corner. But within a minute they were down the other end, Mifsud doubled his tally and that was it.

Later, Mifsud should probably have had a hat-trick when Tomasz pushed the ball into his path, but he somehow failed to find the goal.

Manchester United 0 Coventry 2

Goals: Mifsud 27, 70.

Manchester Utd: Kuszczak, Bardsley (Brown 45), Evans (Carrick 56), Pique, Simpson, Nani, Martin (Campbell 45), O'Shea, Eagles, Dong, Anderson.

Subs Not Used: Heaton, Eckersley.

Booked: Pique.

Red shirts, white shorts, black stockings.

Coventry: Marshall, Osbourne (McNamee 88), Ward, Turner, Borrowdale, Simpson, Stephen Hughes, Doyle, Tabb, Mifsud, Best (Adebola 90).

Subs Not Used: Konstantopoulos, De Zeeuw, Thornton.

Attendance: 74,055 Referee: Mark Halsey (Lancashire).

Anyway, so much for the Glazers' latest attempt to squeeze the fans. No more home cup-ties here for them. And the atmosphere of fans who were there only begrudgingly, and well outsung by the visitors, went some way towards that.

The attendance figure is largely a myth, of course. United have long counted the number of tickets paid for (which includes all season ticket holders whether or not they - or indeed anyone else - are actually in the seats), rather than the number of bodies through the turnstiles. In theory you could have an attendance of 75,000 with less than 20,000 in the stadium.

Wednesday 26.09.2007 : 5Live Extra Radio

The Anti-Semitic Referee and Others

One of the more bizarre follow-ups to the victory over Chelsea was seen in their manager's homeland. In the Maariv newspaper Gady Carmeli, an assistant coach at an Israeli club and a friend and adviser to Grant, wrote: "What the anti-semitic referee did [at Old Trafford] yesterday was worse than injustice. Everybody agrees, Chelsea played its best half an hour of football this season at the start of the game. Avram was at his best preparing the tactics but no British pundit could understand it." (Shaul Adar, September 25, 2007 The Guardian)

This is, of course, a classic example of the tactical paranoia commonly adopted by certain factions in Israel and their support lobby. Any opposition is automatically categorised as "anti-semitic".

But it seems it may also go deeper. Abramovich has long positioned himself as Jewish, rather than Russian, and has been giving financial support to Israeli football, which was how he met Grant in the first place.

A piece in the Daily Mirror noted 'Chelsea were in danger of letting their paranoia take over last night as anti-Tottenham jibes by Blues fans were being seen as a dig at Roman Abramovich...one chant, of "We hate Tottenham", was being seen in the upper echelons of Stamford Bridge as a potentially anti-Semitic statement aimed directly at Abramovich, who has never hidden his Jewish faith.'

Perhaps nobody at Chelsea has ever bothered to tell Abramovich about the traditions of anti-semitism already rooted deeply in their fan-base, elements of which always used to greet Spurs fans with what were supposed to be impressions of the noise a gas chamber makes.

Whether opposition from fans to Grant and Abramovich will indeed express itself as anti-semitism remains to be seen, but I doubt those particular fans will be subtle enough to bother couching it as opposition to Spurs.

Anxious Listeners in Manchester : Episode Sixteen

So the question was always going to be, how will they react. Either way, we seem unlikely to be the story, it's going to be entirely about Chelsea, which must be all to the good.

Not especially concerned, until the television decides to go on the blink about an hour before kick-off. It's clearly the NTL feed, or the Virgin feed as it has now become. The programmes via the roof-top aerial seems fine, so the set itself must be fine.

I call the Virgin call-centre. Their menu has an irritatingly perky female voice; their customer service centre a male voice, which I assume to be on the sub-continent. We try the usual tricks like switching things on and off and unplugging various devices and plugging them back in. I try and explain the problem. It occurs to me that there must be an entire generation that does not understand the concept of "vertical hold"- and its absence - a perennial fault of televisions in my childhood. It is quite hard to explain what's happening without this bit of available vocabulary.

Eventually, we lose the entire Virgin picture, which at least has the advantage of now being extremely simple to describe. By then we have established that it is affecting all their channels, although some worse than others, so it must be the set-top box. I dread the fact that this is one of their old analogue boxes and will probably be beyond repair or replacement (they were unable to replace even the remote a couple of years back). OK, that will pre-empt the decision to go digital, which I would probably have made in the next few weeks anyway, but that in itself is bound to lead to delays, waits for engineers and the usual trappings of any change in service (including an increase in the price). In the meantime, an engineer can come out on Wednesday. Seems pointless to do anything other than agree.

In the more pressing meantime, we need to get to the nearest pub; as it's a standard Sky game, this can be interpreted quite literally for once.

It's somewhere we don't really go that often. The beer is tolerable, rather than good, but as good as the place where we usually go for Setanta games, anyway, although that says virtually nothing. But it isn't a CAMRA branch meeting after all (and frankly they have been known to meet in some of the most bizarre pubs , in the cause of evangelism).

I read bits of the piece in The Observer about how J Terry was the one who pushed Mourinho over the edge. It is strange how Terry seems to have come to believe a lot of the stuff about him being an "icon". This rumour about him demanding a clause in his contract that will always make him their best-paid player was perhaps the start (although I suppose it is only a way of putting some form of inflation-proofing - or Ballack proofing - into a long-term contract, it does have that aura of crazed arrogance - if they sign Kaka or Ronaldinho, for example, does Terry really think he should be in that same bracket? I'm not even sure he should be in the England team).

Useless grainy slow motion montage of Mourinho clips. There is obviously an entire group of television workers who make a living out of putting these things together, for a purpose which is entirely beyond me, other than to use up time which regulation says cannot be used for advertising. It is presumably a cheaper method of programming than many others, although surely not cheaper than talking heads talking bollocks.

As the game is about to start, baskets of "roast" potatoes and chicken are put out on the tables. This is a most civilised version of an old tradition, which harks back to those distant days of the last century when you were only allowed a couple of hours in the pub from 12 to 2, in between church and Sunday dinner. Although it seems like ancient history, it can't really be that long ago, when the only way we could watch the Sunday afternoon game in the pub was via a lock-in. Certainly, less than fifteen years ago.

Saha is on the bench and Tevez starts alongside Rooney is the only notable team news, although it's reassuring that John O'Shea is back on the bench, in case we need an emergency striker.

Chelsea are playing all three of their holding midfielders - Makalele, Mikel Obi and Essien - and Shevchenko on his own up front between Joe Cole and Malouda. The three who might be most upset by Mourinho's departure (Lampard, Drogba and Carvalho) are injured, of course. Grant's fellow Israeli, Ben Haim, replaces Alex. If this is Abramovich's team, the cavalier instinct is not notable. Wright-Phillips, for instance, one of their better players this season, is on the bench.

Early on, Rooney cuts inside Ben Haim on the edge of the box and curls a shot on goal which Petr Cech just finger-tipped wide at full-stretch.

Cech is probably the only player I envy Chelsea. Essien and Mikel we would have had, of course, and would have saved us the need to buy Hargreaves, but they chose the money, or their agents' did. (I don't think either of them are Mourinho men; more like Kenyon men). But I don't think I'd have anyone else from the Chelsea team.

For the first half-hour it's a relatively even game. We probably have the slight edge, whilst Chelsea look half dangerous on the break, only never seem to get their options or final ball right. I am reassured to see that Shevchenko doesn't look like suddenly finding his old form, which I had half worried about. His pace has gone, and without that half-yard the space to apply the ability to control and shoot seems to have gone as well,

We are denied a penalty when Joe Cole slides in on Evra and brings him down, before getting a faint touch on the ball, probably with his knee. That touch may give Mr Dean enough "doubt". Giggs wasted a decent chance (and was to waste another better one in the second half, after a fine ball from Carrick) - perhaps he will never reach 100 league goals and will be forever stranded on 98. I wonder if he regrets the Faustian pact he made with the devil after his first season, when he gave up the ability to score regularly so that he could acquire the ability to tackle.

On the half-hour, Mikel clatters Paddy. It's a poor tackle, but I didn't think there was anything malicious in it. However, Mike Dean is reaching for his back pocket. As a referee, he is fairly trigger-happy with red cards and gestures that he thinks Mikel went in two footed. You can see, from the replay, how Dean might have seen it that way, and Mikel certainly went studs first on to Paddy's metatarsal region, but he didn't go over the ball and the second foot didn't seem to catch him at all.

I think that with ten men and our limited ability to break down the massed defence this season, we are edging ever closer to the 0-0.

Although there are words for the next to last and for the one before the next to last, I don't know a word for the one after the last. The postultimate, I suppose. Anyway, in the last minute, we attacked and got a corner. I am not entirely sure where this concept has come from, but referees these days are clearly reluctant to blow the whistle for the end of a playing period when the ball is either out of play or in either attacking third. It is a very modern idea and can be irritating when referees seem to wait for, for example, a goal kick to be taken, so that they blow whilst the ball is in mid-air over the half-way line.

Anyway, Mike Dean allows time for the corner to be taken on the right. Usually, once the corner is cleared away, he might blow, but Wes Brown comes onto the clearance and heads it straight back wide to Giggs, who's moving out after taking the corner. Giggs turns back along the by-line and puts in a wickedly spinning cross to the near post with the outside of his foot. Cech comes to clear it out by the post and Tevez dives across in front of his hands and deflects it into the net. A great time to score, the postultimate minute.

The second half was largely anti-climactic. I worried that United might have their eye on some record of successive 1-0 victories. Although Chelsea were creating nothing - I don't think EVDS had to touch the ball in anger all game - at 1-0 there is always the fear of a wonder strike, a ghastly deflection or a moment of refereeing madness.

Shevchenko was substituted around the hour mark. Shots of Abramovich (and acolytes) applauding ostentatiously. Perhaps he always applauds when players go off, but the producer doesn't usually bother showing it.

There was one moment when Joe Cole cracked Ronnie from behind that was more deserving of a red card than Mikel's challenge, but gradually things ticked down. Cole was taken off fairly quickly, in case the referee had his eye on him.

Saha came on rather later than usual, as much to let Tevez leave the field to applause as to exploit any gaps. Still he made a run or two and the result was sealed when Ben Haim left a leg hanging for Saha to go over. Quite deliberate, I would imagine, on Louis's part, although he didn't exactly have to swerve into him.

I thought it was a clear penalty, although Louis didn't help by a piece of over-acting. The sort of thing that often puts a referee off. Perhaps this one was subconsciously remembering the one he didn't give earlier, and thought it late enough not to affect the game.

This not being Arsenal, Saha then got straight up to take the penalty. Ronnie looked fairly put out. Giggs had stopped him taking a free-kick earlier in the game and given it to Tevez to blaze over the bar. Although Ronnie had since had the chance to take a free-kick himself (it would have gone into the wall as usual but the wall obligingly let it through for Cech to scoop up with little concern), he may have seen some sort of conspiracy in demoting him for penalties as well. Louis put it hard enough down the centre of the goal, fortunately missing Cech's feet on the way.
Manchester United 2 Chelsea 0

Manchester Utd: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Giggs, Tevez (Saha 79), Rooney.

Subs Not Used: Kuszczak, Nani, Pique, O'Shea.

Booked: Rooney (61 : dissent), Brown (80 : foul).

Goals: Tevez 45, Saha 90 pen.

Strip : Red shirts, white shorts, black stockings.

Chelsea: Cech, Ferreira, Ben-Haim, Terry, Ashley Cole, Makelele, Essien, Obi, Joe Cole (Pizarro 76), Shevchenko (Kalou 59), Malouda (Wright-Phillips 69).

Subs Not Used: Cudicini, Alex.

Sent Off: Obi (32).

Booked: Joe Cole (73), Terry (83).

Attendance : 75,663 Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral).

This is when you really miss Mourinho, of course : a harsh sending off, a goal after time, a soft penalty. How much he would have made of all that. Avram Grant sounded like a low-level trade union official remembering a list of grievances. There was no panache, no histrionics; not even the achieved pout of Benitez.

No longer will we be able to see the man whose entire career was founded on a dodgy linesman's decision ranting on about officials and injustice. In truth, it takes away some of the savour of victory. Some of the savour, of course, but not a lot.

Anxious Listeners in Manchester : Episode Fourteen

Stuff of nightmares. For the first time this season, the pub was actually advertising the game a couple of days earlier, which in itself should have set off the alarms.

We weren't entirely surprised the doors were still shut. They do tend to be open until the early hours, so getting out of bed on Saturday is often a problem and I always worry about an early kick-off. The Police have a lot to answer for.

Peering through the window, there are some signs of activity; well, life at least.

I put the radio on and wait for them to stop talking about rugby. She seems to be polishing tables, I am told; couldn't she do that after she opens the door? Gesticulation through glass. Wonder vaguely how this appears from inside, but never mind, the meaning should be quite apparent. She is holding up two fingers, I am told, but in the informative rather than the demonstrative mode.

They are just about to toss the coin. OK, couple of minutes, shouldn't be a problem. Think vaguely about Gorgeous Gus and his lucky gold sovereign and wonder if each referee has a special coin that he takes out or just fiddles amongst his change on the day. Maybe the FA issues them with a special "tossing disc".

It's hard to work out the team news. Rooney doesn't feature, but I had always thought adding him to the squad was largely a gesture, perhaps to confuse or worry Sporting in their tactical preparation. Ronaldo is back of course; Micky is at left back and Evra in front of him. No Saha and can't work out if he's even on the bench. In the absence of our specialist substitutes, O'Shea and the Scottish player, who is in fact on the bench is an interesting question, but not one the BBC shows any inclination to answer.

No Tim Howard again for Everton. His excuse this time is a finger injury.

Two minutes is nearer to ten, not that we seem to have missed anything that could be described as action, but that's not the point. More research into the finer points of communication through glass. Table polisher disappears totally. Some of those waiting have sat on the pavement across the road, by the cemetery gates. Michael decides to take a chance on another pub, which may be showing it (despite lack pf advertisement), but we hang on a little longer.

When Radio 5 change commentators and the bleating tones of Alan Green take over, I start to get seriously concerned. And I'm not the only one. A screech from beside me; apparently two fingers meant, "We've decided not to open until two o'clock". Obvious, really. It always makes sense to advertise two or three matches you aren't going to show.

So follow Michael to the other pub, half listening to a continuing rant about the failings of publicans in one ear and Alan Green in the other. The game still doesn't sound worth watching but, apart from anything else, I am now desperate for a drink, and even prepared to watch Liverpool or the rugby.

So the first half hour has passed as we get there. I have heard Evra has hit the side netting. Arteta has put a free kick from just outside the box over the bar. Little else. Not missed a lot.

Arrive just in time to see Vidic play a corner up onto his face and wide. Then United suffer a blow a few minutes before half-time when Micky collapses with no-one near him and is carried off with what appears to be a bad knee injury. His knee looked to twist under him as he went down. He's replaced by Nani and Paddy drops back vaguely towards where a full-back might usually be.

Scholes is booked for punching the ball back not quite close enough to where it is supposed to be. Well, probably he was booked for "dissent", because he was certainly displaying clear disagreement with a handball decision that had been given against him, and the crowd were going for it. Scholes does tend to use his hands quite a lot, but on this occasion it was pretty much shoulder. And he was then fortunate not to be sent off for a late challenge on Arteta straight afterwards. Another referee might well have been more pompous and I expect Wiley might well have booked him for the challenge, had it not been for the previous card. I think Scholes is getting increasingly grumpy in his old age.

Watch a bit of the Liverpool game in the interval. Not looking much better than our game, to be frank.

One way and another, Scholes was United's most prominent player in this match. Early in the second half, he is on the far post for an Arteta corner and forced to hack Johnson's header off the line when he flicks it on at the near post. Scholes then wastes our best opportunity of the match after 55 minutes or so when he volleys wide from only about 10 yards, after Tevez has lifted the ball delicately over the defence to leave him clear. Tevez has looked fresh enough after his Australian trip, and shown some lovely touches, but is still not providing any cutting edge. Well, no-one is.

Ronaldo has been whacked a few times and failed to get anything out of the referee. Eventually, he is booked for diving, tumbling under a challenge from Leon Osman, as Ronnie runs along on the edge of the area. Replays seem to demonstrate clear contact. He might well have gone down relatively easily, given the ball was running out of his reach and it was a position he would have fancied, but I don't think that is "simulation" (it isn't when the blessed Michael Owen does it for example) and at that speed almost anything can make your balance go.

Louis is eventually brought off the bench after about 60 minutes, the classic SAF substitution time. He doesn't seem likely to have the same impact as against Sunderland.

In fact, it doesn't look as if we'll get anything from the game, when we make the breakthrough with seven minutes left, Vidic hurling himself in front of defenders at the near post, to head home a fine Nani corner.

Almost immediately, we see the other classic SAF substitution: a defender or defensive midfielder brought on with five minutes to go. It's a tactic I hate, seems generally disruptive and we usually seem to hold on despite rather than because of the change. Nice to see Pique, mind, but I'd have preferred a different context. If Mickey is really bad, perhaps he'll become left-back cover.

Everton put on the midweek hero McFadden in the closing minutes and he instantly brought a decent save from EVDS, although he can't hold it and we have to scramble around until Yobo turns it past the post.

So twice in a row we have disproved my old adage that we never score from corners. Perhaps this is just down to the introduction of Nani, I can't imagine we have been spending any more time on it in training. Obviously the general trend is worrying, but at least we are sneaking these ugly little wins. Apart from anything else, it must be incredibly annoying for other teams, this impersonation of Chelsea. Chelsea themselves can't manage it, which is even better, and have what seems to be a perfectly good goal disallowed. I am not entirely clear how we can be ahead of anyone on goal difference, but so we are.

Arsenal's defeat of Spurs is unfortunate, although it's a pretty good game; the result flatters them and Spurs would probably have won if they'd taken their earlier chances. Maybe it really is going to be a more competitive league this year. Of course, Spurs may panic and Berbatov may be agitating for a move at Christmas. And the other teams are really falling into the "difficult to beat" rather than the "be worried about" category. Leading teams will drop points against several of them, but I can't see any of them going on a devestating run just yet.

Everton 0 Manchester United 1

Everton: Wessels, Hibbert, Yobo, Lescott, Baines, Arteta, Jagielka, Neville (McFadden 85), Osman (Pienaar 73), Johnson, Yakubu (Anichebe 74).

Subs Not Used: Turner, Carsley.

Booked: Neville, Pienaar.

Manchester United: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Silvestre (Nani 41), Ronaldo, Carrick, Scholes, Evra, Giggs (Saha 63), Tevez, Nani (Pique 85).

Subs Not Used: Kuszczak, Gibson.

Booked: Scholes, Ronaldo.

Red shirts, black shorts, black stockings.

Goals: Vidic 83.

Attendance: 39,364. Referee: Alan Wiley (Staffordshire).


Learn that Mickey's knee is wholly buggered and he's done for the season. Dopey though he can be, I have a soft spot for him, if only for refusing to play with Joey Barton, and it would be sad to see his career end like this. Knee injuries are increasingly prevalent (I heard someone blame hard pitches, which may have some truth to it) and older players find them harder to deal with, witness Ole. I wouldn't be altogether surprised if that is effectively the end of Mickey.

My Story : Matt Busby

I picked this up the other day. It's no more than the usual Souvenir Press ghosted autobiography of a manager or a player. The journalist involved in pulling this one together, David R Jack, presumably adopted the use of the middle initial to distinguish himself from his namesake, the famous Arsenal player. He worked for a now defunct title called Empire News (a Manchester based Sunday, which was bought by Thomson in 1959 and sold and merged with the northern edition of the News of the World the following year). His other ghosted works included "Finney on Football" and "Mr Cricket", the latter apparently the life story of an earlier Fergie, W H Ferguson, a famous Australian scorer.

What makes this book so different is that it was put together in 1957, just after United had won their second championship in succession, failed in their first bid for the European Cup and been robbed of the first double of the twentieth century by Peter McParland's dreadful clattering of Ray Wood. It is Busby's thoughts without the distortion of hindsight that affected all that came later. The copy I have was given to someone called Robert by his parents as a present for Christmas 1957. Just six weeks later, of course, the author was in intensive care, a majority of his team were dead and nothing he said about football could ever again be free of that shadow.

There was a second edition of the book published in 1958, with a chapter about Munich added. I don't imagine the publishers could resist the opportunity, but as I read the book the whole relevance and weight of it seemed to be given by the absence of the knowledge of what was to come.

It is interesting, for example, how little space is given to Duncan Edwards. In later years, the size of Edwards has seemed to overshadow that team, but from 1957 he seems to be just a component part.

There is a photograph in the book of Busby walking through Nice with four journalists. Three of them died at Munich and the other, Frank Taylor, survived and wrote a book about the crash. But whoever chose that photograph didn't know that would happen.

And the book ends, "I am convinced that the future will prove even brighter.... There is no reason why Manchester United should not remain in the forefront of English - and European - soccer for at least another ten years. I hope to be at Old Trafford to see it, because as I believe I mentioned before, this is the finest club in the world."

Well, so it is, of course, so it is.

Matt Busby, My Story, As told to David R Jack, Souvenir Press, London, 1957; Second edition, with additional chapter, Souvenir Press, 1958; Sportsman's Book Club edition (of 1958 edition) 1959.

Friends of Mr Watkins : Number Four

Leslie S Dalgarno



Les Dalgarno, 56, is a friend of SAF from Aberdeen days and has known him since 1976. He is essentially a commercial property lawyer, although he acted for SAF in his £11 million contract renewal talks back in 2002.

Dalgarno spent 35 years at Paull & Williamsons, Aberdeen, a partner from 1977 and eventually Head of the Commercial Property department. He is described as "one of Scotland’s most highly respected commercial property lawyers". The firm claimed to be "particularly noted for the strength in depth of its corporate, commercial property and dispute services teams and (....) highly regarded for its experience and understanding of the energy sector".

In October 2006 Dalgarno was appointed a non-executive Director of aAIM, a commercial property investment company based in London's Mayfair, and stepped down as a partner, although he remained with Paull & Williamsons as a Business Development Consultant.

This was not a new relationship with aAIM. Commenting on his appointment, Mr Dalgarno said: "I have advised aAIM during its rapid growth in the last three years and I am very keen to add value to the continuing growth of the company in the future."

In January 2003, Robert Whitton, Mark Tagliaferri and Stuart Le Gassick founded aAIM (Active Asset Investment Management) "to promote a more sophisticated and innovative approach to real estate financing recognising the rapid integration of the property market and other capital markets".

But the company's main launch came in July 2003, at a swanky champagne reception in the heart of the City of London. And as a centrepiece of the occasion, Andrew Vicari, the multimillionaire court painter to the Saudi Royal family, presented an oil portrait of Sir Alex Ferguson to none other than the Manchester United manager himself.

From the start, aAIM has used its celebrity investors as a marketing tool, and SAF has been most prominent amongst them. Other football people have also invested, including Alan Smith (even before he signed for United), Gareth Barry and John Terry. Simon Cowell is also said to be involved, and Sir David Frost chairs their advisory panel. Essentially it is a tool for creating "tax-efficient" syndicates of rich people to invest in commercial property. Many of the investors are no doubt anonymous city figures, but the footballers make it all sound sexier.

At the launch party SAF said, "The syndicate fits in well with the balance of my investments. I was impressed by the balance of the company and I liked the team. I like people who are go-ahead, young, energetic and work hard." Presumably he liked the team even more when his friend Dalgarno was included.

At the same time as Dalgarno joined, aAIM set up a joint venture with the Bank of Scotland called the Symmetry Fund, with the intention of spending £2 billion on European property. In December it picked up a string of four-star hotels, including the George in Edinburgh ("Sir Alex Ferguson backer of new owners of top Edinburgh hotel" as The Scotsman put it), the Russell in London, the Royal York in York, the Met in Leeds, the Palace in Manchester and Selsdon Park in Croydon. Since aAIM was launched in January 2003, it claims to have generated an average return of more than 80 per cent.

Another recent report also noted that "aAIM is also advised by James Chapman & Co, which counts Manchester United FC and Sir Alex Ferguson among its clients", so the friends of Mr Watkins know how to keep in touch.

Dalgarno is also a keen golfer (he visited the Masters in Augusta with a select group from the Deeside Golf Club) and is involved in charity work in Scotland. He recently organised a charity lunch on behalf of Voluntary Service Aberdeen, which ten firms each paid £10,000 to attend. Old and new employers were amongst the ten contributors. And the lunch was hosted by SAF himself.

Sources : Faisal Islam, The Observer, July 20, 2003; The Scotsman, 19 November 2006