Tommy Martin: Super Sunday storming of Old Trafford a key propaganda coup in televised revolution
A fan wears a shirt with a "United Against Greed" message as fans gather to protest against the Glazer family, the owners of Manchester United, at Old Trafford. Photo: Barrington Coombs/PA
Watching the Prem on Sky Sports was once a safe haven from the tumult engulfing the world.
You expected nothing more dramatic while digesting your Sunday roast than the occasional dirty look from Keano. Discussion of world events consisted of Uncle Souey alluding sceptically to the Latin temperament. Major breaking news was that time Liverpool sacked Brendan Rodgers and Thierry Henry put his hand on Jamie Carragher’s knee.
Now, mayhem has come to your weekend afternoons dozing on the couch with the papers. Great shifts in the tectonic plates of society have rumbled across the sacred hours once devoted to “interesting late team news, at least from an Aston Villa perspective”.
‘Feel It All’ was the carefree motto of the before times, but now the famous words of mad German movie director Werner Herzog ring truer: “Sky Sports - civilisation is a thin layer of ice resting upon a deep ocean of darkness and chaos. Thoughts, Gary?” We had no sooner gotten over the drama of Super League Super Sunday LIVE!! – when Johnny Foreigner tried to wazz all over English football tradition but got a bloody nose for his troubles from the stout-hearted Tommies on the front line – than our screens were filled with revolting Manchester United fans.
As revolutions go, I’ve seen worse. Blocking the team’s passage from their base at the Lowry Hotel in the city was a clever strategic move, like seizing the power stations or military installations. Overthrowing the Glazer junta will be a lot easier with Bruno Fernandes stuck in the lobby.
All this is a bit of a nightmare for the broadcasters, by the way. I know it seems like great TV when something mad and unexpected happens. But really, TV production crews are no different to anyone else, they want to punch in, drink tea and eat high-calorie snack food, and punch out, preferably without being caught in the middle of a popular uprising.
As events progressed on Sunday, there was the sense of the ice cracking and the chaos below. As I have mentioned, these are strange times on Super Sunday. Cut loose from the safety of talking about the subtleties of Fred and McTominay, the various voices clung to their basic principles, which I have summarised thus:
Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher: “Power to the people!”
Dave Jones: “Careful now.”
Graeme Souness: “Let them eat cake.”
It is an immutable law of events like these that somebody has to say that we don’t want to see this kind of thing, presumably in the fear that if they don’t, people will think that we do want to see this kind of thing and start looting their local Tesco.
Thankfully, the conversation has moved on a bit in the days since the Mancunian Spring began. Many have wondered what Manchester United fans have got to be so bothered about in the first place. Sure, the Super League thing was a bummer, but the team are in second place in the Premier League, are poised to reach a European final, and have spent a net amount north of €800million on transfers since Alex Ferguson left in 2013 alone. Are you not entertained?
Some say it is because the Glazers have let Old Trafford grow a bit shabby, the sight of rusty girders and peeling paint inciting jealousy of rivals with in-house microbreweries and cheese rooms.
Mostly though it’s just the Glazers, everything about them: old Joel, Avram, and Bryan (had to check that last one) and how their focus on pumping the club for revenues and dividends like some weary old cow has just left United fans totally grimmed out. The ice on which United’s owners tread has only ever been the wafer-thin, and so the chaos rears its head again.
But if you were to pull back from your couch last Sunday and see the sight of football fans protesting with a wider lens than that offered by the cracked Sky Sports camera, you might not think it was that strange at all.
This was a year, after all, that began with a mob storming the Capitol building in Washington D.C. Last year, crowds tore down statues dedicated to slavers as the unrest of the Black Lives Matter movement played out. Anti-lockdown protesters and Q-Anon crackpots have taken to the streets in cities around the world.
If this disparate lot – and the post-Super League football protests – have anything in common, it is a general sense of powerlessness and disconnectedness, the feeling that their lives and interests are being manipulated by powerful, shadowy forces.
At the core is the principle that we put up with an awful lot in modern life, but don’t take the piss. Our bank keeps us on hold for an hour but at least they tell us our call is important to them. The government can’t provide people with homes but assure us they are right on the case. Big tech is fomenting division and hatred but check out this viral dance craze.
It’s the thin layer of civilisation. Other clubs have distant, unscrupulous owners, but pretend to hear the voice of the fans. They say nice things and promise they are guarding the club’s legacy and build microbreweries. The Glazers don’t even pretend. They built Ed Woodward.
As I write, a Sky News reporter has doorstepped a mute Avram Glazer to ask whether United fans are just customers to him (needless to say, Bryan was nowhere to be seen).
For more on that darkness and chaos, let’s cross over to Geoff Shreeves.
