United’s ‘working business trip’ to sunny Monte Carlo
Some contrast, this Tuesday lunchtime as I write, to Monday night in Portsmouth: Ugly town, ugly crowd, ugly match. An away trip summarised in six words — close to some kind of record for journalistic pith, and six is actually more than it deserved. (The pith-taking record? The New York Times, which once reviewed a show thus: “No”. And silver to the unprintable fictional two-word review once given to the Spinal Tap’s legendary album Shark Sandwich …)
Pausing briefly to congratulate Darren Fletcher on his emergence as a lethal penalty box presence — well, whaddayaknow it is possible to write that sentence without collapsing in giggles — let us move on. Friday sees us meet Dmitri Medvedev’s favourite team in Monaco for an ideal kind of eurotrip match; a game that means nothing, leaving you free to enjoy a tension-free three-day bender, but for which you might still pick up a nice trophy you can pretend to celebrate.
