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.
Indeed I had to look up the result of our last Super Cup — we lost to Lazio, it says here, in 1999 — even though I was at the match, reported on it and spent that whole week in Nice. Given that I can still recite League Cup results from 1974 without blinking, you get the contrasting picture. Though tomorrow, there’s actually something important on — a group of us will be off on a detour to schmooze at the European Cup draw (after which we’ll be taking tea with, and interviewing, Michel Platini. As you do.)
When I plotted out the week’s itinerary the other day, it occurred to me that this has quietly become one of our favourite weeks of the season. I guess it’s a sign of the changing times that the excitement of January’s FA Cup 3rd Round draw has, for us, become thoroughly out-thrilled by the Euro -balls show. Certainly redissue.co.uk will host record traffic on Thursday and Friday as everyone piles online to swap routings, flight availabilities and hotel tips.
Not surprising, really: We lads revel in having three guaranteed holidays away from the missuses pleasingly laid out for us. And anyone who makes even the merest penny from supplying United fan culture — like us fanziners, the swagmen, the coach trip organisers — instantly label them “working business trips”, which even the most determined female will tend to concede grants us immunity from having her onboard the plane.
Though you know, it can genuinely be hard work getting through half a case of Côtes de Provence in 48 hours.
So that’s the Euro-draw, the Super Cup and then this golden week’s climactic would-be showstopper: The closing of the transfer window. If Berbatov has not signed by the time it clangs shut, it will be an unexpected stunner of Wembley ’76 proportions — none of us is even considering the possibility of it falling through somehow, especially not since his omission from the Spurs squad on Saturday.
It would be a superbly timed deliverance for Wayne Rooney in particular, who is quite justifiably showing signs of being thoroughly fed up with people — including, it seems, his manager — having a pop at him. He bluntly stated a couple of weeks ago that he wants United to sign a goalscorer so that it’d properly liberate him to do what he does best, which is to go where he pleases and create magical mayhem.
The contrast with Fergie’s recent pronouncements on the issue — in which he seemingly sought to limit Wayne’s role once more, having only just recently apologised for doing that very thing to him too often — has been rightly jumped on by the papers. For this could have developed into one of those nasty running positional battles such as the one Fergie fought with Ruud, Beckham and Ince; if Berb’s transfer helps head that prospect off at the pass, it will have paid for itself even before the guy starts scoring.
The mouth waters, in any event: Begone Frattonian ugliness, hello silkly Slavic gorgeousness. Oo la la!
* Richard Kurt’s Red Army Years is only available via redissuebooks@hotmail.co.uk
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