Looking into abyss signposted ‘second-best in your own town’

LAST WEEK had gone so well: then the weekend’s clouds started to gather.

Picture us last Friday, if you will. Drunkenly roasting to pink perfection under the Côte d’Azur skies, chuckling at the easiest Champions League group stage draw any of us can remember, hooting in derision at the news Everton’s suckers had agreed to buy Saha…

Not even Super Cup defeat by the Russians that night affected the bonhomie, glorified training session that it was. Even Paul Scholes’ uncharacteristically moronic red card, which will cost him the Villarreal match, was shrugged off as nothing more than the understandable if regrettable maddening effect of 27 C heat on an asthmatic Northerner.

But little did we know that out in the east, under a sun almost twice as hot, a deal was cooking up to potentially spoil our season – and maybe our decade.

Whether you spent that long weekend waiting for stormy Berbatov or for hurricane Gustav, it was much the same: there was a dark brooding presence, sucking up all the energy and attention for miles around, whose arrival at its destination was widely forecasted for Monday but you’re never quite sure… Curiously enough, the synchronicity continued on D-Day itself. For it was only minutes after hearing the news that the hurricane was, in fact, not going to hit New Orleans with anywhere near the strength predicted when a text announced to me that our Berbatov bid was ‘being challenged’.

When I called the source, my figurative jaw hit the ground in proper cartoon style. Which is something that doesn’t happen to me often, given my general cynicism. “Doctor Death sold the Berties to the Arabs last night; it’ll be all over the wires in an hour.”

And after receiving a three-minute briefing on who the Abu Dhabians were, I replaced the receiver, lifted my jaw back into place and thought ruefully to myself: “Ah well — we’ve had a good run. Maybe it’ll be time to hand our city back for a while.”

Over-reaction? Perhaps. Well, probably. But to switch allusions from hurricanes to something more man-made, this was undoubtedly a nuclear bomb blasting across Mancunia’s football landscape. This isn’t like last August, when Thaksin’s achilles heel was already well-known by the time he eventually moved in, and which didn’t happen with the all-stupefying overnight suddenness of this Monday’s blast. For back then, we Reds were sneeringly disbelieving more or less from the off, and my fanzine began exposing the Emperor’s New Clothes within two weeks (followed by the rest of the press just a mere eleven months later...) .

No, this time the rainbow really will produce pots of gold, and no ‘fit and proper person’ test failure is on the horizon to rescue us either. City have had their Abramovich Moment and we are suddenly looking into an abyss signposted “Second-Best In Your Own Town?” Shudder.

Of course one should always bear in mind that our successful maintenance of decent competition with Chelsea illustrates that billions do not necessarily knock out all opposition – at least not in the short-to-medium term. (The jury remains out as to whether a United suffering from the Glazers’ annual €80m withdrawals can possibly hope to compete in the long term with an infusive operation like Roman’s. Or – now — like City’s.)

Nevertheless, the sudden prospect of the (ex?)-Bitters going toe-to-toe with us for every available player and trophy – with all that entails in terms of attracting both local and global support too – is a massive psychic shock.

For years we’ve been talking confidently about being the cocks of England and Europe – now, overnight, we are left to wonder if our own backyard will be ours to crow over for much longer.

Truly tectonic shifts in Manchester’s eternal internal struggle have been few: 1906, 1922, 1945, 1969 and 1991 spring mainly to mind. Reds fear that hindsight may one day determine that 2008 should be in that company. For once, I am glad I grew up in the 70s: at least I know what inferiority feels like…

Richard Kurt’s Red Army Years recounts those very 1970s in Manchester! Order via [e-mail]