‘Dimit-Roo’ get the season going at last

SO, how was it last night? I’m writing this on a Tuesday lunchtime, chuckling at all the mobile phone pix coming into the RedIssue website of various Celts acting the giddy goat around town, which often involves leaving various bodily deposits behind hedges or, in some particularly alcoholic cases, bang in the centre of Piccadilly Gardens.

It is now thoroughly fashionable amongst Warwick Road’s taste-setters to sneer at our Glaswegian cousins – and my very imputation of a familial relationship would be vehemently rejected by many modern Reds — but I had been looking forward to last night as An Event, if not a football match, for weeks.

That said, the second half last Saturday evening wasn’t too shabby either; at times, the OT volume hit decently acceptable levels, as the crowd’s appreciation for Berbatov and Rooney growled delightedly.

You will forgive me a slight crow or two here, as regulars will know from my frequent defences of Wayne here during his so-called fallow periods what an unconditional fan I am of the Spud-Faced Nipper.

Despite his Scouseness. Which is a big ‘despite’. And as a columnist who claims to be one of the first ever to place the words ‘Berbatov’ and ‘Cantonesque’ next to each other in a sentence (August 2006!), I am equally thrilled by Dmitar’s continued unfurling.

Nice word, ‘unfurl’; it has the appropriately languid, feline and understated air that suits the Bulgarian smoothie so well. I am (heterosexually) smitten by him, I admit.

And I hope it doesn’t sound too poncey to remark that, when I watched the highlights on Match Of The Day, I found the head-down embarrassed smile after his goal to be a total swoon.

What a wonderful contrast to the increasingly tiresome ‘look at me!’ backflip of Nani or the sulky, can’t-be-arsed grimace which Ronaldo treated himself to after his strike. Ronnie continues to draw attention to himself by virtue of his apparent isolation, in some eyes at least.

And amidst all the amply justified ‘Dimit-Roo’ hype, spare a thought too for the apparently put-out Tevez, who as I have written previously is looking less and less likely to be here next season. He and his “friends” even permitted themselves a couple of grumpy asides in the press this past week – they were low-key but unmistakably ominous.

However the one who should be feeling the heat the most is another of my admittedly frequent targets, Owen Hargreaves, a player who I have to confess I have never much liked and whose purchase I thought an expensive mistake.

Old Trafford whisperers have started planting suggestions that Fergie’s patience is now exhausted and that a summer sale may be on the cards.

The day he signed, I wrote from personal experience that anyone suffering tendonitis was going to be a permanent liability, on whom one should not place too much reliance — and thus far, that has seemed to be a just diagnosis. Still, fingers crossed for that miracle cure, hey? (You’ll have to imagine the rolled-eyes emotion there, lads.) But notwithstanding whatever happened last night, the buzz is back.

And my mouth is already watering about what Wayne might do to those bitter Everton boo boys of his on Saturday. ‘08/’09 has truly begun at last: turns out all United needed was Wayne to shake off his post-nuptials, symbolically shave his head, and join the fray.

Well, it’s either that or his finally being played in his preferred position for once, eh Sir Alex?!

Cough, cough….

* Richard Kurt’s classic ‘Red Army Years’ is only available via [e-mail]