Trip to Saints offers nostalgic distraction
‘HATS OFF TO BERBATOV!’ screamed the sport bit, which is a line I may have used once or twice or 20 times here in the past.
Then out fell the Business section: ‘QATAR KICKS OFF BID TO BUY UNITED!’ yelled its lead story. Again, another frequent Kurt column trope, and by now I was getting rather excited.
What could be on the front of the Style magazine, I wondered? “Lindsay Lohan Naked — And She’s Hot For Facetious Columnists”? Sadly not, but still: a good Sunday’s reading all told.
My further enquiries have revealed that the paper remains “confident” that talks did indeed take place in December, and furthermore sources allege chief executive David Gill has been discussing them privately, although he denies that publicly. This means that five of the last eight Sundays have now seen prominent Qatar/United stories on the backpages of UK papers, and one is sorely tempted to trot out the old no-smoke-without-fire line once more. One of my better sources on this promises more on the subject within the week, so perhaps we shall return to the topic next time.
But for now, let us ‘turn the corner’ and ‘move forward’. That, apparently, is what we are all doing this week, following United’s demolition of Brum and Chelsea’s equally impressive crushing of Bolton. Ancelotti explicitly used the ‘turn a corner’ phrase, and I suspect Fergie might have followed suit, had that not entailed admitting there was a corner to be turned. I’m aware we have been here before, of course: I first suggested the ‘broad sunlit uplands’ were beckoning after the Hernadez show at Stoke, and then again after the penta-Berb against Rovers, so perhaps this is third time lucky, lest I turn into the boy who cried wolf’s optimistic doppelganger.
It has, after all, partly been a season of letdowns. Think back to how highly anticipated were the trips to Chelsea and Blackpool — both postponed — and the City, Liverpool (cup) and Arsenal matches. We won the latter two, of course, but I’d hope adherents of this column will not need reminding that the measure of our pleasure is not solely to be had in results. Only the Liverpool league match has truly lived up to our hopes, and the consequence of all the above has been a feeling of dissatisfaction that has contributed to the widespread conclusion that we are not in the middle of a vintage season.
But enough whinging. A New Year, a new start, and a new front — the FA Cup, and a trip to Southampton. By journo law, the word ‘magic’ must now be deployed, if only to introduce several paragraphs banging on about how it’s all vanished since Wembley was demolished/United went to Brazil/the old King died.
I cannot for a minute pretend that we head to the south coast in anything resembling the excited mood in which we once set forth there back in 1977, my first FA Cup away day. I can still taste the burning sensation in the throat that was our sense of vengeance for the 1976 final, and recall my awe at the bubbling masses who descended — 7,000 of the Red Army who invaded the pitch and then staged a mass set-to with the unfortunate hosts. A blood-pumping 2-2 saw us back to Old Trafford for the reply, which produced another minor classic full of red cards, dodgy p enalties and fisticuffs a-go-go — and a 2-1 victory.
Jimmy Greenhoff was the hero that night, as he would (rather awkwardly) be at Wembley in May, and the whole run would produce enough magic to last a lifetime’s memory. Even as late as 1992, when the FA Cup was on the brink of its historic usurpation as the repository of glamour by the ‘Premiership’, the Saints and Devils were producing epic ties, this one climaxing in an unforgettable United fightback at home., a disallowed Robbo ‘winner’, and then the first-ever FA Cup penalty shootout.
Sigh. It all used to mean so much to us, and now we treat it like the expensive chore that it undoubtedly is.
The cup-demeaning football authorities call this ‘progress’, do they? Pah. What next: a winter World Cup?! Oh...
