WHO AM I?
Many of you won’t know me so let me tell you about myself. You will then understand how qualified I am as arguably the biggest Man U fan on the net.
I am 49 years old and I grew up as an only child in a footballing house in Enfield (where I still live today). My mother was a fanatical Leyton Orient fan (formerly known as Orient) and my father an Arsenal fan. Not that I’m a glory hunter or anything, but I chose to follow in his footsteps.
Oh how I enjoyed all of those glory years listening on the radio and following on teletext. I only ever went to two games though. One of them was at Highbury when I was 29 and the other at Old Trafford to watch us try to beat the red Mancunian bastard scum. I didn’t see any of the game because I ended up spending the full 90 minutes in the toilets due to a dodgy pie I bought at the Lou Macari chippy and couldn’t tell you to this day what the score was. It didn’t matter because I didn’t see the game.
Anyway, as The Mighty Arsenal began to lose their might and were winning less and less trophies, I realised that supporting a team with a lack of silverware wasn’t for me. They say you can’t change your club, but I proved those people wrong in 2007 when I made the natural swap over to the MUFC reds. It seemed like the right thing to do: they were dominating English football, seemingly very wealthy with no debts, often live on Sky and their local rivals City were on their arses with no way out. Perfect for me.
I don’t believe there’s a single Sky subscriber in the country who has had better value out of their package than me and I’m proud to say I’ve never once missed a live game. HD, 3D, Surround Sound – these are the things that make me a loyal fan. I’ve never understood why so many insist on actually going to a game when it’s all there at your fingertips. I think many Man U fans are also now thinking my way. Did you see how many empty seats there were the other week at home to Braga? Our fans are the best in the world though. I don’t think there’s any others who can be so quiet until a goal is scored. The way we are able to pump up the volume for a full 2 minutes after a goal is incredible and the envy of every other club.
Of course I’ve had a dilemma for the last couple of years because we appear to have stopped winning things. I’m not going to lie, when we finished Joint Champions with City last season, I almost made the switch to them but then I realised they’ve got a shit fanbase in London, and they don’t have our History…. At the end of the day that’s what the game is all about. Not the present or future, but the past (not including Dennis Law’s backheel against us but apart from that. Oh and the 5-1 at Maine Road, but apart from that).
I’m not one of those bitter Man U fans though. Yes I watch for City’s results more than our’s and no I don’t always know when we are playing although I know all of their fixtures, but that doesn’t mean I’m bitter.
Why would I be bitter anyway? We’ve got Tom Cleverley, they’ve got Yaya Toure. We’ve got Jonny Evans, they’ve got Vincent Kompany. We’ve got Danny Welbeck, they’ve got Sergio Aguero.
The biggest joke of all is when you hear a City fan tell you they haven’t bought success. Just look at their goalie, he’s the prime example. They spent £600k on him! What the fuck were they thinking, nobody spends that on a goalie. And he’s not even the best in the world as so many pundits and fans claim. We all know it’s David De Gea. A snip at £18m.
Naturally though De Gea isn’t a product of Sir Alex’s amazing youth academy which continues to sprout up new talent such as the £29m RVP and £28m Rio. It’s the envy of world football.
To summarise:
- Arsenal fan until 2007
- Sky sports 3D subscriber (and proud owner of Sony Surround System)
- Owner of a CHAMP20NS t-shirt I bought on eBay when we went 4-2 up against Everton last season
- Not bitter
- Love the Glazers. Who wouldn’t put themselves before the club to make a few quid and take the piss out of the fans. LULG.
- Hoping to go to my first game in 2014
Thank you for reading about my football obsessed life. London is the Capital of the Man U fanbase and I’m right there in the thick of it in Enfield. I look forward to giving you more insight with future articles in the weeks and months to come. I would say years but I may not even be a Man U fan by 2015.
Cockney Fred the Red
Hi Bob, didn’t you go to the game last night with thousands of your fellow cockney reds? I was confused at times because they had thicker local accents than the Chelsea fans!
Without the Freddies of this world there’d be more companies struggling to keep afloat.
The trainline.com has recently said that the London/Manchester matchday train accounts for 23% of it’s August to May business. Ryanair makes almost £2,500 from its Manchester to Dublin flights – and £3.8M on surcharges.
Sky Sports subscriptions dropped by 11% in the London area at the beginning of this season after uniteds poor ‘we will call it a trophy when it’s all we’ve got’ Community Shield winning campaign. Rumours that MUTV and LFCTV are to be switched to the History Channel have ensured that Sky and Vurgins tv packages that include the station have maintained their current level.
United claim that over £2m worth of parcels are sent from their superstore each day and this generates tens of thousands of pounds work for couriers and the Royal Mail. Dozens of 5-9 year old Chinese sewing machinists rely on uniteds success to keep them from being found face down in a gutter. HMRC takes over £5m in VAT and customs duties fron shirts imported to the UK from the Far East by unscrupulous eBay dealers.
The unprecidented demand for green and yellow scarves generated a huge amount of unexpected revenue for the Phillipino acryic dyers and weavers.Workers were treated to bonuses of up to thre’pence after gruelling thirty two hour double shifts. These small bonuses add up and eventually will pay for their daughters to advertise on UK Marriage websites.
So when you mock the red Freddies of this world just remember who they help behind the scenes.