Attention MUFC hooligans - get a life! - citizenstuart

Attention MUFC hooligans - get a life!

I haven't blogged about the Manchester United buyout so far, because a) football bores me to tears and b) the rights and wrongs of the case are self-evident. But given the events of last night, and the fact that I live in Manchester, I suppose I ought to write something.

Quick recap for anyone who is in blissful ignorance of the revent events surrounding Manchester United Football Club: Years ago MUFC was floated on the stock market as part of its ongoing (and highly-successful) attempt to make as much money as possible. It's a sports club only in name now, in actuality it's become a massive marketing operation - the sports equivalent of Star Trek. The fans grumble a bit about being fleeced, but they still go out and buy all the merchandise, no-one forces them to do that. Of course the most important feature of a public limited company is that the shareholders are free to sell their shares to whoever they choose - that's part of the deal when they invest in a company in the first place. So it's always been a bit of a mystery to me why so many fans started complaining when a rich American by the name of Malcolm Glazer started buying up shares a few months ago with the intention of taking the "club" over. The fans seem to object to him being rich, an American, or a rich American - or something. Mr Glazer was successful, and now practically owns MUFC outright, despite noisy demonstrations from fans. That should have been the end of the story, just let him get on with running his new business while the fans buy the merchandise and watch the games - business as usual. Unfortunately, there's a noisy minority of "fans" who won't let it go, and have even resorted to making threats against Mr Glazer, his family, board members and anyone else they can think of. There was even a pitch invasion not long ago, during a reserve team match.

The worst incident so far happened at Old Trafford last night. Mr Glazer's three sons (and newly-elected board members) visited Old Trafford to inspect the premises and meet their opposite numbers in Manchester. The visit was low-key, but some of the quasi-fans found out and organised a "flying picket" of 200-300 hooligans to blockade Old Trafford while the Glazers were inside. By their own admission, these "fans" initiated force by stealing fencing from a neighbouring building site and using it to build road blocks to try to prevent the Glazer brothers from leaving, while chanting "Scum! Scum! Scum!". According to some reports, they also chanted "Glazer out!" (after putting up the barricades), "United not for sale!" (not now, it's not) and even "Die, Glazer! Die!". I can't personally confirm whether or not the latter charming slogans were really used, as only the first one was used in the BBC report I saw. Whatever, it was certainly a threatening situation, and fortunately Greater Manchester Police did an efficient job for once, and when the time came for the Glazers to leave, they did so in the back of a couple of police vans, seconds after the police had charged the hooligans and demolished the barricade. Incidentally, the vans belonged to the Tactical Aid Unit, which is based not far from where I live - among other things they handle firearms incidents, and they're not my favourite people, being the group that was put in charge of carrying out the mass theft of civilian-owned pistols in 1997. But in this case they seem to have done a decent job of work for once. Nice one Plod!

If you read some of the comments on this hooligan forum, you'll find that a lot of them seem to have been really into the violence - although they also complain about the allegedly heavy-handed tactics used by the cops against their "peaceful demonstration" (poor dears). Let's see, there were apparently about 100 coppers on the scene who were there to protect a group of people who hadn't done any harm to anyone, and up to 300 hooligans who were breaking the law because they objected to a legitimate business deal. There may have been individual abuses by cops, but in general I know which side I'm on. The footage they showed on the news didn't really last long enough to make a proper judgement, which is a pity because seeing these cretins start to panic when the cops charged them was fun.

What beats me is why people get so wound up about this business in the first place. It's not a political cause or a religion, it's just football - it's a game that a lot of people like to watch, nothing more. It's not a matter of life or death who owns it, and if you end up objecting that strongly to the current management for whatever reason, you can always follow another team (you see more City shirts than United shirts in my part of Manchester anyway). There are much more important things going on in the world to get upset about. I don't believe for one moment that the 300 losers who went out looking for trouble last night represent the average football fan - it's much more likely that they're the types who get banned from attending matches anyway, the types the real fans disavow. I'm talking about the sort of losers whose lives are so empty, whose self-esteem is so low, and whose minds are so blank, that the only way they can bring any kind of meaning to their lives is by getting together with a gang of fellow losers and having a ruck - and any excuse will do.

1.7.05 00:06

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