Redprint

Wayne Barton

Description

In 2013, when legendary boss Sir Alex Ferguson announced his retirement, Manchester United seemed the dream job for any football manager. Champions of England, the biggest and most profitable club in the world. What could possibly go wrong for his successor, who would be appointed with the clear intention of continuing the club's rich tradition? Redprint explores, in forensic detail, the six turbulent years at Old Trafford since Ferguson walked away. Despite record levels of expenditure, a succession of different managers with different philosophies and concerns about the changing identity of the club, United continued to compel throughout this period of underachievement. Wayne Barton examines each of the managerial reigns since 2013 and discusses their successes and failures in a historical and contemporary context to ask the question - are Manchester United closer to regaining their glory, or are they simply repeating mistakes of years gone by?

Sujets

• Lancashire
• Lancastre

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 05 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785315916
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019

Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Worthing
Sussex
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
[e-mail]
2019, Wayne Barton
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright. Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, sold or utilised in any form or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78531-554-1 eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-591-6
Typesetting and origination by Pitch Publishing
Printed and bound by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, UK
Contents
Introduction
The blood drained from my face
Rio And Chips
We will try and make it difficult for Newcastle
Ryan Giggs - Football Manager
The future is Orange
Out with the old
Cracks
Dark December
Spring
Summer
Call The Doc
A New Era
Einsteins
In His Own Mould
A case for the defence
Smoke and Mirrors
The more things change
Third Season Syndrome
Clockwise
Timing
When Skies Are Grey
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Identity matters. Of course it does. In May 2012 a global survey revealed that Manchester United had a reported 659 million supporters. Theoretically that means one in every 11 people on planet Earth is a fan of the Old Trafford club. If such a figure seems ridiculous then the statistic must be counter-balanced by evidence, and much of the evidence does at least suggest that Manchester United are the most popular sports franchise in the world.
The team Harry Gregg has dubbed the Hollywood of football receive the superstar treatment wherever they are in the world; their global appeal never more apparent than in a 2014 pre-season friendly in Michigan, USA, where 109,318 fans packed into the Michigan Stadium to watch United face Real Madrid. Red shirts clearly outnumbered white shirts in the crowd. In 2017 Forbes listed Manchester United as the most valuable soccer franchise in the world, even after a four-year spell since winning their last Premier League title. The commercial appeal of having the likes of Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo represent the brand has also been an important factor, while the club have additionally transitioned into an era where it seems important to make statement signings. United have broken their own transfer record three times since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, as opposed to the three times in the previous 12 years (and the July 2001 signing of Juan Sebastian Veron from Lazio for 28.1m came a few weeks after Ruud van Nistelrooy s own record 18m move which broke the record for the first time in three years). The glamour of breaking the club transfer record for Angel Di Maria, and then the world transfer record for Paul Pogba compensated - at least as far as their worldwide platform was concerned - for the lack of top-level trophies.
However, it was United s popularity that caused the commercial interest in the club. So, what caused the popularity? Of course, there is the notion that many started following the club due to their success. But even if we accept that has to be somewhat true, it cannot be entirely so. There is also the suggestion - and again, it is a suggestion that can t be completely dismissed - that after the Munich Air Disaster Manchester United attracted people who were sympathetic to their cause and keen to see how they would recover.
If the primary suggestion is to do with success, then maybe it s a good place to start. Manchester United are the most successful English club and have been for a while, even though busy revisionists down the M62 have continuously attempted to redefine what constitutes a major trophy in order to preserve Liverpool s stake to that particular claim (for example, for a while, their European Super Cup trophies were cited, and United s 1999 Intercontinental Cup and 2008 Club World Cup were dismissed as minor trophies, presumably because the Anfield club have never won either incarnation of that trophy). Plenty of teams win trophies, however, and the reason most often given by those who are not of the locale of the club for their support is because of their enjoyment of that particular team s style of football.
It is altogether more satisfying from a purist s perspective if that style of football is synonymous with the club s history - Real Madrid supporters have long enjoyed their club s unapologetic approach to buying the best players in the world, Barcelona have the Cruyff model, and Manchester United have, at the risk of paraphrasing something which is going to take a few thousand words more to elaborate upon, the reputation of counter-attacking football played by a majority of home-grown players, as well as a reputation for never giving in. What makes it even better for those clubs? Their greatest successes are drenched in the hallmark of their traditional brilliance. Whether it s Real Madrid s world-record signings scoring spectacular goals, Barcelona s tiki-taka being at its most imperious, or Manchester United s last gasp turnaround (or their George Best-inspired audacity), all three of the world s biggest clubs have their finest hours defined by their most noteworthy characteristics.
The purpose of this book is to examine what has happened to that identity of Manchester United since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, but, as the club s greatest-ever manager once said, to know your future as a United player, you must first know your history. There are a number of books and records that have the time to go into Sir Matt Busby s philosophies in much more detail, but his objective upon taking over the reins at Old Trafford was a relatively straightforward one - to provide a footballing team which would entertain the hard-working locals at the end of the week, and to do so with a team comprised of locally sourced and developed players. The latter part of that was also the shared vision of Walter Crickmer, Louis Rocca and James Gibson; though, considering the financial difficulties the club was suffering due to the bombing of Old Trafford in the Second World War, it is not exactly clear whether this was a proposal of necessity rather than one as visionary as it seems. However, given the qualities of the three gentlemen, it would be wise to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Certainly as far as Matt Busby was concerned, one can comfortably describe him as a visionary. Before the European Cup was even conceived, Busby was taking his Manchester United team on world tours - a glamorous 12-date tour of Canada and North America took in the bright lights of Los Angeles after the 1949/50 season concluded - to increase the profile of his club. They played against Atlas Club Mexico in LA where their presence in the city was acknowledged by a number of top Hollywood film stars and even the president of Mexico.
Still, even Matt Busby himself could not have comprehended the amount of work Jimmy Murphy would do for him after he spotted him training some soldiers in a camp in Bari towards the end of the war. Busby was enamoured by Murphy s passionate team talks, taken in by how determined he was for his team to win even though these games were effectively meaningless. He offered him a job looking after everything but the first team back in Manchester, and Murphy took those words literally and very seriously indeed. Helped by coaches Bert Whalley and Tom Curry, as well as chief scout Joe Armstrong, Murphy created a youth set-up that was the envy of the footballing universe. When United triumphed 10-0 against Anderlecht in September 1956, many sections of the British media declared that the Manchester team were the best in the world. This was a team which, faithful to the wish of Gibson and Rocca, was comprised of the best home-grown players. It was a team that won back-to-back league titles. However, more than that, it was the personality of the team and the way they played that won so many admirers throughout the country and continent. Aggressive, confident and with an insatiable appetite to have the football, the Manchester United young players were in the mould of their mentor, Jimmy Murphy.
Then Munich happened. Jimmy Murphy, and Matt Busby, did remarkable work to remain true to their shared philosophy, and even more remarkably, ten years later, after the disaster, they won a European Cup with all of their four goals in the final coming from home-grown players.
When Matt Busby retired, the club struggled in transition. Wilf McGuinness knew as much about the identity of Manchester United as anyone else. Frank O Farrell was a gamble which didn t work out, and while it took him some time, Tommy Docherty restored the club to its Cup-winning glory in 1977. Docherty was sacked the same year and was replaced by an antithesis in the form of Dave Sexton. Sexton would be quiet and uncontroversial off the pitch - just what the directors wanted. He would also be defensive and conservative on it - just what the supporters didn t want.
Despite a second-place finish in 1980 and winning the last seven league games in 1981, the dissatisfaction from the United fans was not exactly restrained to a vocal minority, and so the flamboyant and quotable Ron Atkinson was hired in an attempt to recapture some of the flair of the Docherty era.
Atkinson s arrival was a significant one in the history of Manchester United, even if it was a reluctant appointment from the board. Big Ron was an outstanding candidate, of that there is no doubt, and his time at the club won many admirers. But the directors braced themselves for the potential of more controversy - controversy that never really came, it should be added - and in doing so, sent out som