Manchester United, The History So Far

Adrian Bradbury

Description

Are you a Man United fan? Do you want to improve your English skills? Then Manchester United: The History So Far is the perfect book for you. It's a short history of our great club, written for people who find English difficult, but want to get better. The English is easy to read, and after each chapter there is a fun grammar or spelling task, all about football and United.The book covers all the main events in United's history: the beginning, in 1878, when the Newton Heath football club was set up for railway workers; the name change to Manchester United, and the difficult times when the club almost went out of business; the glory of the Busby Babes; the terrible night in Munich when eight players were killed in a plane crash; the great team of Best, Law and Charlton in the 60s; the pain of relegation in 1974; the wonderful Sir Alex Ferguson years, when the club were the kings of both England and Europe. The story finishes as the 2016-17 season begins under new manager Jose Mourinho. In addition, three chapters tell about Manchester United legends: Duncan Edwards, Eric Cantona and Wayne Rooney."Linking football and English learning is such a great idea. This book combines lovely storytelling with tips for improving grammar and spelling. It's ideal for football fans who want to find out more about their club and improve their English at the same time." Ruth Miskin OBE, creator of the most popular literacy programme in the UK and long time government adviser.

Informations

• Publié par: Adrian Bradbury
• Date de parution: 26 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780955351143
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

MANCHESTER
UNITED
THE HISTORY SO FAR
 
by Adrian Bradbury
 
Book 1 of the ‘Learn English Through Sport’ series
 
Published in UK by Adrian Bradbury
 
ISBN 978-0-9553511-4-3
 
Copyright © 2016 Adrian Bradbury
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any way without the author’s written permission, except for the use of short quotations in a book review.
 
Email: [e-mail]
www.adrianbradburywriter.co.uk
 
1. MAN UNITED: THE BEGINNING
Manchester United is one of the biggest football clubs in the world. But at first it had a different name. It began in 1878 as ‘Newton Heath’, a club for men who worked on the railways. They played matches against other railway teams. You may not believe it, but when the English Football League was formed in 1888, Newton Heath thought they were not good enough! Their pitch was terrible, and the players had to walk ten minutes to get there from the changing rooms. They only joined the Football League in 1892, and in their first season they finished bottom. Not a great start. The next year they moved to a new ground, but it was still terrible. There was no grass on the pitch, and the air was full of smoke. They finished bottom of the league again.
Only a few years later, Newton Heath’s short life nearly ended. They had no money. Luckily some rich local men, including John Davies, decided to save the club. He gave them money, but said they must change their name. It may seem strange now, but you could easily be a fan of ‘Manchester Celtic’ or ‘Manchester Central’! These were two of the ideas for new names, before they decided on ‘Manchester United’ in 1902.
United’s first success came with the help of a Man City player! Billy Meredith, who had the nickname ‘the Welsh Wizard’, had problems at City. The Football Association said that he had paid the Aston Villa captain £10 to try to lose their game against City. Meredith said that City often tried to pay players from other teams. Both Meredith and City got into big trouble. It was clear that he had to leave. United took him on a free transfer. He soon began to make a big difference, and in 1908 United won their first Division 1 championship (that’s what the Premier League was called in the old days). The next year they won the FA Cup for the first time, beating Bristol Rovers 1-0 in the final at Crystal Palace. The players had a night out in London, but in the morning they could not find the FA Cup. They began to get very worried. Had they lost football’s most famous trophy? After looking for a long time, they found it on the floor, under a coat.
Did you know?
In 1908 United, the new champions of England, went to play some friendly games in Austria and Hungary. It was half holiday, half football. They were United’s first games in Europe, but not everything went well. The fans in Hungary wanted their own club to win, but United were much too good for them. The fans started to throw stones at the United players. The referee sent off three United players, but they still won 7-0. Police on horses had to stop the angry fans from getting at the United players. They decided not to go back next year!
John Davies knew that the club needed a bigger ground. He bought some land in the Old Trafford part of Manchester and built a new stadium. United played their first game there in February 1910, in front of 80,000 people. It was a great day, but not a great result: a 3-4 defeat to Liverpool. Only a few days before that game, strong winds blew away part of the old ground, so the move was obviously a good one.
After this great start, Manchester United had a hard time. They dropped near to the bottom of the league table. In 1915 the football league was stopped for four years during World War 1. But before that there were more problems for United. In April 1915 they played Liverpool and won 2-0, but many Liverpool players didn’t seem to try very hard. After the game it was found that players from both teams had made bets that United would win 2-0! They won a lot of money on the bets. This was against the law, and some players were told they could never play football again.
 
Grammar Task: Past Tense Verbs
This chapter was all about things that happened in the past. I used verbs like played , worked , ended and needed . This is the normal way we change verbs to talk about the past: we just put -ed on the end. Simple! We call these ‘regular’ past tense verbs.
The problem is, a lot of English verbs are not regular. In the past tense they change in many different ways. Here are some other verbs I used: began , thought and gave (not begined , thinked and gived ). We call these ‘irregular’ past tense verbs.
Can you see any more in Chapter 1 ???
Here are some verbs that you can use when you talk or write about football. Can you change them to the past tense? Some are regular (with -ed) and some are irregular. You must decide!
kick shoot pass run catch
tackle jump win lose draw
 
2. MAN UNITED: AFTER WORLD WAR 1
Like many other clubs, United’s team after World War 1 had many new players. The next 15 years was an up and down time. They were relegated from the First Division in 1922, but came back up in 1925. However, over the following years they began to sink down the league, finishing 17th in 1930. The next season was terrible. United lost their first 12 games. They lost 0-6 to Huddersfield and 4-7 to Newcastle, both at Old Trafford! The fans were not happy. They had a meeting, and said that if the club did not change things, they would not go and watch. United gave away 115 goals that season, to finish bottom of the league. Back down in Division 2, supporters again began to stay away, so not much money was coming into the club. At the last game of the season less than 4000 fans were at Old Trafford. By December 1932 there was no money to pay the players. It looked as if the club might go out of business.
United was saved by a local man, James Gibson. He put money into the club to pay the wages and the bills. He also asked the railway company to build a station outside the ground, to help fans get to Old Trafford. There was a new manager, but the club were still losing. In 1934 they almost dropped into Division 3 - they won their final game 2-0 to stay up. Things looked better the following year, when United were promoted back to the top division. Hooray! But ….. the next season they went down again. Oh no! Don’t worry though, in 1938 up they went again! The club was bouncing between the top two divisions like a rubber ball.
Then came World War 2, and six years without league football in England. During the war, Old Trafford was hit by bombs, so United had to pay City to share their stadium at Maine Road. Even though they had to play away from Old Trafford, it was a successful time. In the five years after World War 2, United finished second in the league four times. They also won the FA Cup in 1948, beating Blackpool 4-2 in one of the best ever cup finals. Without a ground or office to store the trophy, James Gibson kept the FA Cup in a cupboard in his house! The success was mostly because of their new manager, Scotsman Matt Busby. He was a hard man. Before the war he worked deep underground in a coal mine. During the war he was an officer in the army, and was a strong leader. He tried to save money by taking young players and turning them into stars. Their exciting, attacking style of football brought the fans back to watch. Success followed, as United won the First Division title in 1952.
As the 1950s continued, more and more young players were added to the first team. People began to call them the ‘Busby Babes’. More Division 1 titles arrived in 1956 and 1957, and United became England’s first team to enter the European Cup. Everyone believed that this was just the beginning of a great period of success.
 
Word Task: Homophones
Some words in English sound the same when you say them, but they have different spellings and they mean different things. We call them ‘homophones’.
For example, in Chapter 2 we talked about a new manager . But we could also have a sentence such as:
I knew the score because a friend texted me.
The words new and knew are homophones. Other examples are: for/four , see/sea and male/mail
In each of these sentences there is a pair of homophones. Can you pick the correct one???
1. Coming back after an injury, Rooney played the hole/whole ninety minutes.
2. After defending for a long time, United scored a break/brake away goal.
3. Pogba’s shot went through/threw the goalkeeper’s legs.
4. Kompany’s week/weak tackle was not enough to stop Martial.
5. Rashford kept running because he didn’t here/hear the referee’s whistle.
6. The board/bored of directors decided to sack Van Gaal at the end of the season.
7. United had a piece/peace of luck when Aguero’s shot hit the bar.
8. In the next round of the cup, United will meat/meet Arsenal.
 
3. MAN UNITED LEGENDS 1: DUNCAN EDWARDS
For our first United legend (all-time great player) we go back to the 1950s. Manager Matt Busby had a plan to build a great team around a group of fantastic young players called the Busby Babes. These included Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg, who would go on to have great United careers. But most people thought that the top player in the team was young Duncan Edwards.
Duncan was born in a town called Dudley, in the English midlands. When he was young it was soon clear that he would be a great player. He was picked to be captain of the England Schools Under-14 team in 1950. United had their eye on him right away, but so did other clubs. Both Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa (huge clubs in the 1950s) wanted