---------------------------------
[11] Come back later
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
For after match comments, including our very own on the spot reporters view of goings
on
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[10] Another no mark MP has a go
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
Easy isn't it. You're a backbench MP struggling to get noticed, so what do you do -
say something with Beck's name in the sentence and bingo:
Alan Simpson, MP for Nottingham South, attacked the "obscene" wealth of the Manchester
United midfielder and called for a new tax rate for all those earning more than
£40,000 a week.
Mr Simpson, who himself plays for the Labour MPs' football team ("for free", he points
out), said it was time Mr Beckham put more back into the public coffers.
In an interview for website ePolitix.com, published today, Mr Simpson said the public
felt it was "grossly unfair" that those on middle incomes paid the same 40 per cent
higher tax rate as multi-millionaires.
He said: "When you start to talk to people about the superstar lifestyles, whether
it's in the music industry or the salaries being paid weekly to the nation's
footballers – the Beckhams of the world – the amount of money going to the
super-rich is quite rightly viewed as obscene in itself. But it is grossly unfair when
people who are on, say, £40,000 a year, are actually only in the same tax bracket with
other people who are earning that amount per week.
---------------------------------
[9] Steve McClaren plays the game
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
Not the occassion:
'For some people the derby is life or death but for us it's just another football
match,' he said. 'I know the feelings from the fans' point of view and I know what
derbies are all about.
'I know it's going to be a special game, a special match, but we're used to big games
and this is just another of them. All we are playing for are three points.'
---------------------------------
[8] Oh yes, nearly forgot
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"Since city beat United my true love sent to me"
European Champions
11 years of glory
10 years in Europe
9 goals past Ipswich
8-1 at Forest
7 past the cockneys
6 title trophies
5-0 wins!
4 FA Cups
Treble Ninety-nine
2 other doubles
AND AN ERIC CANTONA
---------------------------------
[7] More Shindler sense
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"Munich was such a huge influence on me," he says. "I'm 51, and for people of my age
it was a definitive moment for the whole of Manchester. It was about us, all of us.
They weren't my team but they were great players, we knew that. And it just pisses me
off when it's reduced to partisanship."
---------------------------------
[6] Shindler in talking sense shock
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"In the past you really got a sense that the derby meant so much to them because
they'd grown up with it and they wanted to test themselves against their peers. You
might have a little bit of that with Jeff Whitley and Nicky Weaver for us. But for the
local United players - for Gary Neville, Butt, Giggs and so on - the big rivalry is
with Liverpool. For them you get the feeling this is just another game. And for a lot
of the non-Manchester-based [United] fans it's another three points; it gives the boss
the luxury of resting a few players before the really important European game in
midweek. It might as well be Coventry."
---------------------------------
[5] Shindler talks it up
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
Cheering, though, will not be the thing uppermost in many supporters' minds tomorrow.
Despite the 11.30am kick-off, Greater Manchester Police will be on a war footing to
prevent the festering antipathy between the two sets of supporters boiling over in the
stands. Prawn sandwiches notwithstanding, the off-pitch atmosphere has deteriorated in
Manchester derbies to the point where they are as ugly as any.
"It's because it's become so infrequent," Shindler suggests of the animosity building
around the fixture. "The conti nuity of the 60s and 70s has gone, when if you lost
this one there was always another round the corner. The recent history is so
unbalanced: City have had two wins since '81. Christ, it's the year 2000, two wins in
20 years."
Shame that
---------------------------------
[4] Manchester United's made me Rich
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
No, not about dear Martin, but Colin bloody Shindler - of Manchester United ruined my
life (this title was chosen 'cos the alternative - Manchester City made me bitter
wouldn't have sold even 2 copies in the Kippax).
Now he's a media luvvie and the bloody thing's a film:
"The financiers said to us, we want Billy Elliot, we want the Full Monty, we want the
triumph of the human spirit over adversity," he says of his latest project. "Which is
not easy in a film about City." Nevertheless Shindler came up with a script which
backers queued to support, once there had been some minor tinkering with the source
material.
Not like City fans to go bandwagon jumping eh!
Wonder if the 'tinkering' involves City actually wining some games, complete denial of
the 12, 123, 1234 - 5-0 etc
---------------------------------
[3] The Lawman myth continues
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"The atmosphere was definitely hostile," Book remembers. "The team coach would always
be showered with spit when you travelled to Old Trafford." Games on the last day of
the season in 1973 and 1974 both ended prematurely with mass pitch invasions, the
latter in an attempt to stop a match in which, traumatically, the former Old Trafford
idol Law's instinctive back-heeled goal for City sent the Red Devils down.
No it bloody didn't!!!!
Book was manager of the City side that day and, though he enjoyed the win, the
relegation of United saddened him. "To our fans it was maybe a big thing but it gave
me no satisfaction, none whatsoever."
---------------------------------
[2] When men were men
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"When John Aston broke his leg in the derby it happened a few minutes before
half-time," Stepney recalls with the grim relish of one for whom pain is an
occupational hazard. "When he came off he said to our trainer, Jack Crompton, 'There's
something the matter. My leg's all numb.' Jack told him to stamp up and down a few
times to get the circulation going. You could hear the bone jarring together."
Nice!
---------------------------------
[1] Stepney talks the talk
---------------------------------
Posted Saturday, November 18, 2000 by tb:
"I don't care who they are, where they are from or what they have done," the former
Manchester United goalkeeper Alex Stepney says. "When those players walk out at Maine
Road they will know that this is a massive game".
The brainwashing is complete, non
---------------------------------
[23] Becks praises Mickey Mousers
---------------------------------
Posted Friday, November 17, 2000 by bar-knee:
"Liverpool in particular have a group of emerging young players who are in some ways
very reminiscent of how I and the lads at United came through the ranks. Obviously we
have proved ourselves now at United but at Liverpool they're beginning to emerge like
we did a few years ago and I think England have a lot of reasons to be optimistic.
When you look at those talents, you've got to say the opportunity is there for these
players to make a real name for themselves, now and in the future. I don't think
English football is in as bad a state as some people would have you believe. I think
we just have got to be positive about our game now. Okay, the success has not been
there over the past few years but at international level there aren't a lot of
trophies knocking about.
I would love to lead my country on every occasion but I have to accept that there are
more established players ahead of me who weren't involved against Italy. I will just
have to bide my time. I'm not looking long-term at the moment, I'm just making the
most of the opportunity that has come my way.
I didn't swap my shirt at the end because, out of all the ones I have in my
possession, this is the one that I'll cherish the most. No one is getting this off me!
I've got quite a few in my collection, although no doubt my dad will be putting in a
bid for this one. He's got a lot of my shirts and medals, but who knows, I might frame
it and give it to him for Christmas."
---------------------------------
[22] That City twat is on one again
---------------------------------
Posted Friday, November 17, 2000 by bar-knee:
Alfie Haaland gave it to us whilst at the Sheep and now he has said: "Keane's comments
on United's prawn sandwich fans, I think former Norway manager Egil Olsen summed it up
nicely when he said: 'You can't have it both ways'. It seems clear Keane is quite
happy to take home £50,000-a-week. But then he moans about the corporate fans, who are
basically paying his wages."
(Hang this up in the dressing room Steve in the morning!)
"Perhaps Roy could offer to have his pay halved and let a load of more passionate fans
in for free - but somehow I doubt that would happen. United are the sort of club you
either like or don't like and I probably speak for a lot of people when I say I'm sick
of seeing them win everything. But I don't hate Roy Keane either. He has been a
fantastic player over the last few years since he got injured against me when we
played them at Elland Road in 1997.
Maybe his behaviour was worse before then, but I think he's become a sort of role
model for lots of players in this country for the way he conducts himself on and off
the pitch. He just looks to me like he's got better and better since then. He's come
back stronger than ever and he's a smashing player. He has been a constant for United
in their success. He's been a great servant for the club and he's behind the team
pulling the strings.
I've played in a lot of high-profile club games and also for Norway in the World Cup
and that. But I think this will probably rank up there as one of the biggest games
that I've played in"
(not massive?)
"It's games like these that players dream of playing in, and I can't get enough of
these games. It's definitely a very high-profile game. It's only three points but it
means more for the supporters to get this scalp. We go to all the supporters clubs,
and even from three or four games before this match the only game they wanted to know
about was the derby. It's about them being able to go to work on Monday and having one
over their mates and that kind of thing."
(City sadness - part 53829)
---------------------------------
[21] Shareholders United respond after meeting
---------------------------------
Posted Friday, November 17, 2000 by bar-knee:
Shareholders United respond after the board would not discuss the record kit deal with
Nike or the fiasco over the botched appointment of the club's first director of
communications Alison Ryan. But United insist they could not discuss these matters for
legal reasons and commercial sensitivity.
Shareholders United were also upset that the board did not allow the three
non-executive directors up for formal election, Philip Yea, Ian Much and Roy Gardner,
to speak.
Spokesman Oliver Houston said: "They refused point blank to discuss the Nike deal on
the basis that they have taken legal advice, presumably relating to Umbro's misgivings
about the deal being announced so early. But why then did they announce it so early?
On Howgate Sable they refused to say if they had been paid, or if they had given any
money back, or if they would be using them again.
"They also refused to let the three non-executive directors talk at the meeting even
though they seemed very keen to speak. All this could jeopardise the good work done by
Peter Kenyon in the months since his appointment as chief executive and we will be
seeking an immediate meeting with him to reassure us that the club have not taken a
backward step in their relations with shareholders."
John Bick of Holborn Communications, who handle the plc board's PR, took a wholly
different view of the meeting.
"The board could not answer these questions due to commercial sensitivity or legal
advice. It wasn't that they didn't want to, they were simply hamstrung. I think
Shareholders United were upset that they did not get their own way on a couple of
points and I have to say there were a lot of compliments for Peter Kenyon and David
Gill for such things as the fans forum and the appointment of a director of
communications."
RN viewpoint. Back to Sqaue One anyone?
