Manchester United

I was watching the final of the FA Cup being played at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night between Manchester United and Manchester City. Now they are arch rivals so it is literally your reputation at stake so emotions are high. Watching this match brought back a flood of memories from my youth which I would love to share with you.

I have been a die hard United fan for the last sixty years. When my father moved to Manchester in 1958 he happened to go to his first football match at Old Trafford and from that day he decided he would support United. This of course then passed down to me and I’m happy to say also passed to my son Vivek and grandson Vivaan. The only traitors in the family are my son in law Saurav who supports Arsenal and his son Ayaan who supports Manchester City… don’t even get me started on that!!

My father’s friend and business partner was an English man called Terry Purcell ( who by the way supported City) and they both used to go to the home matches every week. Daddy became so smitten with United that he bought one of the first boxes at Old Trafford and these would seat 5 people so that is when I was also taken to the matches. I was in heaven… I loved going and would look forward to every home match with great excitement. The boxes were nice and comfortable especially when it was very cold outside but you always felt a bit secluded from the true atmosphere of the ground because there was a glass window between you and the rest of the crowd. Later on a new stand was erected with an Executive Stand right in line with the centre circle which had separate seating and a lovely restaurant and bar. Now this was luxury and quite often if you stayed back after the game some of the players would come to the bar… that was a real treat.

I still remember how my brother and I would be pacing in our hall before we left for a game. We’d be dressed up with our United scarves on eager to leave and daddy would ask for another cup of tea… we would moan and groan because we were sure we were going to miss the kick off but I must give daddy his due… he always got us to the ground on time… even if we had to run full pelt to our seats!! He always got great pleasure in then pointing to his watch and laughing. It was truly nerve racking!

When I got married and moved to India things became difficult. Remember that this was before we had mobile phones, Internet or Tata Sky. I used to spend ages trying to catch BBC World on the radio to hear the scores. Daddy subscribed for the ‘Manchester Evening Pink’ newspaper which was a local paper that was published on the Saturday evening after the matches. These papers used to come rather sporadically… on a good week 3-4 days after the match and on others I’d get 3 papers together. I used to eagerly wait for my paper, especially if United won and then I found some friends who were also United supporters and the paper would go round to about 6 different households in Calcutta. That is called getting value for money!!

I used to go to Manchester once a year as soon as the children broke up for their summer holidays. If United reached the

F. A. Cup finals I would always try and coincide my trip with this date so that I could go to Wenbley and the excitement used to grow at least a month before we went. I have probably seen the best of the United era where Sir Matt Busby was the manager and we won the European Cup in 1968 which was a real highlight in the football calendar. After Sir Matt retired there was a steady turnover of managers who could not live upto expectations and it was only in 1986 when Sir Alex Ferguson took over that United gained its former glory. We played exciting football which showed in the number of trophies we won during this period. Unfortunately things started to go downhill once Sir Alex left but I am still hoping that everything will click into place soon and we will once again see our former glory.

Sorry about the history lesson on football which is probably something you are least interested about but I can assure you that if you get a room full of football fans together we could go on all night… and if they support different teams I’m pretty sure there will be a few broken bones too!! Football fans on the whole are perceived as a bunch of hooligans… I beg to differ… yes there are the rowdy elements but there are the genuine supporters who are very passionate about their teams and really want them to do well. I would like to count myself in the latter group… though I must admit we did threaten to drop Vinay off in the middle of the motorway when he insisted on supporting the opponents!!

So back to my first paragraph… I am pleased to say United won 2-1 and I can go to bed a happy woman and dream that we regain our killer game and win the treble next year!!!

Que sera sera…..( for the uninitiated the United fans made a song with their own lyrics to this tune!!)

Que sera sera,

Whatever will be will be

We’re going to Wembelee

Que sera sera.