Once upon a time, Manchester United losing to Bournemouth would have registered as a seismic event. Think back to a young Harry Redknapp’s side dumping the Reds out of the FA Cup in January 1984. Back then, it was a giant-killing, a shock for the ages: Bournemouth were two divisions below us. Their players were promised free pizza for lives for their win. These days, it’s barely worth raising an eyebrow. The extraordinary has become ordinary. Defeat to Bournemouth is no longer a shock. And we’re the ones who look like we belong in the lower leagues.
It’s just another miserable afternoon at Old Trafford and not a free pizza in sight. Miserable barely covers it: if Morrissey covered a song called Misery and played it while Annie Wilkes smashed novelist Paul Wilkes’ ankles in with a sledgehammer in the 1990 film Misery it might get a bit close. But still no cigar. Storm Boelo was doing its worst. The Metrolink wasn’t running because of maintenance works – what a day to pick. The roads were clogged with traffic. There were gusting winds chucking bits of masonry and roadsigns at us as we walked, bent against the force of the blasts, through driving rain and the horrible, horrible KNOWING that we were going to get bloody beaten and that the match would be no fun, and that the players wouldn’t match our efforts. Jesus Christ. Some of my mates wanted to meet for beers before the game ‘just so we could get through it’. Another messaged me overjoyed that his lad was ill, as this gave him a great excuse not to go.
Still, most of us turned up. More than 70,000 of us. Because that’s what United supporters do. We turn up, time and again. Contrast that with the Etihad in midweek, where the much-sung-about 20,000 empty seats record we are accused of lying about was actually BEATEN. There were at least 21,000 free from Bertie bums. And this despite tickets literally being GIVEN AWAY for their clash against AEK Athens. Even if they’re FREE, city fans can’t really be bothered. Maybe the cityzens need to bribe them with free pizzas for lives for attendance. Anyway the contrast was stark enough without labouring it. United’s supporters continue to turn up, in huge numbers, for a club which seems determined to test the limits of our endurance.
And we deserve better. By the second half, the storm outside had found its way into the Stretford End. What followed was an extraordinary outpouring of anger. Not the familiar grumbling that accompanies another poor performance, but something more visceral. The Glazers were in the firing line, naturally, but so too were Jim Ratcliffe and Jason Wilcox. There were boos, and there was the kind of gallows humour which has become a speciality of the Stretford End. “Best in class, you’re having a laugh,” rang out, a pointed response to the grand claims and corporate language which have accompanied the latest supposed reinvention of Manchester United. The proposed new stadium was treated with the contempt many supporters clearly feel it deserves when the footballing foundations of the club are crumbling beneath their feet. Yes, Scruffy Jim, you can indeed “stick your new stadium up your arse.”
Sideways.
And fuck off while you’re at it.
The players weren’t spared either. There wasn’t a player out there looked confident, or even who wanted the ball. Mind that Lammens clip from the other week when someone passed it back to him yet again and he was caught on camera yelling “I don’t fucking want it!” That was all of them.
Then there was the Standards banner. That word has become something of an obsession at United. Standards. Raising them. Restoring them. Demanding them. It’s easy enough to put the word on a banner, harder to recognise it in the decisions being made by those entrusted with running the club. Supporters are entitled to wonder exactly whose standards are being upheld, and by whom.
When Bournemouth’s third goal went in, there was every reason to expect a mass exodus. Thousands could have headed for the exits, seeking shelter from the weather and from the spectacle unfolding on the pitch. But most stayed. That matters. Not because supporters should be congratulated for putting up with anything, but because there was something admirable about the response. The anger was directed where it belonged: at the people responsible for allowing United to drift into this state. There was frustration with the players, certainly, but also recognition that this is an institutional failure, not simply another bad afternoon for eleven men in red shirts.
There was support for Michael Carrick, too. An acknowledgement of his efforts, even as the prospect of another managerial casualty loomed. By the time this is published, he may already have gone. If so, he’ll be the latest man left carrying the can for failures which extend far beyond the dugout.
A new manager might provide a bounce. There might be a few better performances, a little renewed optimism, another round of declarations about fresh starts and restored standards. We’ve seen the film often enough to know the script.
But changing the manager doesn’t fix the people making the decisions above him. And now, with Halloween approaching and Chelsea next on the fixture list, the prospect is suitably frightening. Storm Boelo might have passed by then, but the perfect storm engulfing Manchester United shows no sign of blowing itself out.
The supporters will be there again, of course. The question is how much longer those running the club expect loyalty to substitute for competence.