By happy coincidence, I found myself in Manchester this week for Britain’s Got Talent auditions. Thus allowing me to march around the city wearing an Arsenal placard around my neck saying: ‘WE ARE TOP OF THE LEAGUE.’
It also allowed me to observe at close quarters one of the most vile creatures ever to inhabitate Planet Earth. A big-nosed, wiry-haired, squinty-eyed, spitting, snarling, horrible little monster that makes everyone who encounters it recoil in horror.
Yes, I’m talking, of course, about the Severely Spotted Gary Neville.
Even by his standards, Britain’s Most Unpopular Footballer was on spectacularly ghastly form — spewing his saliva at Manchester City players and giving Carlos Tevez the finger.
His behaviour might have been more effective if he’d actually been playing at the time. But Neville’s no longer any use on the field, so Alex Ferguson just lets him trot up and down the touchline doing his untrained pitbull impression.
Cocky horror show: United's irritant in chief, Gary Neville
It’s the Gaffer’s reward to the man who is supposedly the Premier League’s answer to Paolo Maldini, a player loyal to one great club for nearly two decades. But rather like watching those punch-drunk old prize-fighters being paraded around ringside at big boxing bouts, I just found the whole spectacle rather embarrassing.
I don’t knock Neville for his unquestionable loyalty and dedication to the United cause. He’s been a magnificent player for them. But it’s over. He knows it, Sir Alex knows it, the fans know it, and the opposition sides know it.
Neville’s become the guy who doesn’t know when the party’s over, the aesthetically challenged dork at the school disco who marches up to every girl he can find at midnight, as the music stops and the lights come on, demanding with an angry face: ‘Fancy a dance?’
And who, when they all shudder and say ‘no’, explodes with rage, gobs in their face, and screams:
‘I’m too ****ing good for you lot anyway!
This kind of behaviour wouldn’t matter so much if Neville wasn’t still Manchester United’s club captain, a position
that holds enormous responsibility not just to his own team, but to the millions of young fans around the world who see him as a role model.
All this arrogant, abusive reptile has taught them this year is how to insult, curse, taunt, gloat and crack under pressure.
As a player, Gary Neville has lost it. His performances, when he has played this season, have been dreadful. As a spectator, he’s been even worse.
It’s obvious that Neville himself is determined to linger on as long as possible, flying the red flag of defiance he’s flown for so long. But he’s become a walking, talking, spitting, gesticulating embodiment of all that’s wrong at Manchester United right now. And someone has to put the old warrior out of his misery. Call that being in control, Fergie?
This kind of behaviour wouldn’t matter so much if Neville wasn’t still Manchester United’s club captain, a position
that holds enormous responsibility not just to his own team, but to the millions of young fans around the world who see him as a role model.
All this arrogant, abusive reptile has taught them this year is how to insult, curse, taunt, gloat and crack under pressure.
As a player, Gary Neville has lost it. His performances, when he has played this season, have been dreadful. As a spectator, he’s been even worse.
It’s obvious that Neville himself is determined to linger on as long as possible, flying the red flag of defiance he’s flown for so long. But he’s become a walking, talking, spitting, gesticulating embodiment of all that’s wrong at Manchester United right now. And someone has to put the old warrior out of his misery. Call that being in control, Fergie?
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