Positive Article..

[Blue Blood]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... d-34-years

i expected the media to stick the knife in, refreshingly the first article out is a good one, result aside the media is turning in support of us... amazingly.

[Mike J]

link not working

[Kladze]

link not working

You'll have to fill in the asterisks in the URL where the word un it ed is

[Kladze]

link not working

You'll have to fill in the asterisks in the URL where the word un it ed is

Thereagain . it still doesn't work LMAO

[globalbollox]

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jan/27/manchester-city-united-34-years][/url]

I'm getting nowhere fast here.
Change the asterisks to letters (as stated).Then change the capital U to a small u

[Blue Blood]

So the "34 years" banner remains in place. It can be seen on the Stretford End, goading and teasing, permanently in place to celebrate the length of time since the club Sir Alex Ferguson has derided as "noisy neighbours" last won a trophy. "We will pull it down," Roberto Mancini had promised in the build-up to this match – but not yet. Manchester City's best was not quite good enough.

They are skilled in the art of schadenfreude at Old Trafford because of the trophies they have greedily accumulated during an era that began when Ferguson was a plain old mister. For the second time this season a stoppage-time goal gave United the upper hand in this divided city. City's supporters must feel like tweaking the old Gary Lineker quote: football is a game played by 22 men over 90 minutes and at the end Manchester United win in time added on.

Yet that does not quite tell the full story. United's almost annual trip to Wembley is now circled in red for 28 February's meeting with Aston Villa but this was also a night when City demonstrated how intent they are on hanging on to the coat-tails of their neighbours and not letting go. Mancini's men played with spirit and togetherness. They lost but that does not mean they played badly. Losing does not always equate to performing poorly. They deserve more than to be patronised as "plucky" or "brave".

They do not want our sympathy at City nowadays. They do not want to be seen as lovable losers and they played as though they wanted us to know. They were quick to the ball, fast in the tackle. They chased and harried. They seemed determined to show how far they have developed since those days when the only thing the two clubs seemed to have in common was the first letter of their postcode.

Football can be brutal sometimes. When Carlos Tevez scored that peach of a goal there were moments when City looked the side that could score a tie-winner to spare us from another 30 minutes of nerve-shredding cup-tie football. Then Rooney did what Michael Owen did in September and suddenly there were players in blue shirts lying on the ground, faces in the turf.

To understand their misery it is probably necessary to revisit their history. City have not been to Wembley since 1981. This is the club Niall Quinn remembers "reeking of poverty and bad organisation" – a "hole-in-the-sock sort of club", which is a polite way for saying they were broke and clueless.

The new-look City is a club of oil-rich billionaires, private jets and seven-star stop-offs but it is still the same people watching them and these supporters know what it is like to lose to York, Wycombe and Lincoln. They understand what Joe Royle meant when he talked of "Cityitis". They remember grubbing around for points in what used to be the Third Division in the same season that Sir Alex Ferguson was jigging across the pitch at the Camp Nou uttering the words: "Football, bloody hell!"

At least they can be confident now that Cityitis is not the incurable illness they once feared. When these sides met in September Ferguson's message was that, when you get bothered by noisy ­neighbours, the way to react is to turn down the volume on them. Except it is not that simple when your own club has £716m worth of debts while the opposition are being bankrolled by the richest men on earth, sitting on 9% of the world's oil reserves.

United's supporters are becoming recognisable by the green and gold they wear to commemorate the club's roots as Newton Heath in a show of collective disdain for the men in suits operating the club by remote control from Florida. City, meanwhile, can prepare to say goodbye to the £32.5m Robinho with barely a shrug of regret when it comes to the financial implications. Robinho was not even on the bench tonight as he negotiates a move to Brazil but City supporters will quickly forget him when the next superstar comes along. They will not forget the misery of Rooney's 92nd-minute winner. But it is safe to assume nobody in the away end was wearing the black and white of Ardwick FC – and that, at least, will stifle some of their misery.

Copied and pasted. Sorry about the dead link.

[Kladze]

No worries BB
Thanks :-)

[Blue Blood]

True to form as soon as the media doesn't look so bad and puts out a reasonable balanced article..

This cunt pipes up...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... l?ITO=1490

Football, it would seem, is a simple game: 22 players kick a ball around for 90 minutes, after which Manchester United stick it right up Manchester City.

There were 92 minutes on the clock this time, not 96, not that it mattered.
The blow would have been no less sick-making for those in the blue corner.

Once again, they thought they had done enough; once again a side marshalled by Sir Alex Ferguson demonstrated that they set the parameters of enough; and City are not even in sight yet.

At the final whistle, Carlos Tevez was dazed, twisting in the middle. His team-mates were heading for the tunnel, crushed, the celebrating reds were oblivious to him.

He stumbled around, aimlessly, looking for a friendly face, a hand to shake. It seemed a painful age until his old colleagues spotted him and offered the standard commiserations.

Tevez scored three times in this tie, but it was not sufficient. He may not regret leaving United but he will know the calibre of the team he has left behind.

Manchester City are closing all the time, but it will be a long time before they assemble a group with this resolve. Even in times of trouble, United have unique reserves of character, a mental strength that is unsurpassed in the modern game.

They had the game won, Tevez determined it would go to extra time, United begged to differ. We have seen it so often it should no longer surprise; yet, somehow, it does, because it happens so often. They can't, not this time, we think: and then they do.

And this is a club divided, remember. United face greater obstacles than at any time since the formation of the Premier League changed their destiny.

Everything that Ferguson built risks being destroyed by a combination of voodoo economics and the flow of new money into the English game.

When Tevez levelled the aggregate scores at 3-3, there was a note of surrender in the voice of the public address announcer. 'The scorer of the Manchester City goal, No 32, Carlos Tevez,' he said, flatly.

The monotone delivery seemed to speak of the disillusionment at the heart of the club right now. Yet the players rise above it. They rise above divisions and uncertainty and inconsistency and protests and, at the tensest moments, they deliver.
It may not be the squad of last year, but there remains something special here, make no mistake of that.

Strangely, despite coming out of the weekend top of the Premier League, there remains something unconvincing about United compared to last season. Then, they looked invincible, now they are vulnerable.

Manchester City had enough chances to go through and United often appear to exist on memory: they do not lose matches like this because they have forgotten how.

These are going to be testing times, that much is clear. As driven as United's players are towards maintaining success, so the supporters are motivated to chase out the American owners.

The anti-Glazer campaign, at first sinister, and then becalmed by success, has gathered fresh momentum around the green and yellow protests that were such a part of the occasion last night.

Instantly, the symbolic gesture of wearing the colours of Newton Heath - the genesis of Manchester United and a time when the club were most truly in touch with their common roots - has grown more powerful than any number of ugly chants.

It is a visible protest, peaceful and yet striking as thousands eschew the red and white. What makes it so affecting is the cross section of individuals out in support.

Not just mouthy teenagers or the menacing types in balaclavas that made up the most extreme of the original protest groups.

Here were middle-aged man, sons and fathers, regular fans not given to public displays of anger. It resembled football's equivalent of the march against the Iraq war, when women's institute members from the Cotswolds stood on the streets of London alongside the remnants of the Socialist Workers Party.

For those from across town it must have been a rare delight, watching the enemy tear himself apart. How many times have they stood huddled in the far corner to the right of Ferguson's dug-out, the subject of mockery and victims of bitter disappointment?

34 years and counting...United fans remind their City counterparts how long they've gone without winning a trophy

The warm feeling did not last. Perhaps it was not as painful as the 96th minute when Michael Owen scored last September - that game was seconds from conclusion, whereas this one still had extra time and perhaps penalties to go - but it still stunned the City end to silence.

The stadium was almost empty when they found their voice again, a weak gesture of defiance, drowned out by a song United had recorded specially for the occasion of their victory.

It was a version of Que Sera, Sera with commissioned lyrics making reference to last week's 2-1 defeat and the subsequent revival. United fans waved their yellow and green scarves in celebration. Whatever will be, will be: as if there was ever any doubt

[john68]

At the end of the first derby of the season, at maine Rd, early in the 67-68 season, City had battered the rags and lost...The MuEN reported the rags win as ....."Normal service has been resumed". It reminded me so much of that piece.

History shows that later in the season, we beat the rags at their place and went on to win the League.

MORAL OF THE STORY>>>Take no fucking notice...the media really know fuck all.

[Blue Blood]

At the end of the first derby of the season, at maine Rd, early in the 67-68 season, City had battered the rags and lost...The MuEN reported the rags win as ....."Normal service has been resumed". It reminded me so much of that piece.

History shows that later in the season, we beat the rags at their place and went on to win the League.

MORAL OF THE STORY>>>Take no fucking notice...the media really know fuck all.

I know, i know.

Still would be nice to read a paper without ripping it to shreds after reading drivel like Samuel writes.

[john68]

I stopped reading the shite years ago...The media has its own agenda...That agenda ain't usually mine.