I’m in me parents’ kitchen, typing words into the laptop they never use. Been in Manchester two weeks, loved every minute. It began with the view from the plane as we circled Ringway. In the cul-de-sac outside, several illuminated kitchens and living rooms can be clearly viewed – people talking, laughing, arguing – and it warms my heart. It is Europe. All my mates have gone mental, barring one or two, but the weird distinctions between what is acceptable and what isn’t remain, even among the mental ones. I’ve gained a stone in 2 weeks, my own version of Man vs. Food. Puddings, pies and kebabs the main culprits. I’ve loved the rain and gloom, but there’s been plenty of blue skies and sunshine, too. In two days I will be crying as I say goodbye, to my family and history. My wife and one year old daughter mean the world to me, but this is where my heart is…The USA is a wonderful place, but one day I hope to bring them here to live. Call me silly, I don’t care. You either understand or you don’t…One day I hope to return…to Mataland!

The day wot we flew, I woke up on cue, not packed a jot, hangover an pot, sped down to Kennedy, full of eggs benedict, she brought pushchair an car seat, an a bag of posh meat, cos “airports peddle poison”, I got the Artois on; throw tantrum, swear, guzzle, dint get nicked though – a puzzle, the babe was the focus, a skrikin likkle locus, of hate to the punters, lined up to the fronters, in a fifteen seat radius, mincemeat they’d a made of us, if it want fer me eyes, all evil an wise, but once past the water, I cradled me daughter, we circled the stack, I looked down at the craic, surprised at developments, high rise and elements, crammed round the centre, that beating placenta, of concrete and glass, with patches of grass, met by a mate, there at the gate, a VIP minder, sez Fergie’s a blinder, an the Glazers aren’t gets, despite all the debts, hugged by me folks, bacon an yolks, beat Scunthorpe United, but why get excited, then I met Andy Mitten, right ‘ere in Britain, in’t’ Pevril o’t’ Peak, one night in the week, we bought a fanzine, he spoke very keen, of life over’t’ water, an expectin a daughter, he ran to meet others, his DIY brothers, Red Issue an such, he loped off through the slutch, near’t’ Briton’s Protection, I give it inspection, faces like bulldogs, defences like hedgehogs, then in comes a text, from a bloke oversexed, a chemical fiend, whose brain is careened, in no time I’m walkin, the ‘Dilly an talkin, ’bout architects an gangsters, we merry pranksters, love’d up on trips, rekindlin’ friendships, dancin on moonlight, far beyond midnight, but it’s no way to roll, when yer forty years old, an I’m nigh forty-five, me heart was alive, gonna burst with the potion, right side of the ocean, next day we played Bolton, I was dead meat wi’ salt on, lyin in feather, under the weather, took me days to get right, me chest feelin tight, an the sky hangs like lead, over me head, in black puddin foodhall, one proper oddball, surrounded by crowds, gabblin loud, feelin depressive, back end of expressive, it looked like Uzbekistan, I looked like Desperate Dan, days bleedin later, a right done potater, so I raced in me car, down to a bar, in Manchester town, wearin a frown, an I met that Mike Duff, still feelin dog-rough, he bought me Holts bitter, the rain went a-pitter, we swapped some signed books, an a few funny looks, he asked “wot’s the mattoh”, the rain went a-pattoh, said “lay off them pills”, I breathed thru me gills, an his mate was called Ted, a Burton Arms head, but Duff was pissed up, with bitter to sup, an I bid ‘em good luck, continued to truck, give Valencia the welly, on a dirty big telly, the ol’ Trafford Centre, a piss-poor adventure, a radio interview, “Salford is into you”, DJ Steve Doyle’s got soul, he’ll swallow yer whole, nil-nil at Mackem, we failed to attack ‘em, back out with the lads, most of ‘em dads, they shoulda known better, doin E’s, coke an Ketta, in a wild Prestwich boozer, no such thing as a loser, come in from the cold, jukebox 20 years old, blastin Roses ‘n’ James, fannin chemical flames, like a lurid French bar, silhouetted overrevved car, but I’m nigh forty five, an I like bein alive, so I phone me ol’ man, he’s there quick as he can, an we get a kebab, like a fuckin big slab, a dog on a butty, in hot spicy putty, an we laugh about life, as he wields the knife, cos it’s nice to be home, like they say “when in Rome….”

The season’s kicked off amid weird uncertainty in the air. What to wear and what not to: All those G&G windsocks that inflated our hopes, now in danger of being cast off like so many used Johnnies. Imagine if only one individual kept it going? He (or she)’d be a technicolor bird in the palm of a cyclops’ hand…stranger than it is horrible…and it is very horrible. One lone gay child decked in red, gold and green surrounded by the instant gratification mob, all sulking ‘cos Glazer’s still pulling the strings. Extinction of a dream. This won’t be resolved overnight. Wearing Norwich scarves – as humiliating and garish as that is – is only one small fraction of what needs doing. Fortunately, the rest doesn’t concern us plebs; it’s in the hands of the big boys, those whose mothers went to finishing school and think the great unwashed are a joke. Lovely people, honest. They make barbs about each others’ choice of holiday chateau or insider trading moves while we get pissed and scoff chip butties, secure in the knowledge it’s out of our control. Let the egomaniacs battle it out while we reduce the whole business to a tabloid sideshow thanks to alcohol, drugs and fried food. If you want to attack those who stand out for their poor understanding of football politics, just remember – there’s a lot of sheep out there, followers who haven’t a fucking clue. The megastore harlequins are harmless. They don’t even know enough to hide their ignorance. It’s your responsibility to unearth the camouflaged danger within. Responsibility isn’t for us, I know. Down a hole shovelling shit suits us better, far from the egotesticle. But football is a working-class sport. I’ve gone from ditch-digger to roofer to removal man to housepainter to sign-writer, to pesticide analyst to advertising, and if I’ve learnt one thing it’s this: People are cunts. If I wasn’t such a hairy bastard I’d have murdered half the fuckers I’ve ever met by now. Can’t be shedding androgenic fur everywhere with those forensics sniffing around, though, can we? The camouflaged wankers who claim to be proper United would be top of my hit list. Everyone’s whingeing ‘cos that UNITED—KIDS—WIFE bloke got his picture took with a Glazer in a lift in America, like he committed a fucking war crime or something. While wanking over the prospect of some upper-crust gaggle taking us away from all this. Fact is, football is shite, we’re all hopeless romantics, and the jaded moneymen are laughing like a goon squad in our hearts. United’s the McCoy, the rich man’s club. Sheff United, Sunderland and Stoke all sport the red, white and black but each is a shrunken malformed version of the real thing. We’re the good guys, the James Bond to the ugly Eastlands whore-hound. The nearest competitor to us is Liverpool. In terms of football history they’re a ruin we can barely see from the top of the bustling OT pyramid, obscured by the curvature of footballing time. Arsenal are there, too, in the stepwise ascent to M16. Others labour far below; yer Evertons and whatnot. Put another way, Arteta is the poor man’s Fabregas is the poor man’s Ronaldo is the poor man’s Giggs. We represent home-grown steel. The kind that doesn’t rust and keeps coming back again and again when the others have gone home to blow-dry their scant pubes. I’d have included Torres in that staircase but he belongs to a separate lineage; he’s part worm and those others are mostly goat. I still want Fergie to sign him though, that pasty-faced Spaniard in the works. In technicolour terms full-headed Queerbeasts like you can understand, Paul Rieser is a poor man’s Bruce Willis is a poor man’s Jack Nicholson is a poor man’s Sean Connery. United’s perched proudly at the apex of this diminishing baldy sex symbol formation. You see, United and Giggs (and Connery), they’re one and the same. They’re COVERED in pubes, and as such leave evidence everywhere they go. That’s why we can’t just kill any bastard that gets in our way, despite popular terrace chants to the contrary. Instead we choose to fight on the side of good, against evil, like super-heroes. Body hair tightly sealed in under snazzy costumes. Now there’s a conundrum: Why are those who’ve acquired super powers via gamma rays or radioactive spiders capable of constructing those imaginative skin-tight suits? How are we to believe that Daredevil, blind as a fucking bat, could manufacture that costume? Being able to stitch fabrics together with unrivalled meticulousness is an as-yet unspoken aspect of the special powers that superheroes acquire. You’d need patience, and superheroes should lack that, in my opinion. Not exactly Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Tortoise, are they? It’s a superhero we need to rescue United, not the Four Horsemen of the Stockopalypse. Proper megalomaniacal reptile mitherers fresh from some extra-galactic mission vanquishing warty inhumans. That said, look at Tarzan. Raised in the jungle by apes and still managed a pretty nifty pair of leather trunks. And he could fight. Makes me feel right inadequate. Fuck it, I say. Suck yer gut in, have another chip butty, live the dream. And what is the dream these days? It’s sad; I recently watched city beaten by a last gasp penalty at Sunderland. As small time as it is, it made my weekend seeing them lose. city think everything is going to fall into place immediately, a bit like the G&G sulkers. Only at Wastelands the sulking goes on on the bench, not in the stands. The subs at Sunderland, notably Given and Adabeyor, looked like Veruca Salt upon discovering they had to actually work for that Golden Egg. There are people – generally 35-year old know nowts – who insist that Liverpool are our main rivals, but in truth it’s those blue bastards from Quadrant Two. With their billboards and almost-past-it foreign acquisitions, and Kaka tattoos and Arab outfits and ludicrous statistical dredging. At least Liverpool supporters can get in our faces with “five times” or “football’s first clobbered-up mob” or “Brookside was more realistic than Coronation Street” or “the Beatles were better than the Hollies, Herman’s Hermits and Freddie and The Dreamers combined”, etc. What have city got to brag about? Their preposterous parallel to Best, Law and Charlton is Summerbee, Bell and Lee. But what did that mediocre ménage à twats actually win? A league championship in ’68 (we had bigger fish to fry), an FA Cup in ’69, a League Cup in ’70 and ’76 and a European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1970. So basically the ’76 League Cup is the only thing they’ve won since 1970. And their subs’ bench is packed with faces like smacked arses, and yes, you think I’m going senile with this repetitive dwelling on city and you want to hear about drugs and that instead…
Just say no, Queerbeast. Drugs are for naughty Beatles. I see you as more of a Herman’s Hermit; safe and sound in your carapace, supping Horlicks in an eternally black and white pre-psychedelic Hovis realm. Listening to “Sugar Spun Sister”, waiting for that superhero in red, gold and green to sweep you up in his arms and make it all go away. Perhaps the Vision, the Marvel mutant able to render himself intangible (and batter Superman, in my opinion), is that superhero. Perhaps it’s Ken Dodd. Who knows? I saw Ken perform live once in ‘73. What a Sunday that was. I’d been to Maine Road with the cubs that morning; Akela was well in at city. I was bullied into going by older lads in my neighbourhood, to make up the numbers. I was frankly amazed at the power of the workout Bell, Summerbee, Lee and Co. were undergoing, deep under the Main Stand. Belting real footballs against a concrete wall with such force I’d never imagined. They were training in plastic suits and the sweat was bursting from them. A steady stream of dewdrops running off Nijinsky’s hooter all over peoples’ autograph books. Didn’t see owt like that again till I did some bad sulphate in ’83 and suffered the same effect for vastly different reasons. Didn’t get that close to Bell again until ’93, when I delivered a box of industrial fasteners to his restaurant in Whitefield. I had no autograph buke that day in ‘73, just a few bits of paper scrounged on the fly. I’d refused to bring a real autograph buke on the grounds I was a red. In truth I knew me ol’ feller would never pay for one. You know the kind, smallish, landscape-oriented mock-leather bound. Different coloured pages, very girlish. You probably had a few, Queerbeast. Full of Peter Noones (Ian Brown’s biological father), Owen Coyles (Fletcher’s biological father), Alex Mcleishes (Scholes’ biological father; give him a break, he was 16 at the time you judgemental cunt!) and James McFaddens (Rooney’s malnourished twin). But that’s your business. Went to see Ken Dodd that night at the Opera House with me mam and dad. The only bit I remember was when Ken pretended to shoot a gun in the air and a full size inflatable cow fell onto the stage. Super, yes, but hero, well, you be the judge. Oh aye, I was quite the man about town when I was 8. Never been inside OT though; just skulked hungrily on the forecourt with Salford urchins, minding cars and secretly swooning at the majestic air.
The 35-year old know nowts I referred to earlier will also tell you with a discreet wink that United supporters actually sang YNWA at the ’83 FA Cup Final, like they’re imparting some secret knowledge you should be grateful for. They’ll tell you the Stone Roses are better than the Beatles. That’s when you realise you’re dealing with supercocks. We sang YNWA every week, and the Beatles are to pop music what Shakespeare is to theatre. Now do me a favour, Chameleon; go and stand on the little glass bit in the Hilton Tower bar and listen to “Hanging Around” by the Stranglers on your QueerTunes player. You’ll love it, I promise. Welcome to our hole.

Let’s have a good ol’ moan about something, eh? Brits and Irish love a good moan, don’t they? I saw your eyes light up when you read that first line, you moaning twat. Maybe it’s the dismal weather or just widespread alcohol abuse, but there’s something about a few beers and a thorough slagging of workmates, football players, bosses, politicians and celebrities that makes you feel whole, isn’t there? A fine example of this is David Beckman’s donning of the G&G after we knocked AC out of Europe. A lifelong United supporter recently considered the most famous athlete on the planet performs a great gesture and all you can do is complain ‘cos he covered his arse the next day and lives in Beverly Hills. Just used the G&G to get himself in the limelight, eh? You fucking cunt! Seriously, it’s the same with the megastore muppets and their merchandise. Why not let them wear G&G? It’s a visibility device whose ubiquity pushed the issue into mainstream media. They did us a favour. But you HAD to say something; you had to be the victim innit. If Beckman changed his name to ClungeBob QuarePants, permanently dyed himself gold and green from head to toe and got a massive tattoo across his forehead saying “Glazer is a cunt” in Hebrew you’d still find something in it all to pick apart and mark him down as a prize Gilbert. Would’ve had the tat done in English if he really cared, right? That’s why I love you so much, Tatlock. Deep down beneath your rubbish attempts to build interesting new architecture and “skyscrapers” (47 floors, haaheehaah stop, you’re tickling me!) you’re still sat in the Rovers’ snug in flat cap with whippet at heel, playing dominoes with Alf. And Bert. You’re a pathetic northern slag and that’s how you prefer it.
So, it’s World Cup time and you’re happy as Larry ‘cos it’s a social opportunity to be gaily tabloid and say nasty things about Lampard, Terry, Gerrard and all the other wankers who play for the wrong teams. It’s a glorious summer soccer smorgasbord and you’ll be down the local in yer six hundred quid hiking coat and Adidas Lite reissued trainers, laughing at the replica shirts and George Crosses and the fact they’re wearing plastic bowler hats and eatin’ pork pies an’ feelin’ dead proud of Rooneh an’ generally being douchebag puncture outfits right up to the moment England are eliminated by a goal from the usual suspects. Then they’ll deflate, puking a viscous torrent of fishy effluence in the face of anyone who’ll listen and fold their flags up an’ iron their shirts one last time an’ put ‘em away till the European Championships in 2012. You’ll tell yerself that you did yer bit, by watchin’ all the games live, an’ even makin’ the effort and goin’ ter town for some of ‘em, an’ bein’ pleasantly surprised by the attitude of the crowd in Tiger Lily’s or Planet Ballsackwood, or whatever other Printworks-cum-Hardy cosmo-pseud-politan gaff you watched it in. You tit; you could have been “assembling products at home” or selling acai berries online to cultural laggards in Didsbury. But no, you did yer bit, like them wot stormed the beaches on D-Day and put the kibosh on the Boche, or the Bosh, or even the Bosch. Inevitably we’ll botch it. I might actually pretend I want the USA to beat England, just in case they do. Yes, I’m that much of a slimy traitor. You try living here, Mummy’s Boy.
The one thing England can always bank on winning is the Albert Tatlock Fair Play Trophy, assuming FIFA haven’t scrapped it by now. The continentals and South Americans had it sussed donkeys ago but Britain, being an island full of working-class heroes, failed to cotton that pretending to be injured was a nifty way to win refereeing decisions. And by extension World Cups. Now we’ve become a load of mard-arsed diving bastards ourselves it’s too late; refs have the power to dish out yellow cards for synthesis and everyone’s at it so it cancels itself out. Can you imagine how thick we looked to the other real contenders, trying to win the World Cup FAIRLY? We’re talking here about countries dedicated to competition, to owning that trophy whatever it takes, because that’s what winners do. Reminds me of a game of Krazy Golf I played against two Italians a decade ago; kept catching them cheating but never thought to do it meself. Who d’you think won? Many folk stories tell how the winners cheated. It’s right there, in black and fucking white. Somehow the British never noticed that truth, and as such we wallowed in a sense of righteousness that I GUARANTEE has constrained British football forever. Does anyone remember that fateful night Mark Hughes dived and the United fans were disgusted? He was in the wall at a free-kick and was lightly brushed by an opponent. Went to ground all ladylike. Cue chorus of confused goatlike bleats from Tatlock Paddock. Guess what; it was another Manchester “first”, but we never saw it for what it was. I’m positive it was in a Euro match against “cheating” foreigners. I suppose we’re the good guys, we’re United, so no way could one of ours dive like that. It’s ironic, given our hatred of the national team, but what could be more English than Manchester United and Coronation Street? Even Old Trafford symbolises the side of fair against ugly; an honest Starship Enterprise fighting vile Klingon contraptions like Stamford Bridge. The red rose, the red brick terraced homes, the rosy cheeks of the lads and lasses, smiles upon their faces, walking bathed in floodlight over puddly cobbles, sodden hot-dog wrappers and healthy-looking dog turds. You know the kind; neatly curled, mid-brown, a good three-quarter inch in diameter. The type of dirt alsations and the larger mongrels of the 1970s would deposit. The antithesis of Meatbag’s White Dog Shit Hell, if you will. But enough of that. It’s too galling to dwell on. The not diving I mean, not the dog turds; I can always make time to discuss faeces, dog or other.
But dogs are boring, we all know that; loyal, trusting and stupid enough to shit on their own doorstep in many cases. A bit like our national side. Cats is where it’s at; lithe, agile, beautiful and strong. Pound for pound, they’ve got dogs beat hands down. I think in the future, when there’s five tigers and eighteen lions left in the world, we’ll have pedestrian safari parks full of genetically engineered big cats. All wearing giant versions of those electro-shock collars they use to keep dogs inside boundaries. They’ll be commercially conditioned by the collars. Zapped into staying off the footpaths where tourists can walk and marvel up close at these fabulous predators. But that’s a long way off, Tatlock, and I’m sure you’d say it was shit anyway. You might well be correct; you can never trust a wild animal, even a ponced-up genetic synthetic. You can’t trust John Terry either, him and his pretend lion’s heart. At some point something will set off alarm bells and that’s where cats and dogs go off, royal. Plastic chairs get thrown and plastic lions run riot. South Africa is not a place to fuck about though. There are real lions there, and they live in horrible shanties just one wrong turn away from the action. It’ll take more than two hundred boneheaded chair-throwers to sort them out. So think on, Dogface.
Cheating is where it’s at, cats, so fuck what the papers say. This motherfuckin’ World Cup is serious shit. Oh yiss, you gotta hustle like an African fuzz muscle, ya gotta handle the scandal, yo betta learn to dangle befo’ the mangle while the ol’ triangle goes jingle-jangle wi’ the tabloids like haemorrhoids on yo ass, Homeclunge. It’s not just about diving, either. Hand-balls are always big news. Take Thierry Henry, or even better Maradona’s Hand of God in 1986. Who won that tournament, remind me again? We fielded a team of good doggies against the jaguar-like Argies, and got seen right off; Quasimodo Beardsley the Hunchback of Knotty Ash; Gary “Salt ‘n’ Lineker”, nicknamed “the Crisp Man” by Mark E. Smith for his involvement with Walker’s potato products, and the ironically catlike Peter Shilton, the man with the curliest hair north of the 33rd parallel. None of these freaks could stop the Claw of God. There was infamy but the World Cup went to Buenos Aires. D’you think Maradona was losing sleep on the long road home that year? No, ‘cos he didn’t have a gallery of slobbering Nigels and Tristans waiting to throw gourmet bon-bons at him for fun when he got there.
Which leads me back to Beckham – The Beverly Hills Red. In 1990 BHR was an all-the-rage scent manufactured by Giorgio, or more accurately Giorgio’s swarthy little neighbour, and imported in containers by naughty men from Salford, Manchester and Glasgow. Snide perfume was as common as snide digs, and the Tatlocks were lapping it up. Cheap anniversary and birthday prezzies wannit? 1990 was a good year, but the later Beverly Hills Red, the golden boy with the bootmarks on his face, didn’t HAVE to put that scarf round his neck. Too many Alberts with foot in mouth disease had too much to say there. Never satisfied. Like the ape named Kong, murdered by the United States Air Force, the weak will always band together to bring down the strong. But not in the World Cup. It’s one on one, team on team, and may the best team win. It’s gonna be a great World Cup. We’ll see William “Parietal Lobes” Gallas, Fernando “Worm Profile” Torres, Cristiano “Brontosaurus” Ronaldo, Rio “Nessie” Ferdinand, Didier “Hair” Drogba, Landon “Nut Head” Donovan, Wayne “Moonheart” Rooney, Lionel “Otterface” Messi, “city? HAHA!” Kaka, and many more. I’m lucky my boss has generously offered to have televisions screening the tournament live on site, for all us foreigners. Once I’ve convinced him of the cultural importance of drugs and alcohol we’ll be bending the rules like Beckham…seeya there, Tatlock.

A crappy thought stopped me in my tracks the other day. Pacing the homestead like a frustrated Pacman waiting for United to kick off, I remembered I was going to die. I’d totally forgotten about that. Ruined my fucking day to be honest. When I mentioned it to my mate The Chilean he laughed in my face. “Death?” he said. “What a pile of shit that is!” The Chilean reckons death’s an illusion invented by what he calls “our serpent overlords”. We were already on two feet when snakes appeared a million years ago. No wonder we’re fascinated and repulsed by the slippery fuckers from cradle to grave.
Serpents and death, we’re ruled by at least one of them. If entire regions of the planet suddenly began to die; soils, trees, animals, fungi, that’d wake people up. Especially if you were forced by law to share your house with all the refugee type cunts that were being displaced by it. Queuing up to use your own toilet is bollocks, but large scale disaster is nowt new. The bible described a worldwide deluge survived by natural enemies capable of living together in an ark. That would be like us cooperating with Scousers to solve a problem. But those ancients who wrote the bible had their own bible; a book of horror from the dawn of time. The Epic of Gilgamesh it was called and we should remember its lessons. If not we might well end up cooperating with Scousers.
Gilgamesh, or to use his full name, David Gilgamesh, thought he could oppress the citizens. He presided over the First City on Earth (as opposed to “the City of Firsts”). He had big ideas, such as taking the piss out of a famous resource the people held dear; the Cedar Forest, a beautiful expanse of potential red lumber guarded by a ferocious ogre. Despite being tastier than a Yankee Stadium hot-dog, the ogre was leathered by Gilgamesh and his mate, the forest pillaged for all it was worth. An environmental catastrophe The Chilean doesn’t like the sound of. I likened it to the rape of United and explained to him there was talk of befriending the Scousers. He ranted, “Cats living with dogs…it’s not right!” from behind 3-D glasses, hopping between browsers on his PC like it was a pinball machine, twelve tabs open in each, displaying Red Sox v. Yankees tickets. He got his tickets, and will probably get a few beers and a hot-dog between innings an’ all.
Football’s impending apocalypse was caused by football taking things for granted. Like season tickets; we live in an age where people still drag their sweaty carcasses to OT, obliged to watch matches IN PERSON. United take them for granted. They think they’ll always be slavering at the turnstiles like grinning clots with brain issues. In “the future” the process of obtaining tickets to games will be very different. When you browse Viagogo there’ll be little teaser videos you can click on and watch – videos of FUTURE matches, like trailers from movies. You’ll be able to see part of what happens, the odd goal, etc, and decide whether you can be arsed going. At least that’s what The Chilean reckons. He reckons we’ll become too much of a handful for the serpent overlords and they’ll be forced to gift us time travel, albeit in this shitty monetised form. Those without tickets can be plugged into an instrument that virtually places them there, maybe even lets them see the game through the eyes of a star player, for a price. At that point will it matter if it’s real or just the Matrix? All the pie-buyers, those passionless puppets, may as well be watching a virtual football match anyway. After all, reality’s just electrical impulses. Billions of rods and cones transmitting the action to the back-ends of their brains. Slack-jaws-a-plenty with green and gold upon them, enjoying their pies more than the match itself. Must be some fucking good pies, that’s all I can say. Once the serpent overlords give us the technology no-one will ever miss out on “being there”. It’ll be like the second coming of some kind of Rave Jesus, breaking capsules instead of bread and fishes, making the E go a long way. Feeding five thousand Gregory Pecks with dancing dust, or virtual match-going experiences, turning 80 thousand tickets into 80 million. For now, though, you’ll just have to heave your sweaty arseholes onto those plastic seats and not buy a pie at halftime.
But back to Gilgamesh, his mate and you the ogre – tastier than a Yankee Stadium hot-dog – that failed to protect the thing held dear, the self-proclaimed “biggest football club in the world”; looted, exploited and left decked in Norwich colours with an Old Trafford pie in its hand and a replica shirt on. Which brings me to the next order of business: How WANK is the current United top? Seriously, was that chest stripe fashioned from excess cloth off old women’s pseudo-velvet cat-suits from the ‘70s? Park and Evra resemble Star Trek Enterprise personnel, the kind that are engulfed by living slime within the first 6 minutes. By which I mean those two look the BEST out of the fucking team when in that shirt. I’m positive the club are copping some sort of benefit from Nike on the strength of agreeing to it. Would that surprise you? It’s something to think about while you sell retro Adidas trainers on EBay, moan about pie-buyers, and defend the rights of Thompson and Venables with fellow queergoats. Frankly, you disgust me.
David Gilgamesh is the scab you think is a crow; you keep picking at him and wondering why he won’t go away, and you end up with the aroma of Malted Milk and dogshit occupying your nostril. You’ve tried stickers, protests, FCUM, G&G, and even discussed co-operating with Scousers, but nothing has worked to exorcise Gilgamesh from the babble turrets and quadrants of OT. Perhaps religion will work…The Manchester United Sacred Trifecta is trotted out on clacking hooves – the Father, the Son and the Holy Goat: Busby, Best and Giggs. Unfortunately, the goat’s been got at, gagged by the arrogant scab, Gilgamesh, in his attempt to defy the football gods.
I know, I’m boring you. I’m boring myself if I’m honest. I usually go online and do what any red-blooded man does when he’s bored. That’s correct; GoDaddy, to check out what domains are available. I had a butcher’s on there today. “Hmmm, spazchariot.com is available…not bad…” I mumbled. The Chilean pipes up, “Has spazchariotsoffire.com been taken? THAT definitely has possibilities…” I imagined travelling the UK offering to paint flames trailing from the front wheel of peoples’ spacker-chackers. Taking photos of them with the owner grinning from behind handlebars of mayhem. I could post videos and photos on the website. Possibilities, definitely. Maybe I could move back to England and earn some money at that. The Chilean is machine-gunning his keyboard, going, “As your attorney I advise you to buy that domain and hit Limeyland with a ton of cocaine – Oh, wait, there’s already a Facebook group for it. Never mind.” So, bored again, we embark on a fierce attempt to properly analyse Planet X and what it means for our serpent overlords when it finally arrives in 2012. The Chilean explains that there’s an underground war currently taking place between the Greys, the Mantids, and of course the reptilian illuminati which emerged from the OT darkness in the form of David Gilgamesh.
I told The Chilean about rumours of an internal war raging deep beneath the great theatre between two different species of stewards. One species committed to total domination and the other determined to fight for our right to obscure the scoreboard with green and gold banners. I began to daydream, delusions of grandeur…me in full battle dress above the crowd, fighting the evil species. The Chief Steward hissing at me like a snake in the melee, thinking no-one can hear him, “Weee willl con..trrrolll yoooo….weee willl ssssuck thisss cllubb drrryyy…”
“Too late Buster,” I tell him, holding up a phonecam, “I’ve just beamed you live to a fifty foot screen in Piccadilly Gardens where it’s driving an immense crowd mad with hate.” And he just stares and stares at me in disbelief (mainly ‘cos he’s never been called “Buster” before) and he knows I’ve got him by that worn-out scaly nub he calls his balls. Then a great roar goes up and the crowd floods the streets, fighting the evil steward species hand-to-hand. The Piccadilly lot have reached OT now, assailing the inner sancta, soiling the reptilian buffets and pummelling the serpent overlords. The police are moving into position, trying to decide whether to let people buy chips or not at the top of SMBY, or whether to stop our army as it moves in the opposite direction towards Salford. There are shouts, screams, low-flying black choppers and the acrid stench of chemicals coming off the Ship Canal. I’m flying a vast gold and green flag from a huge gilded pole, but the evil ones are pushing us closer and closer to the water’s edge…and then they see it: A mass of spaz chariots, spaz chariots of fire pouring round the corner from White City, so many spaz chariots that the mind boggles. The serpent overlords embedded in the crowd begin to panic and a new fight erupts. The reptiles are jumping into the canal to escape but the spaz chariots just follow them right in; an endless battery of fiery plops, like penguins off an iceberg, each one exploding in the water and lighting up the area with a livid incandescent flash. I see David Gilgamesh clinging to a sinking chariot, begging to be rescued, but Granville Boden roars out of the darkness in a stolen Reliant Robin, launches his three-wheel steed off the quay and straight down onto Gilgamesh’s screaming head.
Then there’s a tap on my shoulder. It’s The Chilean. “As your attorney,” he says, “I advise we drink many Margaritas at Pancho Loco’s bar. Drown your sorrows after findin’ that domain’s worthless”. And I’m back in The Now, somehow…

Seasons change, and with change comes sameness. In winter I shovel snow and it helps me think. Now spring has sprung I mow my football pitch-sized lawn, trammelling up and down like a swimmer, and I get to think some more. Come the fall (the original English word for that season; autumn is French, so think on) there are lots of multicolour leaves to rake, and thinking gets thunk once again. Last week there was a big ol’ dead possum on the driveway. Weird, ‘cos he looked quite healthy; nice big feet on him and a tail as thick as a Yankee Stadium hot-dog. His heart and lungs were probably perfectly fine, but so is the heart of Portsmouth FC and, for that matter, Manchester United. The only thing missing was his eyes, pilfered by birds; those feathered godless bastards are in like Flynn when anything glitters. But this time of year has brought glittery things for a while now, and when that glitter is out of reach life feels a bit shitty. I’m here again, waiting for Chelsea v. Stoke to start, 11 AM my time, amid the aftermath of my daughter’s first birthday party. Yesterday’s antipasto platter, a mountain of empanadas, a silver bucket of homemade hummus and a towering chocolate cake demolished like the World Trade Center by swooping in-laws. United’s victory over Tottington Hotspurs and fresh April sunshine made the Peroni and pale ale taste better than ever; the road to the Championship glitter opened once more, or was it the road to delusion? Chelsea winning at Liverpool is an ugly proposition but it’s looking likely. Sunderland’s manager will be in charitable form; they are safe from the drop and Bruce’s loyalty to the red, white and black extends beyond the Black Cats all the way to the Red Devils. Or does it?
On telly Liverpool are currently getting mauled by Burnley at Turf Moor and now Chelsea-Stoke has kicked off. Fuller is crap, as are the rest of the Stoke side, and their inability to effect any kind of game-plan is frankly terrifying. They are 1-0 down and then 2-0 down and Delap’s Kenny Sansom rip-off routine is to no avail. I’ve just switched it back to Turf Moor and Liverpool are bizarrely 2 up. Great news. It will build their confidence for Chelsea at Anfield if nothing else. On the other side, Chelsea are now 3-0 up and it’s time to turn it over again. Liverpool are now 3-0 and the Burnley fans are singing like they’ve just qualified for Europe rather than booted back into the Championship. Now it’s 4-0 at Turf Moor and everyone’s talking about how Chelsea will draw at Anfield and we’ll nick it. Or how they’ll get beat at Anfield but we’ll draw at Sunderland and they’ll nick it. Or how – hang on, by the time you read this none of what I’m writing will matter, so fuck it. On our current form – or more accurately, Berbatov’s current form – we’ll be lucky to register 4, goals or points, in the last two games.
Berbatov’s a likeable chap, so it’s hard to be cruel to him. Especially since he began expressing his anguish so openly over missed chances about two-thirds through this season. A bit like how G Neville began kissing the badge (and his team-mates) with a relish most blokes are saving for the day a virtual shag machine’s invented and they can ravage any celebrity tart of choice; electrodes firmly attached to anatomy, viewfinder alive with unattainable flesh. Shite, hang on; Chelsea just scored their 7th against Stoke. That’s it; my year is finished. My life is over. Nah, only kidding, who cares about winning the 19th, really? The 19th is just an abstract statistic. It’s what Uncle Malc’s brood would have wanted, yes, but they’re currently much bigger reds than we are. That’s right, Glazer needs United to succeed more than you do right now. And you might even be responsible for putting United off. Don’t tell me that when Chelsea beat us at OT our boys weren’t a little distracted by the hordes of gold and green along the touchlines. This is a club in disarray, haunted by disaster and triumph, by a manager who is tactically bizarre but whose record bests anyone else’s in football, who, like the Queen of England seems unwilling to yield his throne to heirs, however special they may be. He may be “purple nose” or “Taggart the Tantrum-Thrower” to opposing fans but to me he’s a sex symbol, unparalleled in his decades-long campaign on the catwalk. He should be cryogenically stored when he pops his clogs until he can be reanimated. In fact, when they finally make Fergie: The Movie, I’d like to see Sir Alex played by Helen Mirren. I just know she could pull it off. (Think Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. And stop giggling at the back)
Now where was I? Oh, yes, when Chelsea had the gall to act like the league was at stake, beating us at the beginning of April, did the curse of the gold and green do more harm than good on the pitch? Every time G Neville or Berbatov gazed to the Gods in pretend bliss or horror they were confronted by the G&G. Is the G&G a subconscious attempt to derail United’s title bid and create disaffection among those who take winning for granted? What would Sigmund Freud say on the matter? And why does G Neville still have the “G” before the “Neville” on his back? Are we city, missing important shirt details, like the time they played an FA Cup match in their Premier League shirts, the League’s sponsor’s logo unnecessarily emblazoned on their Eastlands whores’ sleeves? G Neville has been a mainstay but his recent acting out his love of United leaves me wondering if it isn’t all just pre-testimonial panto from a man about to hit the Eject button and parachute down to the Shire in a house that resembles a Hobbit hole. In fact, continuing the testimonial line of thought, is there really still a “special relationship” between United and Celtic, or is it simply a money-spinning friendly fixture, guaranteed to get turnstiles clicking for the big tax-free payoff at the end of a millionaire’s short career? Just lately we’ve had this Forbes bollocks about United being the “richest club in the world”. The richest club? HA! This club is a breakdown on Paradise Boulevard, a sweat-gleaming stallion shot dead with a plastic spear-gun and packaged in McSoccer containers for consumption. It’s knackered by greed. They had a good thing going – the best merchandising system in world sports – but they took it too far and now we’re in utter disarray. And guess what…I’m glad! I fucking love it when I hear about price freezes on season tickets and “GLAZER OUT” banners being unfurled in grounds. Because this is war, and there’s only gonna be one winner, and that winner is us. The reason? We don’t care about increasing profits every second of every day; we don’t even care about winning if it means being run by gluttonous fuckpigs. So come on Glazers, face it: The fans are the life-blood and even this price-freeze won’t cut it; we want to know where the 80 million went. We want to unleash new talent on that hallowed turf, to build a true lasting dynasty like the big continentals have. Manchester United is the first British football club to achieve the opportunity to take our game up an entire level. But all Fergie’s work since 1989 is about to be wiped out by greed and ignorance. Last night I had a nightmare in which I was pursued and gang-banged by a gaggle of pathetic but horrifying animals. Initially I believed them to be apes, then later perhaps pigs. Every one of them drooled like a stroke victim on the back of my goat-neck as they mindlessly violated me, with their chinless balding heads and lifeless eyes. Fortunately it was only a dream or I might have learned to accommodate it in real life, as people do, especially those whose season tickets have been in the family since Gilgamesh’s granddad was a lad. After all, what’s a bit of neck drool between friends? Speaking of drool, there’s a demented farmer lives across the road in a tiny trailer with thirteen dachshunds. Takes a bath in a 300-gallon drum. One of his sausage dogs got run over outside here last week. First the possum and now this. I’d launched the possum off a shovel into the woods, but Animal Control came and took the doggie away. Gave it that special treatment. Either way they were two dead motherfuckers, both sporting glossy pelts and muscular legs, but something vital inside them had failed. Are Portsmouth the possum and United the dachshund? You know it’s been a shite season when the main excitement for us was city’s stomach-churning fight for fourth spot. And of course they made a movie. We all thought Blue Moon Rising was a joke but apparently not. When a football club releases a video about themselves achieving NOTHING you know the four horsemen are not far away, that’s for sure. But it’s almost summer, and for me that means hot, hot, hot. Soon enough the nights will be drawing in and preparations begun for the 2010-11 season. I’ll be cleaning the gutters and disposing of dead animals. Wondering if Spurs and Villa can scrape some points out of the Eastlands shitbowl next year. And whether Ronaldo’s really coming back one day. Tonight I watched Internazionale beat Barca with 10 men…Messi is an otter out of water, sometimes…I remember one year when we ottered – sorry opted – out of the FA Cup…maybe we should put Old Trafford and the entire squad into cryogenic freeze till Glazer dies and the middle-class jesters get sick of no trophies…opt out of football altogether, encased in solid CO2 or liquid nitrogen…at least until Ronaldo comes back…he is coming back, right? Glitter is in short supply this season, but this is a good place to get some thinking done.