From the Times:
‘MUTV, Manchester United’s in-house television service, is shaping up to be a rare example of a channel that will be remembered for the programmes it didn’t broadcast, rather than the ones it did.
‘At any rate, it’s my hunch that the now notorious, unseen episode of Play the Pundit with Roy Keane will feature more significantly in the histories of this period than any of the MUTV output that did make it to transmission this week. And I’m bold enough to include in this assessment all of those editions of Countdown 2 Kick-Off, the documentary You Are My Solskjaer and Tuesday night’s Reserves Highlights, during which the reserves in question lost 5-1 to Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park after a festival of defensive ineptitude in the second half. Probably a good thing that Keane wasn’t invited to play the pundit on this one.
‘Had the programme been broadcast, we would have discovered what Keane thinks about Rio Ferdinand. As it is, with transcripts freely available, we know what he thinks, but with the sharpening detail that the club are keen to suppress what he thinks. Which, in turn, leads to further speculative twists, such as the notion that Keane is angry with the club’s hierarchy for silencing him. Nice news management, everybody.
‘The club station must exist somewhere between the shopping channel and a communist test card, which perhaps explains why I’ve never been able to watch MUTV for more than a quarter of an hour without developing the eerie feeling that it is, in fact, watching me.
‘But let’s go easy on the Pravda parallels. Yesterday, MUTV was showing highlights from the Middlesbrough match (“a miserable, miserable afternoon on Teesside”), with none of the Middlesbrough goals expunged. Bearing in mind that the consolation goal, scored by Cristiano Ronaldo in the dying seconds, was United’s 1,000th strike in the Premiership, there was plenty of scope for repackaging the occasion. “The Glorious 1,000! Acclaim for the good citizen Ronaldo! See how we work hard and prosper! Coming next: vote for United’s greatest goal ever and win a tractor.”
‘Yet, on the aforementioned phone-in, Paddy Crerand and Macari were free to debate workrate without suddenly being replaced by a recording of Glory, Glory Man United over an image of Ferguson holding the European Cup. On the contrary, the former United players listened attentively while callers, without interruption, put forward notions such as “when Beckham left, the heart went out of the team”. Of course, that particular caller may now be mining salt somewhere north of Salford. But I suspect not.’