EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED
Tim Rich in the Telegraph:
Save for the year of their birth, their politics and their unwillingness to communicate with their fans, there is not much that would link Sir Alex Ferguson with Bob Dylan.
Yet, sat in front of your television set, you had an intriguing choice of perhaps seeing Old Trafford turn again on the man who once held the stadium in his thrall or Martin Scorsese's epic documentary No Direction Home.
Save for the year of their birth, their politics and their unwillingness to communicate with their fans, there is not much that would link Sir Alex Ferguson with Bob Dylan.
Yet, sat in front of your television set, you had an intriguing choice of perhaps seeing Old Trafford turn again on the man who once held the stadium in his thrall or Martin Scorsese's epic documentary No Direction Home.
The film's centrepiece took place not far from Old Trafford, at Manchester's Free Trade Hall in 1966, the year George Best destroyed Benfica in front of 90,000 at the Stadium of Light, returning home with the title of 'The Fifth Beatle'.
It was the moment a Manchester crowd turned on a man they had idolised, the moment when Dylan heard the taunt of "Judas". Afterwards, a stream of former fans queued up in front of a camera to speak of their feelings of betrayal, merely because Dylan had chosen to make music with an electric guitar.
Outside Old Trafford, the BBC were having less luck. "It's absolutely dead out there," one reporter said clutching a microphone. "I've interviewed about 15 of them and nobody is prepared to slag off Fergie."
When Ferguson emerged from the tunnel to take his position in the raised dug-out he has occupied since 1986, he received some generous if not overwhelming applause. If he glanced up, he would have seen the Glazer family, who had bought Manchester United on the understanding that they were also buying the services of a man whose well of respect ran very deep.
When Ferguson emerged from the tunnel to take his position in the raised dug-out he has occupied since 1986, he received some generous if not overwhelming applause. If he glanced up, he would have seen the Glazer family, who had bought Manchester United on the understanding that they were also buying the services of a man whose well of respect ran very deep.
They might have an idea as to how to manage £265 million of debt but managing this kind of crisis so soon is not on their agenda. The hug that Carlos Queiroz and Ferguson gave themselves after Ruud van Nistelrooy's decisive intervention was one of profound relief.
How a team play is not wholly the responsibility of the manager. When Best walked out into the Stadium of Light to humiliate Eusebio's Benfica, the instructions from Sir Matt Busby had been to play tight. His players decided collectively and unspokenly to ignore their manager. "We didn't know how to keep it tight, we just knew how to batter teams," Best recalled.
With Eusebio gazing down from the stands, alongside the 1968 European Cup winners, Manchester United did not batter Benfica. Dylan responded to the booing in Manchester by telling his band to "play f****** loud".
United did not blow their critics away and but for Van Nistelrooy's wonderful predatory instincts, they would have drawn. But they won and did so with only one member of Ferguson's first-choice back-four.
It was not a performance that would have rung through Europe like a firebell in the night but it proved that with Van Nistelrooy in your side, crises can always be postponed.
United did not blow their critics away and but for Van Nistelrooy's wonderful predatory instincts, they would have drawn. But they won and did so with only one member of Ferguson's first-choice back-four.
It was not a performance that would have rung through Europe like a firebell in the night but it proved that with Van Nistelrooy in your side, crises can always be postponed.