Tall tales
By Pete Fincham
So we are still playing in the same league as the European Champions. However, not so long ago they were rubbish! I mean, not just failing to win things, they were pretty crap! Watford destroyed them, scoring five goals in the process, and despite winning the FA Cup in both 1983 and 1985, Big Ron still had to get them into contention for the league.
Then, soon afterwards, he was exposed as a man who had 'cheated on his wife' by a newspaper which has no doubt helped destroy many a person since. Big Ron was forced out of Old Trafford and has gone onto manage nearly every other top flight club.
However my mother, being rather too puritanical for rational argument on the subject, suggested at the time that "Any club that employs a person capable of that will never win anything." Her argument was that God would penalise the club for employing someone as immoral as that, and that we should watch for the fall from grace.
Well, since then a chap called Alex Ferguson has come in and worked one or two minor miracles, culminating in that magical night in Barcelona last May. Forget the monstrous corporate profile they have, forget the Megastore, the TV station, the continuous change of strip disease (a similar strain of which was caught by the Watford marketing department several years ago). Let's be honest, Manchester United are a great football side, Alex Ferguson is a great manager of a football team and David Beckham would be more than welcome in any Watford XI.
So I've said my piece...although however big they get I will always remember kicking their arses 5-1!
Thought: My Mum knows nothing about football!
