Old Trafford Protests, Sunday May 2, 2021

[EIM]

And there will be more protests.

[Janik]

EIM did point out only a couple of weeks ago that the green-and-gold movement was driven to a large extent by what Snake is highlighting here rather than a fundamental disagreement with how Football has come to be structured. Whether those at Old Trafford yesterday align with that, or are closer to the original ethos of FCUM, I have no idea.

[EIM]

EIM did point out only a couple of weeks ago that the green-and-gold movement was driven to a large extent by what Snake is highlighting here rather than a fundamental disagreement with how Football has come to be structured. Whether those at Old Trafford yesterday align with that, or are closer to the original ethos of FCUM, I have no idea.

At the centre of yesterday's protests were people central to the formation of FC United.

[EIM]

Yesterday wasn't a green and gold protest, though that imagery was used. It was very much an anti-Glazer protest, and within that you had different groups pushing different ideas, but all very much looking for reform within the game. There would be no point fucking the Glazers off only to be bought by Saudi, for example.

[Ray de Galles]

I do know, however, that this doesn;t ring true

The rest of the clubs outside the ESL seem to be doing OK.

(at least to me, a supporter of Sheffield Wednesday, but I suspect to a lot of other fans of a lot of other clubs too)

Yeah, I too was bewildered by what Snake meant there and of whom?

[Snake Plissken]

I kind of meant the rest of the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A etc who aren't hoovering up all the money and still spending themselves into oblivion. I'm aware that outside the top division it's a whole new kettle of fish.

[EIM]

It's kind of blowing my mind that Jamie Carragher has a better grasp of what's going on than some United fans. He's been excellent throughout this, possibly more so than Neville.

[E10 Rifle]

Right, we can question the lack of fierce, focused opposition to a whole load of things from the 1992 breakaway to project big picture, but we might also want to ask the question: show me a group of fans who actively campaigned for those regressive changes. Who actively called for the Champions League to be skewed towards the richest handful in a small handful of countries. What group of supporters actively demanded oil despots and vulture capitalists get involved in the game. Who actively demanded Project Big Picture would save the English pyramid. The word "active" being key. People may have passively consumed, tacitly approved of some of the changes but there has never, ever been a supporter-protest movement calling for more inequality and greed. Which is why treating financial consumption of something as the same as active approval of it is so problematic.

So I'm with the activists. And I too hope there are more protests to come.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Massive hat tip to the United fans for yesterday.

The most grating thing about Gary Neville's takes is his incredulity that Manchester United and Liverpool (or rather the owners of the respective clubs) are behind this as if that is somehow some major departure from the clubs previous policies.
It is my understanding that both clubs (along with a handful of others) were behind the scrapping of gate sharing in the early 80s and they were both drivers behind the formation of the Premier league ten years after that.

This mystique that exists around both football clubs as if they are somehow guardians of the purity and nobility of the sport is just completely at odds with reality. The level of delusion is absurd.

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Oh, the other one slight annoyance is how everyone scoffed at Tottenham joining the super league on the basis that they don't win anything - it misses the point entirely. I understand a lot of that was just piss taking but again, look at who the main drivers of football becoming big business have been for the past 40 years - they were the first club to go PLC and Sugar was instrumental in the formation of the Premier league - Spurs have been right in the thick of it.

Again, the formation of this proposed super league should be seen as a continuation of existing policy rather than some departure from the norm.

[caja-dglh]

I am not sure why the Glazer’s plans to grow Manchester United from a $3 billion business to a $10 billion business is falling flat with the fans?

[G-Man]

Massive hat tip to the United fans for yesterday.

The most grating thing about Gary Neville's takes is his incredulity that Manchester United and Liverpool (or rather the owners of the respective clubs) are behind this as if that is somehow some major departure from the clubs previous policies.
It is my understanding that both clubs (along with a handful of others) were behind the scrapping of gate sharing in the early 80s and they were both drivers behind the formation of the Premier league ten years after that.

This mystique that exists around both football clubs as if they are somehow guardians of the purity and nobility of the sport is just completely at odds with reality. The level of delusion is absurd.

I don't think that Gary Neville is arguing that. He's part of a system, and he knows it. The coup attempt crossed the line, for him and for most people who acquiesced in the system by working in it, paying for it and even taking an interest in it (as we have done on this board by having threads about Premier League and Champions' League). The coup attempt was a wake-up call that the system, in which we've all been complicit to some extent, is fucked and needs redress. Hence Gary Neville using his platform, hence players speaking out, hence fans protesting.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/manunited_now/status/1388933845953699841?s=21

[Cesar Rodriguez]

I don't think that Gary Neville is arguing that. He's part of a system, and he knows it. The coup attempt crossed the line, for him and for most people who acquiesced in the system by working in it, paying for it and even taking an interest in it (as we have done on this board by having threads about Premier League and Champions' League). The coup attempt was a wake-up call that the system, in which we've all been complicit to some extent, is fucked and needs redress. Hence Gary Neville using his platform, hence players speaking out, hence fans protesting.

To clarify - I agree with his argument I am just finding it a little silly that he is surprised that the architects of this were Manchester United and Liverpool and their respective ownership groups. On the day when the news broke I think he referred to Liverpool as the "peoples club" or something along those lines which sounds awfully romantic but is at odds with how they actually operate.

[scratchmonkey]

Watching a recording of the Newcastle - Arsenal game that I hadn't seen yet and boy, the Sky coverage of the protests is dire, it's been split-screened nearly the entire game with nothing footage, including three separate replays of the guy whose pants are too small tossing the camera stand onto the pitch (and an extended sequence of the same gentleman after he's lost his shoe and a steward brings it to him). I have the sound off, presumably it's all just people talking about Prince Philip is turning in his not-yet-grassed-over grave.

[Duncan Gardner]

BBC R4 have just reported plans for a meeting between the Supporters Trust and Club vice chairman Joel Garner

[Cesar Rodriguez]

Nevermind Gary Neville, I just heard the absolute worst take on this from Robbie Earle.

He's talking about what the fallout would be if the Glazers got fed up with the protests and sold MUFC and he says, to paraphrase, "we've got to be careful that billionaire owners and investors aren't scared away from English football". Perish the thought, parasitic billionaires who couldn't give a toss about football will be deterred from buying English clubs, how ghastly.

A lot of these ex pros are so detatched from reality.

[Belhaven]

Yes, it is strange how some people do not seem to grasp that football clubs do not need owners.

[DCI Harry Batt]

That's very disappointing, from Earle.

[Sporting]

I am not sure why the Glazer’s plans to grow Manchester United from a $3 billion business to a $10 billion business is falling flat with the fans?

Is that a serious question, or don't you care about the tradition of the game?

[Mr Cogito]

I am not sure why the Glazer’s plans to grow Manchester United from a $3 billion business to a $10 billion business is falling flat with the fans?

It's not even remotely connected to the financial success of the club, other than in how that impacts the footballing side.

Gary Neville was more explicit about this than the fans, well he would wouldn't he being a savvy businessman etc etc, but he pointed out very clearly the pre-Glazer split between the commercial arm and the footballing side, and the influence of Fergie and Edwards/Gill (relative to any subsequent manager, and the Glazers/Woodward). "Not even in the same building" as he put it, both literally and metaphorically I can only assume.

Fans aren't not wanting to see their clubs do well financially, whether at Man Utd or Burnley or Exeter. It's about how that money comes about and what it does to the club, and the influence on the decisions it leads the owners and commercial arms to make, and sometimes there's just a line that gets crossed, when people say no more. However much they've been heading down that path for 20+ years and whether or not they protested before.

[NHH]

I've said many times on here that the biggest divide in football is between those people who make a living from the game and those people who pay for that living. They simply don't and can't ever get it, and those who start trying to get into fans' mindsets (like Neville) often quickly run up against the logic of their new-found arguments.

Platini's former advisor once said to me that Platini was someone who had never been to a football match as a fan - he got free tickets. He'd been taken to the ground either on a team coach or in a chauffeur-driven car. He had not got the imagination to wonder about how fans actually arrived at a stadium and how different it was, and whilst that's an extreme example, I've never come across or been aware of a player or pundit who ever 'got it' properly.

[E10 Rifle]

That's true enough though I do think the arguments going on inside Gary Neville's head, and the way they're being amplified, have their uses.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I'm a bit deflated by NHH's anecdote, only because Platini started off at Nancy and then St Etienne in the 70s, and I've always inside my head imagined them at that stage as some kind of version of one of our small-town clubs made good, a bit like, well, Derby, Southampton and Ipswich were at the time. I can easily imagine he forgot all that when Juventus signed him though.

[ursus arctos]

Except that his father was a director of Nancy for decades and ASSE were the "biggest" club in France by absolute miles when he was there