If negotiations on the acquisition of Liverpool and Newcastle by Arab and American investors, respectively, succeed, it will be the fifth and sixth clubs, the Premier League, which in recent years have ceased to belong to the British - after Chelsea, Portsmouth, West Ham "And" Aston Villas. " Following the conclusion of a new, three-billion-dollar television contract, the Premier League has become the most successful commercial venture in world football and a super-attractive area for investment. But not everyone likes the arrival of foreigners, big money, and business relations in England - some of the fans believe that they were “stolen from football”. Fans of Manchester United went the farthest, having established their club, United of Manchester, after the arrival of the American Malcolm Glaser.
KARL MARGINSON rises at 3:30 in the morning, half an hour earlier than usual, so that in addition to working clothes he has time to collect his sports uniform and civilian suit and place them in the free corner of his van. His every-day journey to work lies along Mancunian Road, past Old Trafford, in the stands of which he must have been a thousand times. Today is tense than usual: in addition to visiting the fruit and vegetable warehouse and visiting customers, he should have time to conduct a training session at United of Manchester. And then to give another television interview: “The film crews from Canada, France, and English have already come to us without an account. Today they will be from Holland. ” The appointment of former Manchester United club fans as head coach made Karl Marginson the most famous fruit and vegetable carrier in the UK, if not all of Europe. The BBC, summing up the results of the year, gave him a prize in the nomination "opening coach", and for this ceremony, Karl, the son of a worker from Encoats, had to wear a tuxedo for the first time in his life. “At first, in general, all these cameras and flashbulbs baffled me. I’m not used to say so much. He inserted the word “in general” five times in three phrases. But then I got used to it, ”says Marginson. And he adds: "Well, in general, somehow."
Encoats is a Greater Manchester area populated by workers in neighboring factories or unemployed who were fired from them during the reduction. “Poor, working and honest,” Marginson describes his area. “You can leave the wallet in the pub and nobody will touch it.” Describes what kind of stampede was on the buses that he used to ride at Old Trafford with his friends during his school years. Although his youth had the most difficult years in the life of Manchester United and there were no trophies.
Now, according to the United of Manchester coach, buses to Old Trafford are half empty from Encoats - few of the inhabitants of the proletarian suburbs can afford a football ticket. “And my son’s classmates don’t go to matches,” says Marginson. - All this is too complicated: reserve a ticket 6 weeks before the match, and even then sit separately from your parents. The system of distribution of seats in the stands has become so confusing: first, apply for a voucher that entitles you to a voucher for which you receive a voucher that allows you to buy a ticket. ”
Karl well remembers the failures of the “Manchester United” of the 80s, but he still considers the worst for the “Reds” 2005 — the year the club was acquired by American businessman Malcolm Glaser. “Football has been taken from ordinary people,” Marginson says. - Here I work, right? Almost seven days a week. And even for me, it’s a little expensive to drive two children to Old Trafford regularly. Tickets, then se - and already under 200 pounds for each match. " The new United's trainer squinted at the flash while taking pictures for PROsport. “It turns out that your team is such an attempt to return football to ordinary people?” - not refraining from pathos, I ask Marginson. - "Well, in general, somehow."
EVERYTHING BEGINS actually long before Glaser. Fans of Manchester United, the most visited club in England, have long had a harmonious internal organization and acted as a single force. Largely thanks to them, they prevented the first attempt at the acquisition of Manchester United by a foreigner, the Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch in 1998.
Established then fan-made Share Shareholders United started buying up the club’s shares in the hope of getting a blocking stake (25%) and made such a fuss in the press that the British Antimonopoly Committee ultimately opposed the arrival of Murdoch. The idea of Shareholders United to get a blocking stake, of course, was a utopia (the price of such an amount of shares is about $ 200 million), but by the time Malcolm Glaser appeared on the horizon in late 2004, 33,000 people from 40 countries of the world were in this organization.
“Our mission, of course, was not only confronting the invaders,” said Andy Walsh, one of the leaders of Shareholders United, and now United of Manchester. “We had a dialogue with the club, conveyed to him the position of fans, defended reasonable ticket prices for children and senior citizens.” Now, of course, there is no dialogue - "what could be a conversation with Glaser?".
Shareholders United launched a propaganda campaign and protests (at least a dozen more Glazer scarecrows from the stands of Old Trafford were burned), but the American was not stopped. Since then, Andy has never gone to Old Trafford: “Glazer is indifferent to football as such, has appeared on games a couple of times at the games. "MU" he bought to earn, and nothing more. But Glaser won't get a single penny of mine. ” In the course of the conversation, Andy Walsh and I are looking at industrial Manchester landscapes from the window of a tram that takes us from the city center to one of the outskirts, where the Bury club stadium and the new United of Manchester house.
To go for a long time, about 40 minutes, and then another 15 minutes on foot. The leader of United of Manchester has enough time to tell me how the alternative Manchester United club was created. “This idea flashed in one of the fan magazines at the height of the protests against Glaser’s arrival,” Walsh says as the tram fills with red-white-black scarves. - We decided to act as soon as our club was sold. And what were we to do? It’s not for Manchester City to cheer now. ”
700 people gathered for the first constituent assembly of the new team, for the second, in a week, already 2000. The relatives were chosen, the same colors as those of MJ. The corresponding name is United of Manchester. But everything else in the new club will be different from the previous one. According to the manifesto approved at the second meeting, United of Manchester "will be governed in a democratic way: the board will be chosen by fans on the principle of" one person - one vote. " Also in this document, a bet is fixed on their own, Manchester football players, the lack of advertising on T-shirts and reasonable ticket prices. And the fact that all the club’s earnings until the last penny will be spent on its development, and not on the payment of any dividends. In fact, this manifesto is a complete list of complaints from fans about the current Manchester United and, more broadly, about the new football reality.
First of all, United of Manchester needed money, and it was collected immediately: within a week, 2,600 people made donations totaling more than 120,000 pounds. In the second turn, players were needed, and they also gained plenty. 930 people responded to the viewing ad, including people from New Zealand, France and the United States. “One, therefore, wrote that he regularly plays with his brother near the house on the barbecue area,” Marginson told me. “And that brother has not repulsed a single blow from him yet.” 260 people were invited to view. 20 of them received an invitation to the first training session, and seven are still playing for United of Manchester.
The team entered the 2nd league of the Northwest region, the tenth in the general hierarchy of English football. The arena was searched with great difficulties: several were rejected due to too small capacity. “What are the stadiums here in the Northwest League? - Walsh smiles. “The stands are almost the size of a bus stop.” At the last moment, the Bury football club from the 4th English division went to meet, and United of Manchester fans began to settle in on its modest 12-thousander. In the dreams of returning to Old Trafford after 10 years as guests fans at the match of the Premier League Manchester United - United of Manchester.
At some point, an initiative group of fans was approached by the Manchester-based Leith RMI, playing three leagues above, asking for it. That would make the United of Manchester way to Old Trafford a lot shorter. But they decided to abandon this purchase for ethical reasons. “After all, we ourselves created a team out of a feeling of protest after the arrival of an undesirable owner,” is Walsh's explanation. “To be completely honest with ourselves, we must go this way from the very beginning.” Instead, United of Manchester offered Leith RMI a friendly match, all the proceeds of which went to his advantage.
I DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY what the antiglobalist gatherings look like, but I suspect it is exactly the same as the United Match of Manchester pre-match gatherings in the Swan pub near Bury Stadium. Two and a half hours before the game, the huge pub room was crammed with mini-reds fans, as the United of Manchester in England already called. The main contingent is hard workers with a characteristic accent of the English northwest; in a couple of hours of lively communication no one called me "rushn". “Russian” is pronounced here as “rushn”, “mani” - as “moni”, and, say, “pub” - as “pub”.
"The day Glazer appeared on Manchester United is the worst of my life."
“Is it really only a matter of Glaser? It has long begun. On the podium of Old Trafford, where I went as a schoolboy, now there are lodges with champagne and shrimp sandwiches. ”
"Rio Ferdinand did not sign my son ... He didn’t even turn his head."
“Yes, he now has a salary of 110,000 pounds a week, he has to turn his head at least a thousand.
“We don’t have any“ Real ”or“ Arsenal ”as rivals, of course. The level of football here is not the same. But the feeling that you are not being deceived is worth it. ”
“Have you been to the Stratford End, the main rostrum of Manchester fans? I heard how they sing? So this is nothing compared to what it was 15 years ago. There was a subculture of its own, its own customs ... The young grouped in one place, the more mature in another, the audience more intelligent in the third. It was a real model of society. If someone in our part of the tribune shouted to the player “fucking bastard”, they would besiege him: they don’t do that with us. If you want to swear - go to that sector, it’s accepted there ... And now you can’t even sit down with your friends if you go to football. Tickets are tightly booked. It’s also impossible to sing songs while standing - the steward will immediately approach and ask you to sit down. ”
“Okay Abramovich - he bought a club that was bent. And “MJ” everything was fine without Glazer, it was the richest club in the world. Worst of all, Glaser bought MJ on loan. He took hundreds of millions of loans, then transferred them to the club. As a result, he will either increase the price of tickets to pay interest, or he will go bankrupt along with Manchester United.
“Glaser wants to rename Old Trafford into the McDonald's Arena.”
“I have a brother selling programs near Old Trafford. So tourists asked him whether Beckham would play, even when he was already in Real Madrid.
“The club no longer needs fans like us. He needs the Chinese and Japanese, who will buy logo socks and these stupid circles with a portrait of Cristiano in the club megastore. ”
“Our football is small, but real. Soon everywhere - in Liverpool, London, Newcastle - fans will get tired of pumping money out of their pockets and they will create their own teams, follow our example. ”
The farther, the more the Manchester fans' ventures seem to me to be a monstrous socialist utopia. But, getting to know them better, you change your mind about hanging labels. These people are confused by the salary of Rio Ferdinand at 110,000 pounds per week, but they are not communists. They do not like the Chinese and Japanese as neighbors in the stands, but they are not xenophobic. They want the club to pay more attention to their school, but idolize Eric Canton. At some point, our conversation at the pub counter turns on general topics, and everything becomes clear to me. It turns out that here almost no one likes supermarkets, crowding out small shops from neighboring streets. It doesn’t matter that in a supermarket the choice can be more varied due to well-functioning distribution systems, and the products are fresher. Around the United of Manchester rallied people who like the old world and football and do not like the current one.
“According to our survey, 98% of Manchester fans are against Glaser coming,” says Andy Welch. - But the subscription with his arrival decided to hand over only a few thousand. The rest say they cannot imagine their life without Old Trafford. Most are now sympathetic to both teams. Someone took a wait-and-see attitude - say, let's see how Glazer behaves. There are those who do not like us, - they think that we started all this in vain, just show off or want to be redder than red. "
There is some controversy between this anti-commercial rhetoric and the current status of United of Manchester in the Northwest Regional League - like the one I once felt on the platform of Monaco fans stretching a giant banner with the face of Che Guevara (all cars parked under that at the same time cost at least 30,000 euros). By the standards of the league, United of Manchester, with all its fan contributions and an average attendance of 4,000, is a super club. And in three or four leagues above there is no richer team. This alignment of forces also clearly appears from the results: in the first year of its existence, United of Manchester easily won the fight in its tenth league division, and in the season 06/07 it confidently leads the ninth. The goal difference as of mid-January is 91-18.
Andy Walsh does not see this as a contradiction: “In the North-West League, the average attendance is about seventy people, and at least a couple thousand are sent to us for every trip. The benefit is to go close. This is great support for local teams in a financial sense. Having collected two-year revenue from the game of United of Manchester, Blackpool Mechanics, for example, was finally able to repair the roof in the locker room. ”
And FOOTBALL in the ninth English league, where United of Manchester now plays, is quite, by the way, quite good. Speeds, of course, not too much, the fields are bad. If the attacker takes a long gear with a rebound per meter, he is considered very technical, and short gears are not honored here. But the drive, passion, dedication here are real. Made in England.
“Can it be otherwise? - says the right winger of United of Manchester Rodry Giggs. - So many people watching! Do you know that many players ask our team to play for free? All their life they played in front of 30 fans, counting pets, and here five thousand. ”
27-year-old Rodry Giggs knows what he's saying. He is one of the few at United of Manchester to play with a comparable audience in Scottish Livingstone and Welsh Barry Town. He, the brother of Ryan Giggs, was once considered promising, but "didn’t." Without going through a show in the Scottish Hearts, Rodry spat on everything and went to London to work as a realtor. We chat with Rodry after the match in the same Swan pub, where the whole team celebrates another victory along with the fans. “Well done, Rodry,” one of the fans interrupts our conversation, patting Giggs Jr. on the shoulder. “Well, when are you already dragging your brother into our team?” Rodry is often pushed, of course, on this score, but in general they are terribly proud of him.
Sam Ashton, the only United of Manchester footballer with experience playing in the Premier League club, sits quietly in the corner with a pint of camp - it seems the only one for the whole evening. Ashton is the goalkeeper, he is 21, and Marginson introduced him to me as the team's most gifted player. Sam tells about this very experience, blushing significantly: this was a year ago, during the match of the third round of the FA Cup against Watford. He played then not at the goal, but in the attack, replacing striker Jared Borghetti a couple of minutes before the end of the match. Bolton head coach Sam Allardyce, in his own words, wanted to encourage Ashton's fanaticism: “It was my Christmas present.” Ashton is a graduate of the Bolton school and an incredible fan of this club, he even has several tattoos with his symbols. And soon after Christmas, Ashton had to look for a new team, and United came in handy. More than the teams from Cambridge and Radcliffe, playing several leagues above, are not to travel far, leaving school is not necessary.
In one corner of the pub, songs with motives, like on Old Trafford, but with other words invented by fans of United of Manchester, are already in full swing. In another, apocalyptic talks are again being held about the untimely demise of “real” football, in the spirit of Bebebeder’s “This is not France beat Brazil in the final of the World Cup 98, this is Adidas defeated Nike”. Almost the entire team, drinking with the fans, demonstrate to the pub the same dedication as on the field. Only Marginson, the head coach, had already left - he would get up again at 4 in the morning tomorrow, deliver vegetables and fruits.
And a few people from the United of Manchester initiative group next to me are discussing how soon their club will enter the Premier League and what arena they will play in. “Glazer's team will go broke, and we will take over Old Trafford,” says one. “We will build our own stadium,” another protests. “To be honest, I don’t know where this adventure will lead us all,” Andy Walsh says without the rest of the bravado. “But we all like it terribly.”