It's the Darren Lewis show...

The Rooney Saga rumbles on like the SS Titanic heading inexorably toward the iceberg.
Does Darren Lewis make the tea at The Mirror? I ask because he doesn't appear to have a lot of input into the 'sports journalism thing'. The Mirror back page leads with "Rooney - I want to stay" but when asked "how can it be?" he said:

"I don't know... I can't see it myself... but this is football..."

So there you have it from the horses mouth, the story is bullshit so don't bother reading it.

Mick Dennis; the gift that keeps on giving...

Mick back on top form this morning with his brand of bewildering toddler's logic, explaining to the SSN public why a 1-0 win over Turkish Side Bursaspor (who are yet to secure a Champions League point) proves that United are, indeed, still a top team:

"...Look at the stats; over 60% of the possession, 60% of the territory, that's not the mark of a team in decline..."

Mike Wedderburn openly stifled a 'guffaw'.

McCarthy 20/10/10

More spin than the Electrolux spin dryer production line this morning, with everyone spinning in the same direction. A quick sample of the press will give you the general flavour of things, but suffice to say there isn't much sympathy for Wayne Rooney. I'm not going to bother with links, you know how to use Google...

Paul McCarthy played a blinder this morning, using lots of emotive language like 'denegration', 'disrespect' and shed some light on the current state of the press's awkward relationship with SAF:

"Sir Alex has been at war with the press of late... he's stopped doing the Carrington press conference, he won't do interviews after the games..."

Paul stopped short of telling us what we already know, in that he only speaks to a couple of journalists nowadays -

"...we were expecting to get a couple of questions to him at most which he'd answer, dripping with sarcasm as usual, but this was different... you could see the emotion, he spoke for six and a half minutes and the room was silent, tears in his eyes..."

He added something about it being like a religious ceremony with 'everyone transfixed' but I was biting my fist so hard at the time that I missed the exact quote.

Hopefully this goes some way toward describing the one-way, sycophantic nature of this morning's coverage, and I look forward to round two where Rooney tells us how SAF murdered his pet gerbil or shat in an orphan's dinner. 

SS / SSN wrap-up...

Pointless writing up the last few days separately to be honest, there's only been one story of note since the Liverpool sale went through and it's been pretty well documented in every section of the press.
So what can we safely assume from the last few days revelations?

There's been a serious fall-out with within the Manchester United dressing room. Common sense may then  lead us to assume that this probably began with the Rooney / prostitute stories a number of weeks back. Throw into the mix that he's getting towards the last 18 months of his contract and the rumours around Manchester that Ferguson will step down at the end of next season, the not insignificant losses in the United financial accounts, the lack of form of the ageing team and particularly the younger Rooney (falling below MCFC FFS!) and we have a potent mix of ingredients to help fuel the bonfire lit under the Glazer's financial wreckage that was formerly fortress MUPLC.

Now we're into spin & counter-spin from the two parties; team Rooney kicked it off by putting out the story that he has no intention of signing a new contract. This has been countered by rumour that he wants £200K per week, but no attributable quotes from either side. Today we hear that SAF hasn't spoken to Rooney for a month; there's also innuendo that Rooney's looking to MCFC for a move... I await tomorrow's instalment with bated breath.

Putting all that aside, it is our job to report what our honourable sports press are saying about it.
Surpisingly (not) there seems to be a lot of sympathy for MUFC. There was a fantastic comment on the Sunday Supplement, which has subsequently been repeated by a number of  journalists:

"...we want to see Wayne Rooney stay at United, not at any other English club...I can't see him settling in Spain..."

I apologise I can't pinpoint exactly who said that (I listened to the podcast) but I believe it may have been Neil Ashton. If it wasn't, sorry Neil...
Here's a typically dewy-eyed piece from Henry Winter:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/8071962/Henry-Winter-Manchester-United-striker-Wayne-Rooney-should-feel-the-love.html

And Shaun Custis:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/3186095/Its-all-about-the-money-for-Wayne-Rooney.html

If you have time, be sure to read the full Henry Winter column; his parting shot at Gordon Strachan shows how personal relationships colour the reporter's language. For the sake of balance, let us consider that Gordon resigned from his post and has forgone any compensation which may have been due to him if sacked.

So, a giant has left our lives

A man of this earth, this country and this town, not of some imaginary idyll, a man full of life, who helped give life to a joyous period of Saturday afternoons and midweek evenings when the rain and the dogshite were invisible, a period smelling of Greenhalls and Bovril, Senior Service and the UCP.  His story started way before us but hopefully ended with us in his memory and his heart.

There are many things I love about Mal and always will do, but the main one is that the more you learn about him the more you are in awe.  How on earth as a young player do you take over the coaching of a club from the manager and then set in progress a regime that produced some of the most aesthetic footballers ever to grace this country's football pitches?  A regime that lasted decades after he left.   How do you do that?  It is Churchillian, perhaps it is something in the combination of the best cigars and champagne.

His ability to annoy and disrupt authority was also a joy to behold, while looking and behaving much more Saturday Night Fever than the Last Night at the Electric Circus this was a man who could claim to have inspired punk rock football management and employed some proto-punk rock footballers - many for Our Very Own.  His bans his arguments and his insults were pure box-office.  His verbal assassinations of Mullery, Atkinson and Bond were worthy of the highest debating chambers.

Just taking these attributes you would have him down as the blueprint for the special one but that is ignoring him being part of the most beautiful partnership you could wish.  A supernova lighting up my childhood with a glow that will supplied me with central heating for the rest of my life.   An explosion that generated the stars that still play football in my dreams.  I close my eyes and every night it can play out, not wishful thinking but things I have seen with my own eyes.

I have read some half baked comments today and no doubt over the next few days we will get lots more. Serious political journalists and dark hearted internet trolls bringing up the the subject of the second coming.   Most who have commented were not there, those that were appear to have forgotten the facts, the decline that had already started, the players that had become too big for their boots.   The problem was not the decision to bring him back the problem was, despite full knowledge of Mal's strengths and weaknesses, our owner decided no brakes were needed, money we didn't have could be spent.  There was total abdication of responsibility.

And then having sat back authorised the transactions and invited the television round to watch, he had what can only be described as a rectal prolapse.  Mal was gone, tears were shed by the players on tv and me in my bedroom.

I suppose there was some sense in employing one of Mal's disciples to replace him, but what a poor one we got.  The three signings were good but were no more than should have been expected from a professional manager outside looking in at another's problems.  And then he became like Eddy the Eagle on the 90m jump, yes we got to the final but finished last and crashed into a tree breaking all our bones.

Nothing will convince me Mal wouldn't have built a better club given a chance and an owner/board of directors growing some bollocks.   I might be wrong but I don't think so, I had seen what the big man could achieve and I think was well on the way to producing a belting team.  I suppose I may be biased but then again I continue to be haunted by THAT tv documentary showing the tv salesman trading in the Panasonic for an Alba.

And its that end that might leave a sour taste, but it doesn't because he gave me much more joy than that hurtful episode could ever take away.

They say you should never meet your heroes, that is of course bunkum, when you met Malcolm he was exactly what you expected.   You could feel Big Mal's presence in the room, there was no act, no pretence, no acting he was the show, a true giant.  Every time he appeared on tv, in the press, in a dug out, directors box or pub and you had the honour to witness it your day, your life was improved.

Bye Mal and thanks.

JB

SSN Darren Lewis 15/10/10

Darren Lewis defended Danny Murphy regarding comments attributed to him during his recent 'outburst' on tackling, stating that Danny never mentioned 

"...players going out to maim, injure or kill other players... he definitely did not say that".

So the question is, where did these comments come from?

That kind of language was used in follow up pieces in all the tabloids, so it's a tad hypocritical for Darren (or anyone else within the tabloid press for that matter) to try and take some kind of moral high ground here. This would have been in contention for a "journalism in the 3rd person quote of the week" award, until I read this quote in The Sun from Sam Allardyce -

"Danny Murphy doesn't know about Sam Allardyce because he's never been managed by Sam Allardyce or coached by Sam Allardyce."
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/premteams/blackburn_rovers/3180597/Sam-demands-Murphy-apology.html#ixzz12PY1gB00

Followers of @the_big_sam on twitter will probably notice more than a passing similarity...

Sunday Supplement 10/10/10

A brief report on this week's podcast highlighting a few notable bits of flim-flam, international breaks limit the amount of tawdry bollocks available for discussion.
Patrick Barclay first with a perplexing analogy in reference to Nigel de Jong's tackle on Hatem Ben Arfa, which is still considered worthy of debate despite the FA seeing no case to answer after 7 days of the witch hunt:

"It's like a drunk driver climbing into his car, he doesn't mean to kill the six year old girl but that is what often happens..."

Wow. Quote of the week right there. We can only assume that Paddy was nursing a particularly painful hangover on Sunday morning.
And best wishes to Hatem Ben Arfa in his rehab obviously.

Neil Custis, David to Shaun's Ed, then gave us a peak into his world regarding the current state of the England team:

"My son won't even wear his England shirt, he'll wear his United shirt instead..."

(His son is 28 years old in case you were wondering)*

And an insight into the Manchester City dressing room 'maelstrom':

"I can't repeat what Mancini said to Tevez, but it wasn't very pleasant"

When he says he "can't repeat it" we should take this as shorthand to mean "he doesn't know".

SSN - S. Custis

The line between opinion pieces and factual reporting gets ever fainter; non-story of the week is the England captaincy going back to the fit-again Rio Ferdinand. Steven Gerrard, when asked last week, had stated that if fit he expected Ferdinand would regain the armband. Very sensible, in that he was Capello's choice way back when. Henry Winter's opinion on this 'story' :

http://www.telegraph.co.ukl...Capello-may-regret-relieving-Steven-Gerrard-of-captaincy.html

Hyperbole and bullshit naturally, but Shaun lifted the lid on Henry's motive for such a piece...

"Henry should declare an interest here, having written Gerrard's biography..." he stated with a chuckle, before adding "mind you, so should I having written Rio Ferdinand's...".

Last night's Monday Night Club on Radio Five Live discussed the same story where 'the Scottish one' (sorry I'm terrible with names) stated that after being told he wasn't going to captain the side, Gerrard "...stormed off to bed." Of even greater concern was the fact that Capello then neglected to tell Ferdinand he would be captaining the side "...until the following morning."

Nearly makes you wish Rooney would climb into bed with another prostitue...

Unnecessary tackle

After a week of assorted 'journalists' and fuckwitted fans calling for Nigel de Jong to be retrospectively punished for not committing an offence in the execution of a fair tackle, suspended for as long as Ben Arfa is recuperating - Ian Wright and John Collins, you thick twats - or hung-drawn-and-quartered, here's a reminder that Old Ginger Man Time, Player Of The Year 2011 (winner decided in August 2010), just can't tackle < chuckle >.