Bring on United by Andy Mitten

Author:Andy Mitten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2024-09-21T12:44:37+00:00

7

When Johnny Goes Marching Down the Wing

John O’Shea

My head feels like it’s going to explode. Barely ten yards in front, John O’Shea is wheeling away in celebration and the stunned Scouse silence means the joyous screams of the Manchester United players are audible. United have beaten arch rivals Liverpool in dramatic and many will say undeserved circumstances: 1–0, at Anfield, with a killer injury time goal after defending for much of the game. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side have gone 12 clear in the race for a 2006–07 Premier League title most fans considered out of reach the previous August.

Ten yards is a long way. While the players can holler and hug, I must contain the euphoria of this perfect, body-tingling, buzz without showing the slightest sign of positive emotion. If I do, my safety will be seriously compromised because I’m standing on the Kop, a lone Mancunian in a mass of 12,000 furious Liverpool fans.

After glancing one last time at the ecstatic United players and 3,000 delirious travelling fans in the Anfield Road stand, I jog back to the car through the streets of dilapidated and boarded-up Victorian terraces which surround Anfield. Past Liverpool’s pubs, some tourist haunts, others where time-served Scousers drink. Not unlike Old Trafford then. Finally, in the relative safety of the car I let my emotions go and punch the air repeatedly, before looking to see a man staring at me from his front room. He raises his two fingers. It’s no ‘V’ for victory and you don’t need to be a lip reader to understand that he has said something that rhymes with Manc runt. It’s time to get on the East Lancs Road and back to Manchester.

My mood before the match was in sharp contrast as I queued to get in the Kop for the first time. I’d not seen a United fan all day, save for the Mancunian ticket touts working the streets alongside their Scouse counterparts behind the famous terrace. ‘We’re in the same game and we all know each other,’ explained one. Whether you’re at the Winter Olympics in Japan or Glastonbury, most spivs will be Mancunian or Scouse, an unholy alliance of wily, streetwise grafters.

They, like me, and 95 per cent of the United fans at Anfield, wore no colours, but paranoia crept in as I took my seat. It would take just one person to suss I wasn’t a Liverpool fan and trouble would ensue. I wasn’t going to attempt a Scouse accent or call anyone ‘wack’ but I wasn’t going to advertise my allegiances either.

There’s not a chance I’d get away with it now in the social media age where your face is a quick search away and even then I was getting odd stares – and a message three days later to say I’d been spotted but I did get away with it. I’ve reported from Sinaloa, Mexico, and from standing with Lazio’s ultras for the Rome derby, but never felt as nervous as in the Kop that day in 2007.

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