[Archived] Fergie

[bluebruce]

i was going to edit my post and put keeganesque...its a must see when someone you tubes it...can you believe the gaul of him by saying about a penalty being awarded in a big match AND IT WAS THE 1ST CHUFFING PEN AGAINST THEM ALL SEASON THE FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SHOWS ME WHICH WAY REFS GO WHEN IT TAKES 3 MATCHES FROM THE END OF SEASON FOR A PEN TO BE AWARDED AGINST MANURE

Bloody hell, it is too...what a disgrace those moaning Mancs are. Clearly they're of the opinion that they've been nothing but gentlemanly to opposition strikers all year.

[Montfort]

The conduct and comments of Ferguson and Queiroz were pathetic.

They should be shown up for the fools that they are. At least Hanson on match of the day was unequivocal in his view that it was a penalty ( but this is not always the case ). Alan Green the main commentator on radio 5 live was better and I have lot of respect for him.

But it isn't enough. "I would love it" if the interviewers asked a few critical questions when people like Ferguson are having a rant. More like the grilling that John Humphreys gives disembling politicians on radio 4.

Questions such as the following immediately spring to mind

"Wenger suggested recently that there was a conspiracy against Arsenal not to give decisions in their favour. Do you think that the conspiracy has now changed its focus to Manchester United ?

Avrim Grant says it was a clear penalty. Do you think he doesn't know what he is on about? ( Anyone can critise a referee but it is harder to critise a fellow manager )

On a slightly different track but the same match did you see Drogba's reaction to the Vidic injury ? He was in mid dive but realised Vidic was hurt and pulled out of it. Credit to him for having some standards but he was just about to throw himself to the ground and have a bit of a roll around.

[thenodrog]

On a slightly different track but the same match did you see Drogba's reaction to the Vidic injury ? He was in mid dive but realised Vidic was hurt and pulled out of it. Credit to him for having some standards but he was just about to throw himself to the ground and have a bit of a roll around.

He looked well stupid......... BUT giving him the benefit of the doubt it would be that he thought that he had knocked the ball over his own head and away from Vidic as intended and that he was looking for the ball and turning that way........

...... but that would be what his mother would say of the incident. In actuallity we should never give well known cheating gits like Drogba the benefit of any doubt.

[thenodrog]

The conduct and comments of Ferguson and Queiroz were pathetic.

They should be shown up for the fools that they are.

I think they are being really. They are receiving widespread criticism and ridicule. They've stuck the knife in themselves and there will be a long queue of people waiting to twist it.

[USRoverME]

On a slightly different track but the same match did you see Drogba's reaction to the Vidic injury ? He was in mid dive but realised Vidic was hurt and pulled out of it. Credit to him for having some standards but he was just about to throw himself to the ground and have a bit of a roll around.

I saw that in slow motion on a review show here in the states.... I'm not 100% sure he was about to dive, but it is very possible. I do have to give him credit for stopping immediately, seeing Vidic was half out of it and waving for a trainer immediately.

[den]

I saw that in slow motion on a review show here in the states.... I'm not 100% sure he was about to dive, but it is very possible. I do have to give him credit for stopping immediately, seeing Vidic was half out of it and waving for a trainer immediately.

I don't think he was about to dive either. It was more the pain of Vidics' tooth going into his knee.

[thenodrog]

From what I have seen this season I have quite a lot of admiration foe the way Avram Grant has conducted himself as Chelsea manager. So it's nice to see that he has sussed Ferguson's character out.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle3864608.ece

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

A close friend of Fergie, I've now lost respect for this man....

I used to quite like Alan Curbishley a few years ago when he was doing a steady, if unspectacular job at Charlton. When Souness walked out on us to join Newcastle in 2004, I favoured one of three names to replace him at Ewood Park - Gordon Strachan, Mark Hughes or Curbishley.

My opinion of Curbishley has now changed. I was disgusted with his pre-match comments against Man United, when he said: "It would be a great injustice if United were to lose the Premier League title."

No Mr Curbishley, it would not be a great injustice. It would simply mean that Chelsea would have won the title by gaining more points over the course of a season than United. But it appears unlikely to happen now. It's difficult to see United slipping up on the last day against Wigan, when Fergie faces another of his old mates, Steve Bruce, whose Wigan side are now fully safe from relegation.

"A great injustice" happened last season when West Ham stayed up after they had broken the rules, cheated and lied about it. That was an injustice for Sheffield United and for football fans up and down the country. Curbishley has no right to talk about an "injustice" if United slip up in the Premiership.

In his Fergie love-in, Curbishley went on to praise the United manager as "Mr Amazing" and said: "I would raise a glass if United win the title. It would be, of course, a toast to Alex Ferguson."

I find Curbishley's comments about a "great injustice" to be insulting, especially after what happened last season. I was disgusted on the final day of last season to see Carlos Tevez, in a West Ham shirt, celebrating with the United players on the Old Trafford pitch after the game. Man United had already won the title before their match with West Ham and Fergie played a weakened team on the day. No Ronaldo, Scholes or Giggs in the starting line-up, with some of the United players, including Hammers old boy Michael Carrick, appearing to be going through the motions.

United were completely flat on the day, despite Fergie promising that they would be doing their best for the other two teams, Sheffield United and Wigan, who were also fighting relegation. I later read a report that Carlos Tevez, who scored the goal in the 1-0 win for West Ham that day, had celebrated with the United players in a Manchester nightclub after the match. Clearly they were getting cosy with each other even before Tevez joined United.

Before yesterday's match at Old Trafford, West Ham had won their last three matches against United. But they had more to play for on those occasions. Yesterday, in 10th place, seven points behind Man City in 9th, it was all too predictable that West Ham wouldn't appear to be that fired up yesterday and would lose. United were down to ten men for most of the game, but still won 4-1 and it could have been an even bigger thrashing.

I hope that after his insulting comments about a "great injustice" if United fail to win the Premiership, Alan Curbishley now crawls back under the stone from where he came from. I don't want to hear him crowing or celebrating after United beat Wigan on the last day.

[Anti Euro Smiths Fan]

Well I suppose Alan Curbishley must be happy. The man who said he would "raise a glass if United win the title" is probably having more than just a single drink in celebration now after United's win in the Champions League on Wednesday.

Curbishley is probably drinking champagne now as I type these words. I wonder whether he's got a party hat on. He's probably put a United flag in his front window and is creaming his underpants after Wednesday's result. His kids have probably put United shirts on and are doing the conga around his house.

I thought that Curbishley's words before West Ham were due to play United at Old Trafford were out of order and disrespectful to the rest of the Premiership.

I'm no lover of Chelsea by any means, but I personally feel they are the lesser of two evils compared with United. Chelsea were the better team after half-time and were unfortunate not to win the match in Moscow.

I pressed the 'mute' button on ITV and turned the Radio 5 commentary on so that I didn't have to listen to the United fan Clive Tyldesley. As Alan Green said in his radio commentary, how ridiculous that the match was being finished at around 1am Moscow time.

The piece below from the Man City fan and rock journalist Paul Morley encapsulates my views on United. As he says: "Heartless United are the incarnation of shamelessness."

United fans have no soul

[S15]

Bloody hell.

United fans have no soul? Riiiiiiiiight.

You're slowing losing it....

[thenodrog]

Bloody hell.

United fans have no soul? Riiiiiiiiight.

You're slowing losing it....

No he does have a point. My observations over the years see all sorts of things leading shallow minded eeejits with no background in football to Old Trafford. From daft single mothers all over the bloody country buying MU shirts with Beckham / Cantona / Ronaldo on the back for their 7 year old kids, incorporating small man syndrome, to people claiming in all sorts of accents that their father / granfather once drove down Deansgate, to the popularity of the club within the Muslim community.

Man Utd plc is simply a crutch for so many inadequates and I will never be convinced otherwise.

[Eddie]

Are you saying that being muslim or a mother makes you inadequate?

United are a huge sports team and like all huge sports teams that means they attract glory-hunters and people who "support" them simply because they are popular and may well be the only team that they have heard of. It is annoying, but it happens in every sport.

[Rovermatt]

No he does have a point. My observations over the years see all sorts of things leading shallow minded eeejits with no background in football to Old Trafford. From daft single mothers all over the bloody country buying MU shirts with Beckham / Cantona / Ronaldo on the back for their 7 year old kids, incorporating small man syndrome, to people claiming in all sorts of accents that their father / granfather once drove down Deansgate, to the popularity of the club within the Muslim community.

Man Utd plc is simply a crutch for so many inadequates and I will never be convinced otherwise.

I agree with you on most of that. I'm just not sure what Muslims have to do with anything.

[Mattyblue]

No he does have a point. My observations over the years see all sorts of things leading shallow minded eeejits with no background in football to Old Trafford. From daft single mothers all over the bloody country buying MU shirts with Beckham / Cantona / Ronaldo on the back for their 7 year old kids, incorporating small man syndrome, to people claiming in all sorts of accents that their father / granfather once drove down Deansgate, to the popularity of the club within the Muslim community.

Man Utd plc is simply a crutch for so many inadequates and I will never be convinced otherwise.

Agree 100%

People who are often complete failures or social droputs will pop up in the Liverpool/Man United gear. Its the fact its done so brazenly in OUR town, a town whose team are currently ranked 7th best in the world's most high profile league! It drives me absolutely barmy.

And I'll tell you something else, while I'm being controversial. The lower down the social ladder you go in a town like Blackburn, the more glory shirts you will see- FACT

Why? Well there are probably many reasons but I would say that this 'Chav' subculture is that ingrained in our towns that traditional father figures who would take their kids to their local club are notable by their absence and turning up in the new Utd/Liverpool shirt gives you more kudos than the Blue n white.

When I hear a local lad say 'I'm Man U, Blackburn are s***' My heart sinks and its hapenning more and more.

[roversmum]

Blue Moon:To support United is too easy. It's convenience supporting. It makes life too easy. There is no challenge. It is a cowardly form of escapism, a sell-out to the forces of evil.

The writer of this quote from AESF's link has a point though......

[Eddie]

It depends though. There are plenty of "true" United fans who simply support them for the same reasons that any of us support Rovers.

[BuckyRover]

Exactly.

Every UTD fan I know is in that mould.

Every team that has success gains fair weather fans, thats just a fact of life. It's just that they are currently very successful. It cant be used as a slight against them

[Mattyblue]

It depends though. There are plenty of "true" United fans who simply support them for the same reasons that any of us support Rovers.

Without doubt Eddie, there are United fans from Salford and Manchester who are true United fanatics, and fair play to them.

However the amount of Man Yoo fans ive come across in my life who's 'dads from Manchester' is unbelievable, it really is some kind of demographic wonder. 15 million males must have left the Manchester district in the 70s and 80s.

[Eddie]

Im not really English and my dad is a United supporter, if I had chosen to support United I would have used the "my dad is United fan/from the region" line, I could have been just as dedicated to United as I am to Rovers. It shouldn't be viewed as an automatic "out".

Take for example the fact that I support the Chicago Bulls in the NBA. It started because it was the first game I ever saw when I was very young and my favourite colour at the time was red. Now the Bulls then went onto become 6 time NBA champions during the next decade and Jordan and the Bulls became famous around the world, gaining a lot of supporters who know nothing about basketball. There are tons of true Bulls fans, personally I'm a big Bulls fan and still support the team despite the fact that they've been pretty poor for most of the past decade, but when people meet me and I tell them that I support the Bulls they basically assume that I jumped on the Bulls bandwagon in the early/mid-90's. Now it's pretty annoying when people see you like that.

I figure that as long as you really care about the team your reasons for supporting them shouldn't matter. If you don't actually care, well then you don't really matter as far as the sports world is concerned.

[Mattyblue]

Im not really English and my dad is a United supporter, if I had chosen to support United I would have used the "my dad is United fan/from the region" line, I could have been just as dedicated to United as I am to Rovers. It shouldn't be viewed as an automatic "out".

Take for example the fact that I support the Chicago Bulls in the NBA. It started because it was the first game I ever saw when I was very young and my favourite colour at the time was red. Now the Bulls then went onto become 6 time NBA champions during the next decade and Jordan and the Bulls became famous around the world, gaining a lot of supporters who know nothing about basketball. There are tons of true Bulls fans, personally I'm a big Bulls fan and still support the team despite the fact that they've been pretty poor for most of the past decade, but when people meet me and I tell them that I support the Bulls they basically assume that I jumped on the Bulls bandwagon in the early/mid-90's. Now it's pretty annoying when people see you like that.

I figure that as long as you really care about the team your reasons for supporting them shouldn't matter. If you don't actually care, well then you don't really matter as far as the sports world is concerned.

honourble sentiment there Eddie, but when I see clubs like Torquay etc etc etc nearly go out of business while the Man United Devon Supporters Club adds a second coach to games makes me retch. Football IS tribal, football goes to the very heart of inidividulas and a town/city's identity. We are not the NBA or the NFL where clubs/franchises are at a premium, nearly every major town in England has an established football team and anyone with a real backbone or love of the game will support that club or at least the club that has ACTUAL family or emotional links with them.

[Eddie]

It would be nice if it worked that way, but it obviously won't. At the same time, you could support two teams. I have a friend who is a Torquay supporter and regularly goes to their games, but is an Arsenal supporter at the same time and regularly goes to their games as well. Personally I can't support two teams, even in different countries, but it is an option and I'm sure quite a few do it.

Also, if we fully applied your rules I wouldn't be a Rovers supporter, so I'm obviously not going to agree with them.

[Mattyblue]

It would be nice if it worked that way, but it obviously won't. At the same time, you could support two teams. I have a friend who is a Torquay supporter and regularly goes to their games, but is an Arsenal supporter at the same time and regularly goes to their games as well. Personally I can't support two teams, even in different countries, but it is an option and I'm sure quite a few do it.

Also, if we fully applied your rules I wouldn't be a Rovers supporter, so I'm obviously not going to agree with them.

Of course there must be hundreds of Rovers fans around the globe like yourself, each with a good story to tell why they are supporting our fantastic club, however when United are supported just becaue they are successful and when you walk around Blackburn itself and are faced with as many United/Liverpool shirts as you are Rovers it grates.

[joey_big_nose]

Of course there must be hundreds of Rovers fans around the globe like yourself, each with a good story to tell why they are supporting our fantastic club, however when United are supported just becaue they are successful and when you walk around Blackburn itself and are faced with as many United/Liverpool shirts as you are Rovers it grates.

We should be a bit careful about how much we do down Man Utd for their less than traditional support. Rovers can draw a much larger fanbase round the world than, say, Burnley or PNE due to the fact that we won the championship in '95 and have been in the Premiership for most of the last 15 years.

If you take the "you should support your local club" idea to it's logical extreme Rovers would get maybe 15k (other Lancashire clubs would nick our "glory fans" who live in the local catchment area of Burnley, Preston etc. so we would actually be slighly down on the deal). And a club like Reading (little local competition, dense catchment area) would be one of the best supported in the country.

ALl the hangers on to the big clubs are making the game much more unequal. But we have compared to 70 or 80 other clubs in the country we have had a net benefit.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Of course there must be hundreds of Rovers fans around the globe like yourself, each with a good story to tell why they are supporting our fantastic club, however when United are supported just becaue they are successful and when you walk around Blackburn itself and are faced with as many United/Liverpool shirts as you are Rovers it grates.

No sense of history or pride or respect in our football club nor town.The most successful town club in the UK which has enjoyed nearly unparelled success for its size recently and still the ignorant and gullable of Blackburn and surrounding areas choose the 'easy option' of the 'BIG CLUB' glory.

I fully understand where you are coming from Matty blue but sometimes their is no hope for lost souls.

[gumboots]

It is true that a large number of the Asian heritage kids I teach are United supporters and the reason is because when their families came to Britain they had no history of supporting a football team. It's hardly popular in the villages of Pakistan or India, or it wasn't then. The only link people had was with big teams in the news and you can't blame them for latching on to Liverpool or Man U as a point of identity. The battle to persuade the Asian heritage kids of Blackburn to support their town's team is one that is slowly being won. I know of a fair number of kids who are now season ticket holders at rovers and if you look around on your way to the match you will see increasing numbers of Asian men taking their lads to the match. There are also small numbers travelling to away games now. It takes time and is not helped by the fact that 2 of the most successful clubs in recent times are on our doorstep. We have to continue to put out good packages for fans, to provide high quality matches at reasonable prices (after all you can buy a Man u shirt for the price of a couple of Premiership games and belong to the crowd of "glory supporters" without the need to go to Old Trafford) and those of us who know what a good side Rovers are have to keep sticking up for our team and not slagging them off at every opportunity. My class bought me a Rovers top and signed it themselves as a stand down present today. I make no bones about my allegiance and one or two of them are waking up to Rovers for themselves.