THE BLOG REMAINS ALIVE!!!

By: Taylor Rockwell | November 15th, 2009

Hello all. Once again, I would just like to apologize for the delay as we get the blog restructured. To handle the day-to-day news, and to keep us running smoothely, the Manchester United Offside would like to welcome two new bloggers to the page: Ryan and and Rebecca (see below for their individual bios).
I will still stay on writing for the site, but my guess is that you’ll get used to posts from Ryan and Rebecca rather quickly. My guess is that with the three of us covering all the latest news, you all should be more than up to date on all the latest from Old Trafford.

On a related noted, I would also just like to thank everyone who applied for a position. I’m really sorry if you didn’t hear back and I really do appreciate all the applications. Rebecca and Ryan are both ridiculously overqualified and will add good chemistry to the page, and I am more than a little excited to begin working with them!

One other bit of newsworthy material. You may have noticed that the site has also undergone a name change. For the past few months, we’ve been attempting to get the domain changed from “manu.theoffside.com” to “manutd.theoffside.com”. Well Daryl burned the midnight oil and was able to pull off a pretty big coup. It only seems fitting that with new writers comes a new name. That’s all for now, but check back soon for updates!

Rebecca Stephenson
As a freelance Journalist, I’ve been involved in sports writing for over 10 years. I’ve written for the official Man Utd Magazine and Match Day Programme (United Review) for all of that time and have interviewed many players and the manager during that time.

I used to interview Sir Alex monthly, and ghost-write his monthly column for the magazine – which was always an interesting experience!!

I also work for BBC Radio Manchester’s Sports team, where I am involved in many of the programmes, including the newly launched ‘Red Wednesday’ United programme, where I handle all the interaction with the listeners, reading out the texts, e-mails, tweets etc on air and scouring the forums for the best threads.
I’m a season ticket holder in the Stretford End, and I attend all United’s games home and away and in Europe. I also maintain a good twitter feed (@1rebs), where I micro blog and post photos as I follow the Reds round the world.

Ryan Schaaf
Most of you may know me as “schaafito” on these boards, but since I am now writing for the Manchester United offside I felt like we could be a little more personal, so I’ll be writing under my real name, Ryan. I grew up playing football in Rochester, New York (shameless plug, check out the USL-1 Rochester Rhinos Blog. Currently I am attending college at the Pennsylvania State University, where I play footy just about as much as I can. I have, at one point of my career, played competitively in every position in the sport, although my niche is definitely striker. This is my dull (read as: narcissistic) way of saying I understand the game. My love for United can be attributed back to one of my youth coaches, who for practices would have us weekly watch his favorite football team, the Manchester United Red Devils. This was back in the day of Fergie’s Fledglings: Giggs, Scholes, Becks, Neville, et al. What was once a healthy respect has grown into a love for everything Red Devils, which I plan on passing onto all of you. Basically between Taylor, Rebecca, and myself, we will have everything covered. Pre-match analysis, Post-match analysis, In-match LiveBlog (I have YET to miss a game all season), generic going-ons inside United. So buckle up folks, this Blog is back in action.