United Do the Right Thing! A Note from a Sentimental Gobshite

“You can thank Wayne Rooney and Paul Stretford,” says my mate Lenny.

Lenny is English like me. Unfortunately, Dummy Brummy that he is, his awful club having not won anything since Rhodesia declared U.D.I., he is a bitter, sarcastic cynic, prone to seeing the dark side of everything.

I tell him that he can plant a kiss on my hind quarters in a place where the sun does not shine. The truth is that he’s a wee bit embarrassed. When I wrote this piece about Nobby Stiles a couple of weeks ago, Lenny called me a “sentimental gobshite.”
http://manutd.theoffside.com/manchester-united/nobby-stiles-why-we-should-care.html#more-4917
He’s probably right, but I believe that this little crusade, which has been doggedly pursued by fans and fan blogs for more than a few months, really is a case of fan power colliding with an accident of fate. Many of us appealed to Manchester United to dig deep into its pockets and purchase the memorabilia that our beloved Nobby was having to sell off in order to leave a decent amount of money for his immediate family. Amongst the items put up for auction were his winner’s medal and shirt from the 1968 European Cup Final. Yesterday the club spent over £200k on both these and Nobby’s World Cup memorabilia at the Royal Highland Centre in Edinburgh helping net Stiles £424,438, These awesome items will now go on display at the club museum.

According to his son, John, Our Nobby was out somewhere in Wilmslow shoe shopping with his wife, way too fidgety and nervous to watch as the hammer went down. John Stiles and five other members of the family, including Nobby’s grandson, were at the sale at the Ingliston Showground near Edinburgh airport. The 68-year-old Nobby was, according to friends at a family gathering last night, genuinely moved to tears because his treasured things were purchased by his old club. Initially reticent to part with the memorabilia because of the low prices previously paid by speculators to other members of United and England squads, the aging warrior was hit hard by a stroke over the Summer and the financial worries which accompanied it. Consequently, Nobby became the eighth squad member to sell his 1966 England World Cup winners’ medal. In 2005, a dying Alan Ball had sold his for a then record price of £164,800, while the ever thrifty West Ham United club paid £150,000 each to Bobby Moore and Geoff Hurst for their medals. Only the Charlton brothers, Bobby and Jack and Liverpool’s old striking stalwart, Roger Hunt, have managed to keep theirs. Indeed, Nobby, Bobby Charlton and Liverpool F.C.s Ian Callaghan are the only living British footballers who own both European Cup winners and World Cup winners’ medals.

“It only happened because of the whole circus with Rooney,” Lenny moans.

“How’s that?” I say. I’m thinking of how ugly his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers mustard-coloured kit is. “You what?”

“Wazza the Schreck is going to make £250,000 a week.”

“Whatever!”

“His stchoopid wife went and got ‘erself a new set of Bristols.” I roll my eyes and Lenny gets irritated. “It was in all the papers this morning.”

I’m so glad I don’t have to read the daily dreck put out by Fleet Street any more. Besides, my wife’s breasts are plenty nice already. “Enough is as good as a feast!” my dad used to say. Anyway, who am I to offer up comparisons and pile on Wayne and his whored-upon wife and Paul Stretford, a/k/a Satan with everybody else?

And there really is more to it than that. I tell Lenny some of the stories my dad had told me as a kid. Like how Nobby Stiles came to sign up as a Manchester United apprentice in 1957. How his father, the funeral director, Charlie, had been a football star at St. Pat’s in Collyhurst. A practicing Catholic caught up in the Sectarian realities and Depression poverty of the years between two world wars, Charlie was never picked for the Manchester Boys team and never let his son forget it. And, although his son, Norbert Peter, was a tiny 70 lb pup, and lacked the finesse to be the goal poacher his old man had been, Charlie had relentlessly nagged United’s chief scout Louis Rocca to come watch his son play. Indeed, wasn’t Charlie seen crying on the old Italian ice cream man’s shoulder when his lad scored for Manchester Boys against Liverpool Boys in 1955? Was it any surprise then that, years later, whether he was talking to Matt Busby, Tommy Docherty, Ron Atkinson or Fergie at some charity function or another, wasn’t Charlie always going on about how United had a duty to its players and their families, especially both the bereaved and the survivors of the Munich aircrash. I agree and the same applies now as ever. How can the fans be expected to show total loyalty to a club that refuses to show loyalty back?

Lenny sneers. “United are just trying to hold on to the last vestiges of anything resembling self-respect.”

Actually, I don’t really care. Nobby got his money. I also know this. As cynical as you might choose to be about Sir Alex Ferguson, the Gaffer loves the club and is not unaware of just how important the club’s history actually is. If this is just a masterpiece of P.R. for Sir Alex Ferguson, David Gill and the Glazers, so be it!

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Category: Manchester United