Manchester United vs. Chelsea : 3 November 2024.

“It’s time the tale were told.”

This was another footballing double-header of a weekend, involving two away days, five-hundred and twenty miles in the hot-seat and almost fifteen hours of driving.

On Saturday, Sholing vs. Frome Town in the Southern Premier League South.

On Sunday, Manchester United vs. Chelsea in the FA Premier League.

Before all of this, in the office on Monday, there was a shriek of dismay from yours truly on hearing that Erik ten Hag had just been sacked by Manchester United. The four – four! – United fans in the office were a lot happier. How we all wanted the Dutch manager to still be in charge for our game on the Sunday. Alas, it was not to be.

I had a grand day out down on the south coast at Sholing. Despite going down to ten men when Matt Wood was sent-off, the Frome Town team played so well, with new signing Archie Ferris adding some physicality to the attack and loan-returnee Rex Mannings playing his best game since his move from Chippenham Town. The home team missed a penalty in the second-half, and then in the last ten minutes, substitute Curtis Hutson crashed a dipping shot from well outside the box to send the thirty away fans delirious. Alas, in the ninety-fifth minute, the home team poked home an equaliser. Frome are still mired in a relegation dogfight but the month of November contains matches against teams that we might well be able to get some wins against.

My match-going pal at Chelsea, Alan, had a football-double-header too, and one which needs a mention. Very early on Saturday morning, Alan left his house in order to catch the Bromley supporters coach up to Rochdale to the north of Manchester. The two teams played an enthralling FA Cup tie. Bromley went 2-0 up early on, but were losing 3-2 as injury-time began. Two goals in the ninety-first and ninety-second minutes gave Al’s team a wonderful 4-3 victory. While I was driving home to Frome, Al was heading back to London.

And on the Sunday, both of us would be heading north to Manchester.

This would be my twenty-ninth United vs. Chelsea match at Old Trafford. It is my most visited away venue. Alas, my record in these games is as similarly shocking as on my trips to Anfield.

Won – 5

Drew – 9

Lost – 14

The reading is more depressing when you consider that on my first two trips to Old Trafford in 1986, we won both times. This means that over the last twenty-six personal visits to Old Trafford, Chelsea recorded just three wins.

Gulp.

Alan and myself would be with each other on the Sunday in the away enclosure at Old Trafford, and we were sitting alongside each other at Stamford Bridge forty years ago to the exact day too.

On Saturday 3 November 1984, I travelled down by train from Stoke for the home game with Coventry City, back in the days when the Sky Blues were an absolute fixture in the top flight. They played football at the highest level from 1967/68 to 2001/02 without a break.

On that day, I took a 0920 train down to Euston, arriving at 1130, and noted lots of casuals milling about. In those days, Euston was a battle ground for various firms – all without colours – and it could be a dicey moment walking over the concourse and down into the underground. Nobody wore team kits in those days, but many went for the small metal badges which were all the rage. You wore these as the only outward sign of which club you were with.

These were magnificent times for this burgeoning yet undercover football sub-culture.

It was simple but smart; an expensive pullover – it was changing that autumn from pastels to muted colours – and a polo shirt. Mid-blue jeans – a change from the light blue ones of the summer – and then Adidas, Diadora or Nike trainers. This was “the look” in the autumn of 1984.

I took my camera to the game for the first time since the West Ham game in September and took a pre-match photo of my mates Leggo, Stamford and Alan on the Benches, not too far from where I saw my first game ten years earlier.

When I aired this photo on a Chelsea Eighties page on “Facebook” a while ago, the lad who is looking at the camera beyond my three mates got in touch. He was surprised to see his face. He got in touch and the rest is history. Incidentally, the lad to the left holding the match programme is Leggo, or Glenn, and he has recently retired. I will be meeting him before the Noah game on Thursday.

Chelsea began well, but the visitors were 2-0 after half-an-hour. They had an unlikely trio upfront of Bob Latchford, Cyrille Regis and Peter Barnes, all of whom had starred at other clubs. However, Chelsea soon hit back, scoring via a Kerry Dixon far-post header. Just before half-time, a Pat Nevin cross, a Dixon header, and Keith Jones touched in the equaliser.

We had to wait twenty-five minutes into the second-half for a further breakthrough; a goal from David Speedie. Then Kerry made it 4-2. At this stage, many left to queue up at the ticket office for Tottenham away tickets. I remained on the deserted Benches to see Kerry break through to make it 5-2 and then Keith Jones stabbed a loose ball in to make it 6-2.

It had been a great game, with Pat Nevin in imperious form. The win was much-needed after a dip in our form. The gate was 17,306, a bit better than my 16,000 prediction before the game. My diary tells me that I counted just one hundred away fans.

On the previous Wednesday, Chelsea had drawn 2-2 at Fellows Park against Walsall in the League Cup. Although it was just down the road from Stoke, I didn’t attend. I wasn’t yet ready for my first-ever midweek game. There were goals from Colin Lee and Pat Nevin in front of 11,102, and there was a fair bit of trouble, as we called it in those days, I seem to remember.

Forty years later, I had collected Glenn at 10am, and Parky at 10.30am on the way to Manchester. PD was missing this away day; instead he was in Cyprus at his son Scott’s wedding. We stopped for drinks at Strensham, but as I neared Birmingham, I was warned of heavy traffic ahead and so took a detour through the Black Country. I re-joined the M6 just north of where the current day Walsall play at the Bescot Stadium. The pre-match plan was to stop at the Tabley Interchange for a Sunday Roast, but with people to meet from 3pm, time was running away from us. Glenn shared out some Somerset Pasties and we had these on the hoof.

Spinning around the M60, I could not resist singing a few lines from a couple of Smiths songs, just before we hit the traffic that was backed up at the exit for Stretford.

Old Trafford is a conundrum. It’s in Stretford, which is part of the metropolitan borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, but it isn’t in Manchester, the actual city.

Confused?

Talk to Carlos Tevez.

After five-and-a half hours, I eventually arrived and I was parked up at just after 3.15pm. We walked through the familiar Gorse Hill Park and out onto the Chester Road, the heady smell of autumn leaves underfoot.

This is indeed a well-trodden journey.

Soon we were close.

The acrid punch of vinegar on chips at the take-aways near the crossroads leading to Sir Matt Busby Way. The fanzine sellers. The half-and-half scarves. The grafters. The match day colours. It was all so bloody familiar.

I met up with Aleksey, originally from Moscow, now from Houston, and in the UK on a work trip to Aberdeen and other locales. He will be adding to the game at Old Trafford with a game on Thursday at Chelsea, a game at Frome on Saturday, and – maybe – a game at Chelsea on Sunday. He’s a keen follower of this blog – “thanks mate” – and it was good to see him again.

With me leaving at 10am, it was a ploy to have a lie-in, to have a little rest before the drive north, and the timings had been pretty decent. On the way in, I had admitted to Glenn and Parky that “it’s nice to be able to take our time strolling up to Old Trafford. Not rushing. Well, not Aleksey. He’s from Moscow.”

Next up, I had to hand over some tickets to Deano, who had not yet arrived. This gave me a twenty-minute window of opportunity to do a complete circuit of Old Trafford, probably for the first-ever time.

I took a shot of the Holy Trinity statue of Charlton, Best and Law as it faced the Matt Busby statue under the megastore and the East Stand, which used to house the away paddock in days gone by.

Next, a photo of the Alex Ferguson statue under the huge stand that bears his name. This used to be the United Road stand, the one that was so modern when it appeared in the mid-sixties, the one featured in the Albert Finney film “Charlie Bubbles”, and featuring a game against Chelsea in 1967. The original United Road is long-gone now. I once drove along it around twenty years ago. The transformation on this side of the ground has been phenomenal. It seems like a different place now, a modern monolith to the United brand.

Then, I aimed myself towards the Stretford End. My recollections of this stand from the two FA Cup semis in 2006 and 2007 are scant, but it’s a really horrible structure, faced by a vast car park, not unlike the feel of a San Siro, but without the architectural merit. Great blocks of black, grey and red, as if designed by a Lego enthusiast. There even appear to be huge handles on the stand, maybe to lift the end up and deposit it elsewhere in the vicinity if a threatened new stadium ever gets built. Then, a puzzle for me. I didn’t know that there was a statue outside the Stretty, as the home fans call it, and I didn’t recognise the figure depicted on a plinth. I got closer. It was Jimmy Murphy, a name I remember from the immediate aftermath of the horrors of 1958.

I wondered if any of the four United fans in the office were aware of this statue.

I was annoyed that it caught me unawares.

Then, the last leg, through the oddly-named Munich Tunnel, underneath the oldest stand from the original 1910 structure. There were chants of “Chelsea Rent Boys”, how boring.

I caught up with Deano at around 4pm, just after a United fan had aimed another “Rent Boy” chant our way and just after said United fan was marched away from the ground by two stewards.

United fans jostled past us, occasionally shouting derogatory words.

I thought to myself how so many United fans look like Syd Little.

I queued up underneath the Munich Clock, and was inside at around 4.15pm after a slow and rigorous security check. SLRs are banned at OT, as are all cameras, but I won that battle.

I soon met up with Alan, looking remarkably chipper after his three out of four weekend coach trips from hell. Alan was stood next to Gary. John was further along, next to me. To my left were Little Andy and Big Colin. Glenn was a few yards away in the row behind me. Parky was ten rows behind me.

I took a phot of Alan – with Glenn – to go with the photo of him forty years earlier. Back in 1984, it was either a Burberry scarf or an Aquascutum scarf on the terraces of England. I always favoured the latter. I bought one in 1985 and it lasted five years until it was stolen in Italy. I bought another one ten years ago. Alan sported his Aquasutum scarf, a nod to the fact that, in the long game, Aquascutum has remained at the top of the pile, whereas Burberry never really recovered from its nadir in the post Brit-Pop era.

The sky was grey and it marched the cold grey steel of the roof supports above us all.

Old Trafford, what have you got in store for me this time?

With ten minutes to go “This Is The One” by the Stone Roses gave way to “Take Me Home” by John Denver.

Not an easy segue, that one.

Oh well, maybe a lot of match-going Mancunians think they have the gait and swagger and street cool of Ian Brown, whereas in reality so many of United’s match-day support resemble John Denver, and Syd Little.

“Take me home, United Road, to the place I belong. To Old Trafford. To see United. Take me home, United Road.”

The teams appeared.

We were as expected, the line-up the same as against Newcastle a week earlier.

Sanchez, Gusto, James, Chilwell, Fofana, Lavia, Caicedo, Madueke, Palmer, Neto, Jackson.

The noise was getting ramped up.

“Take me home, United Road.”

The game began, and as per usual we attacked the Stretford End in the first-half. I had to laugh when after just four minutes, Cole Palmer – the hometown anti-hero – attempted a very similar pass to Pedro Neto that had us all so enthralled last week, but a covering defender stuck out a leg to rob us of a repeat.

I thought we began well, and we had more of the ball than United. Palmer was involved early, but there was a poor cross from him. Just after Moises Caicedo robbed the ball in midfield and played in Palmer, who had a free run on goal, but dithered a little, and Matthijs de Ligt was able to block.

On fourteen minutes, Noni Madueke rose to meet Palmer’s corner at the near post, and his header crashed against the bar – though, in reality, it was difficult to tell in the Stretford gloom – and Levi Colwill slashed at the rebound but it hit the side-netting.

The natives were quiet, and the three-thousand away fans had a dig.

There was an error from Andre Onana at the other end but we blazed over. Then, Robert Sanchez came dramatically at a cross, punching the ball away in a “Superman Pose.” Half-chances came and went. Marcus Rashford over-dribbled into the penalty box. After a swift move from United, Sanchez saved well, but there was a suspicion of offside anyway.

Nicolas Jackson, quiet thus far, was in on goal but there was a heavy touch. Palmer was next up, but after carrying the ball for an age, he too was reluctant to shoot. Eventually his effort was blocked.

But we were in this. Being in it at Old Trafford is half the battle.

I loved the way Caicedo and Romeo Lavia were playing. Caicedo breaking things up, showing dogged tenacity, nicking balls, moving up. Lavia eating up space, rangy, a presence, quick.

There was another surreal touch from Palmer on the half-way line, another pass to himself, the audacity of the kid. He was then wiped out by a reckless challenge by Manuel Ugarte, whoever he is.

Pedro Neto, good in parts, was then taken out with a horrible tackle from Diogo Dalot.

Just before half-time, Bruno Fernandes smacked over a deep cross to the back stick from the left wing, only for Rashford to volley against the bar, and over. Most worrying of all, Reece James had not tracked him. The experiment with the captain at left-back had generally left us scratching our noggins.

During the half, my little self-contained unit of Andy to my left and John to my right had talked through our play and, despite a massive reluctance to strike on goal, were relatively happy with our play. With United under a new manager – albeit the interim Ruud van Nistelrooy – we were worried about conceding early and getting the home support roaring.

That never happened.

Yet elsewhere, others evidently thought we had been poor. It’s odd how this sometimes happens at games. At games, you are caught up in the moment, in the actuality of everything, and I think that the first feeling is the need for survival at big venues like United or Liverpool or City. I think that I sometimes get too positive, too early, and then stick with that mindset. At Old Trafford, at half-time, I was content. John was happy, I was happy. Clearly others weren’t.

At the break, Enzo Maresca replaced Malo Gusto with Marc Cucarella. Reece James stayed in the same small strip of Greater Manchester but on the right and not the left.

The inverted full-back nerds were probably having a field day in TV land.

Ten minutes in, a ball was hoofed high into the air, and the entire stadium, not least the players, had the same thought; that ball was going off for a throw-in. The ball came down, from high, and the ball was given to Palmer, who spread the ball out to the left to Neto. He pushed on before smacking a low shot just past Onana’s far post.

The Chelsea support groaned.

But the volume was definitely turned up a notch.

“CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA.”

On sixty-four minutes, we heard the Stretford End – together, loud – for the very first time. There had been a few “Viva John Terrys” and a few “Three In A Row” chants from the chorus to our right, but the Stretford End had been so quiet. Now they spoke.

“U – N – I – T – E – D, United are the team for me.”

At last.

With that, Alejandro Garnacho shot straight at Sanchez, right in front of them.

On seventy minutes, John and I had a little chat.

Chris : “Think it’ll be 0-0.”

John : “Yeah. Or we’ll let them in.”

At that exact moment, Casemiro dropped a long ball at the feet of Rasmus Hojlund. He took a touch to his right, Sanchez dived at him, it looked a penalty all day long.”

The referee, who had let so much go, often in our favour, pointed at the spot.

The horrible twat Fernandes easily slotted home.

There were two quick substitutions, too quick for me to immediately notice.

Mykhailo Mudryk for the disappointing Madueke.

Enzo Fernandez for the tiring Lavia.

I took a photo of Palmer waiting to take a corner on seventy-four minutes. I had a little idea I shared with John.

“Instead of everyone breaking and the ball going down the ‘keepers throat, why not let the players break towards goal but then pump it into the gap for Caicedo to head in?”

The ball came across. An unknown United defender headed it out. The ball fell towards Caicedo. He didn’t waste any time. He volleyed. The ball thankfully stayed low. The ball crept in at the far post.

Perfect.

Our end exploded.

Rarely have so many made so many ridiculous limb movements. I punched the air. I roared. I punched big Col in the stomach a few times.

Unable to snap the players celebrating on the far side, I turned the camera on us.

Faces of unfettered joy.

Get in.

The noise was all Chelsea now.

Next, a ball out to Garnacho, at an angle, who couldn’t get the right strike on the ball, and it flashed over the bar. It reminded me so much of a late Ole Gunnar Solskjaer equaliser from almost the same position, the same angle of strike, in the autumn of 1997.

A few moments later, Enzo skied a shot over the bar after being set up by Jackson, who surprisingly -I think – stayed on for the whole game.

A reckless challenge by Lisandro Martinez – nice Butthead haircut, mate – on Palmer towards the end of the game raised our temperatures, and we could hardly believe that a red was not issued.

In the closing moments, Fernandes fired ridiculously high into the Stretford End.

The 1-1 draw was a fair result. The consensus as we headed up the slope of the forecourt was that this was a poor United team – probably the poorest that I have seen in decades – and with a little more attacking verve we could have nicked it. I loved Moises Caicedo, now emerging as a real crowd favourite, who was my man of the match even before the goal. A mention for the tireless running of Pedro Neto. And a mention of a typically energetic and spirited performance by Marc Cucarella in the second-half.

Cucarella is the yin to Palmer’s yang.

These two approach the game with different temperaments and energy, but they are all part of this emerging Chelsea team.

Is it good enough?

I don’t know, and we certainly won’t be able to make any decision on Thursday when the B-List take on Noah.

I wolfed down the best football burger ever, a bacon-cheeseburger with onions, pure Mancunian heaven, and we reached the car at 7pm. The traffic was worse than usual as we exited out. I didn’t reach the M6 until 7.40pm. Not to worry, I made steady progress and via a couple of stops, I was home at just before midnight.

See you on Thursday.

OUTSIDE

INSIDE

GET IN YOU BASTARD

FORTY YEARS AGO

3 NOVEMBER 1984

3 NOVEMBER 2024