Anyone but United

I enjoy the National Arts Festival and try to get down as often as possible. I book a couple of shows, make plans to catch up with old friends and surf the wave of nostalgic memories. I’m not a live performance arts connoisseur by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy a healthy dose of live performance art.

Last year, I was in Grahamstown doing exactly that. I had quaffed my obligatory Rat and Parrot beers, eaten a shwarma from that crazy Egyptian on Church Square and had largely worked through the pile of theatre tickets in my pocket.

My final ticket was booked purely on the recommendation of the Fringe programme. Scheduled to be held at the Rhodes Club (with a nod to Mel), it promised a one-man show full of musings on the meaning of life, love and football. Marvellous, I thought. Something I can relate to. An excellent end to a most satisfactory weekend.

After securing myself a cup of coffee and some Union doughnuts from Pete and Shane, I wandered over to my seat. Lights dimmed, show began. Lights up. Enter a skinny fellow decked out in full Manchester United strip, clutching a teddy bear garroted by some kind of sickening “Pride of the North” pennant. In that instant, I judged this skinny fellow. Not on the basis of his thespian craftsmanship, but on the choice of football club he had chosen as the central thread running through his miserable show.

This skinny fellow had been stood up by his best friend (who, incidentally, was running around with his lady, but he or we did not know this yet), and had to watch The Game on his own. Poor lamb. Anyway, cue commentary — you know it, the standard Man United shrieking orgasm-inducing commentary – glory, glory Man United and all that. I judged this skinny fellow again and again and contemplated throwing my doughnut at him.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Manchester United, or the way they play football, unlike my attitude to Bolton or Chelsea, for example. In fact, their cavalier counter-attacks are often mesmerising, and the goals scored often more so. That’s not where the rub lies.

The rub, dear reader, comes from many, many years of plastic mancs stuffing glory down their and everyone else’s throats. Plastic mancs, a wonderful colloquialism, are johnny-come-lately supporters of this famous football club who climbed onto the bandwagon typically after (or during) the ’99 treble winning season. These plastic mancs are people who smile smugly when their team wins, as though they are personally responsible for a goal or an important tackle. Plastic mancs have conceited, self-satisfied grins a piece of good play away, and cannot accept losing under any conditions. How many of us have Man United supporting friends who graciously accept the most blatant of penalties awarded against their sides? Exactly.

I’ll give you an example. I have a friend, who happens to be an atheist. On considered epistemological grounds, this friend actively contests the validity of a belief in the existence of any god and formalised religious practice. After Man United won the league, he stared at the TV as though he had seen a virgin give birth in a stable. After Man United won the Champions’ League, he acted as though moksha had landed in his lap. All the while with a smug, post-coital grin.

I suppose that Plastic Mancs have been spoilt rotten by the success of their club. Consider this: in Spain (Real Madrid and Barcelona), Scotland (Celtic and Rangers), Italy (Juventus and AC Milan), Portugal (Porto and Sporting), Greece (Panathinaikos and Olympiacos), Turkey (Galatasary and Fenerbache), Holland (Ajax and PSV) and South Africa (Chiefs and Pirates), two teams have dominated football historically, with a third or fourth party sneaking in for an occasional glory treat. The English Premier League isn’t like that. Since its modern incarnation in 1992-3, it has been glory, glory Man United, and everyone else.

ABU, or Anyone But United, they call people like me. I suppose us ABU’s are happy to be labelled as such, for all its lobster-pot incantations, at least until somebody else force-feeds them plastic mancs defeat on a regular basis. Then, and only then, when those plastic mancs have scuttled off to hide behind another club’s standard, and those smug smiles have been replaced by worry lines, will I reconsider my position.

In Arsene we trust.