Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans; rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen. Or is it the other way around? I forget, but if either way is true, then American football, in comparison to both, might be said to be a hooligan’s game played by hooligans.
Manchester United–the greatest football club in the world!–has a perfect record of 2 wins and 0 losses in my history as spectator of the sport. They beat Eindhoven in the first match I ever saw back in 2008, and they beat Valencia this past Tuesday night. Granted it was a friendly match–that’s “preseason” in American English–but given the attendance, it was either an important friendly match or United fans truly love their team. The more I think about it, the more I think it was the latter.
It’s been a summer of football (and I use the term in the European sense, meaning “soccer”). I (Chuck) wasn’t personally as engaged with the World Cup this year as Lori was, nor as much as I was engaged back in 2010. I’m not sure why that is, but I have been very much looking forward to attending this friendly match between Manchester and Valencia. If you consider how much time we’ve spent in these two cities, you’d think our allegiances would have been toward Valencia, but as in-the-moment as we are, we could only be cheering for our home-for-now team.
I’ll spare you of the blow-by-blow and advance straight to the end: Manchester won. They were tied at 1 at the end of regular play, and just as Lori and I were wondering aloud if a friendly match would warrant going into an extra period, United scored the winning goal half a minute into extra time. Valencia hardly had time for the ensuing kickoff and a desperation kick toward their goal from midfield before the game was over. Even United’s friendly matches are exciting.
Instead we’ll note the differences we, in our Americans-in-Paris sort of moment, witnessed attending this match in the legendary Old Trafford stadium, a name which invokes decades of football legacy even for a couple of hooligans from the states.
- There was no jumbotron. In America, even some minor league sports teams have a jumbotron. This is Manchester United, the greatest football club in the world! It felt a little odd not to have a giant screen to see closeups and replays.
- The crowd was polite, even subdued. Perhaps it was because this was a friendly match versus true league play, but gone seem to be the days of rowdy, drunken fans. Beer is not allowed in the stands. The crowd was mostly men, but there were quite a few young boys with dads; it, in fact, seemed to be a great opportunity for British father-son bonding.
- We had expected–had hoped, actually–to experience those famous team songs from the crowd, perhaps even learn a few of the mysterious lyrics. “They’re really quite rude, some of them,” Pam, our host, had told us last week. Seems we sat in the wrong section. A few times during the game another section to our right burst into song, but we couldn’t make out the rude lyrics from where we were.
- For that matter, we couldn’t make out the simplest of chants for quite some time. From time to time, a chant would suddenly break out. The fact that it was so sudden and so perfectly in unison without the benefit of a jumbotron to entice and coordinate people was impressive. It wasn’t until late in the first half that we realized they were chanting “United”: you-nigh-TED! you-nigh-TED! The you-nigh was run together and the TED was emphasized; they even chant with an English accent.
- The crowd throws the ball back. On occasion, not surprisingly, a ball gets kicked into the stands. Jubilant fans jump up and vie to catch the ball and…they throw it back. Not only do they throw it back, but they toss it to the correct player. In America, the baseballs and footballs that wind up in the stands are kept as souvenirs: United fans have to settle for buying giant team flags, scarves, and banners from the hawkers outside the stadium.
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| Post-Match Pub Crawl |
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| Throngs of United Fans on the March Home |
A footnote: today marks two months since we began our full-time travel. That it only warrants this footnote is a sign that we hardly think of our travel lifestyle anymore.
