SPECTATOR SPORT
They can't believe it
Simon Barnes
ON discovering that I have lost an essential telephone number and that all manner of things will go wrong as a consequence, I sometimes break my frenzied search for an instant to announce with pathetic firmness, `This is not happening.' I am not prepared to be part of a universe in which trivial disasters can occur. It cannot possibly be me that is at fault; therefore, it can only be reality, and I demand that reality be rectified at once.
There is a scene in a Peter Sellers film in which Sellers, faced by a threatening individ- ual in a situation beyond his control, pulls a television channel-zapper from his pocket, points and clicks. I don't like what is happen- mg on this channel. Bring me another. Now!
This seems to be what is happening with Manchester United FC. Two weeks ago their players made a massed advance on a referee who had, believe it or not, given a penalty against them. It was the first penalty that had been given against Manchester United at their home ground of Old Trafford for sever- al years; surely, the players thought, it is not happening. It made a wonderful picture; in its centre the United captain, Roy Keane. A handy cross-light caught in perfect relief the veins bulging in his forehead. Last weekend the same problem struck. That is to say, reality. No fewer than three players were booked for dissent, one of whom was Keane, who was later sent off for a second bookable offence as Manch- ester United were beaten 3-0 by Newcastle.
Suddenly, things were happening that the winners of the league, the FA Cup, the Euro- pean Cup could not deal with. Alan Shearer of Newcastle summed it up boisterously: `They don't like you to kick them — you're not allowed to because they're Manchester United — but we gave as good as we got, and at times they couldn't handle it.'
This little speech sums up a lot of what is going on in football: the deep resentment of Manchester United, United's sense of their own self-worth and their terrible sense of persecution. Everyone who watches football in this country is passionate about Manch- ester United, either passionate for their vic- tory or passionate for their defeat.
Manchester United's greatest strength is their feeling of being something out of the common run, a team that simply can't lose football matches. Reality would not dare to select such a channel. Their last-gasp vict- ory in the European Cup Final was the result of precisely this belief.
Manchester United have carved them- selves a unique place in the extraordinary football/money explosion of the past decade. Sport's whims and caprices, its ref- ereeing decisions, its moments of inspira- tion, its moments of crass blunder, affect not just the league table but the share prices, the fortunes of television and travel and clothing companies. Manchester Unit- ed even have their own television channel — one that doesn't play too many defeats.
The sense of being special is all very won- derful, but sport was never designed to be safe. If it wasn't volatile, we wouldn't watch it. And sport hands out its cruelties on a pretty impartial basis. Manchester United have suffered one or two of these recently; they reach for the zapper with veins a- bulging and find that, alas, the channel does not change. Manchester United can- not bear very much reality.
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