Serves you right

SO LONG, goodbye, Red Devils.

Your great pie in the sky has vanished into thin air, banished forever into the depths of football's netherland.

Your big dream this season has ended so prematurely, it's not funny at all to your fans here in Singapore. It may be sad, but it's still disgusting.

In the first place, your demeanour from the very start of the season was the writing on the wall. You had no respect for others.

Your unprecedented Treble last season made you the Untouchables of English football. And it went straight to your heads, your bosses' heads, your shareholders' heads.

Your football was condescending, you pulled back against the small fry, you stayed back against the big guys until it was time to play, you shortchanged us, you thought we were fools.

And then your directors thought they were clever. They decided to commit treason, the height of betrayal, by showing the middle finger to your own country's FA Cup. You, the holder, capitulating just like that?

What's the point of being worth 1 billion when you don't know how to carry yourselves in the hour of triumph?

Didn't someone at Old Trafford remind you that, after Manchester United Football Club's 122 illustrious years, there's such a thing in football as poetic justice?

So you see. You went and made fools of yourselves in motherland Brazil. And the ghost of the two fatal back-passes that summed up your misplaced arrogance in Rio returned to haunt you on your own soil on Wednesday, when captain Roy Keane gave away an own goal.

You thought you were superheroes, but you are just humans from colder climes who can't take the tropical heat like ours, including the heat from women of the street.

So what did you expect, huh?

But what irks this season is the obsession and unspeakable presumptuousness of your manager, the great Sir Alex Ferguson.

Presumptuous he was, when he said Man U would win in Rio, and thereby fulfil his dreams of being the steward of the world's best club side.

But what a bad loser he was, claiming that, weather permitting, you would have gone into orbit.

Presumptuous was he, when he said last week that this Man Utd., his Man Utd., is the best Man Utd. ever.

Such ingratitude. Such disrespect.

Even in the name of motivation, it was distasteful. Even in a moment of indiscretion, it was contemptible.

He must now be reminded once again that what Sir Matt Busby and his Babes had accomplished in 1968 released the very spirit for his team to wrest away the treble last season.

And that any attempt to discount the Babes would surely backfire in the immediate, following, season.

Call it diminished desire, call it post-treble blues, I say it has been all your fault.

And now that your lucky stars have collapsed in the cosmic Big Bang at, of all universes, Old Trafford, your "Theatre of Dreams" will be renamed in this letter as "The Morgue of Manchester", according to the funeral procession Real Madrid conducted yesterday morning.

So goodbye, Devils. Go on, take the Premiership crown. It means very little now.

Just don't forget to hang your heads in shame...

Yours in the spirit of Sir Matt.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

Answers

im disappointed in u Bud.....didnt realize u also supported Man U ;-)

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

spud - I'm a plagiarist, I copied without using quotation marks or stating the source; "Straits Times", they're normally 100% behind Manure, hence my surprise :-0 !

-- Anonymous, April 21, 2000

When I saw how long this posting was I was sure it was by Tre!!!

-- Anonymous, April 22, 2000

Thanx Gus.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2000

Could it be that world wide disillusionment with all things manure is rearing it's beautiful head ? Alleluja.

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2000

It has to happen at some point. Nothing lasts forever as they say. And I plan on being around when it does with more bells on than a morris dancer. The best things come to those that wait (and wait, and ....)

Yours, trapped in eternal cliches. LT

-- Anonymous, April 25, 2000