One man's irrational love of spherical leather

'It's only a game'. Many men across the country will have heard this uttered yesterday, whether it was mourning United or Bolton fans, or excessively jubilant City fans doing laps of their living room, or nearest car park. To some men and women, a football fan's passion for the game just makes no sense at all.

Well let me start by saying, girls, you owe a lot to football. Quite simply, it teaches men how to love. How to be passionate and use their emotions, even to cry. Long before we noticed your cute legs poking out of your skirts in the playground, we were fascinated by male legs, jaunting down the flanks. When I was eleven years old, I’d have taken the divine legs of Andrei Kanchelskis over any super model. Football is many men's first true love, without a football club, many men may have lived their life unable to open up their heart and where would that leave you women? Single? Lonely? Definitely with more cats. 

Before we stuck posters of scantily clad women on our wall and admired the female form, we'd quite happily have adorned the walls with centrefold spreads of Colin Hendry, Phil Stamp and Ed De Goey. Fine specimens of human beings these are not. During those difficult teenage years of puberty, we not only fretted about how to first kiss a girl, but also how we would ever contain ourselves from trying to kiss Eric Cantona should we ever meet him in the flesh. They were confusing times. Describing my first grope of a girlfriend's bosom could only be related to some friends by comparing it to the sleek feeling of a new Mitre Tactic football. Both are beautifully crafted gems for a young man to behold. Before we tried exchanging phone numbers, we traded football stickers. Trying to swap a shiny sticker on a wet playground is just negotiation training for picking up a phone number in a noisy nightclub.

Being dumped hurts. It hurts like defeat or relegation. You feel cheated, inadequate. Like when your star player decides to move on to another club. You stop wanting to kiss us. He stops wanting to kiss the badge. You think relationships confuse us, well; we've already been in one for almost our whole life.

Only a game. Well, it's something we can't live without. 'Only a pair of shoes'. What if we said that to your precious purchase of designer heels perhaps? The title decider yesterday was our equivalent to your Manolo Blahnik's getting their first outing. It was a big deal.

At this point I'd like to point I'd like to confirm I am a Manchester United fan. Don't turn away yet. Above all, I am a football fan. I am not 'one of those United fans'. I know where Old Trafford is and I've been. I can admit when we are shite and accept when we are lucky. Barcelona completely outplayed us in 2 finals in the last few years, and I applauded them on both occasions. Munich '99, floodlight robbery. But we won it, in the most unlikely circumstances and in the dying seconds. This brings us nicely to yesterday afternoon...

Trying to sum it up in a few words; unbelievable, dramatic, historic.

I tuned in to watch the City vs. QPR game, not United. I held little or no hope before the game, and was expecting the formidable home force of City to sweep aside a pretty dire QPR away side. City had captured us. United were like hostages, held at gunpoint, a victorious release seemingly impossible. We just wanted to be put out of our misery and fast. We all know what unfolded, probably the most exhilarating 95 minutes in Premier League history. When the clock ticked over at 90 minutes, I finally let my guard down. Could the hostages pull off a miraculous escape? Had QPR tunneled us out?...5 more minutes. They need two goals. In injury time. Even when they equalised, it just seemed too unlikely, too unbelievable, too sweet. The trophy had been in arm's reach but as we reached for it, we'd been shot, two bullets; one straight through the heart.

You couldn't actually write the script, Hollywood would have rejected it on the grounds that it was too far-fetched. Few directors would be able to recreate the tension that Mark Hughes, Mancini and the teams had built up in Etihad studios. It had everything; the underdog that was 10-man QPR, the villain that was Joey Barton, the hero that was Aguero, the damsel in distress that needed saving that was Sir Alex, the ticking time bomb of 5 minutes added on, this was an edge-of-your-seat, watch-through-your-hands, tear jerking thriller. I hadn't been so emotionally torn since E.T. wanted to go home.

People will have wept tears of joy, tears of despair. There was dancing and singing. There was stunned silence. Blue jubilation and Red dejection.

Two series' of 38 episodes, each around 90 minutes long, had hinged on one epic 5 minute twisting and turning finale. Non-football loving guys, we invest our time in this, as you may do with Jack Bauer, LOST or the Wire. We tune in weekly, committed to the characters in our plot, hoping for a great ending too.

A great ending it certainly was, especially for those on the Blue side of Manchester. Thoroughly deserved too having outplayed United completely in both league derbies this year, and they were undoubtedly the best team in the league. Congratulations. 

It makes for an exciting season next year. Both Manchester teams need to perform better in Europe where this year Spain took the crown with Barca & Real getting to the semi's and Bilbao and A. Madrid contesting the other European final. As for United, no trophies this season, but it is still an overachieving squad. A lot of new and young players were brought in at the beginning of this season and I personally had ear marked it for a 'transition' season with quite modest expectations. Exposed repeatedly in Europe, especially defensively, a few lessons have been learned hopefully. Having been pegged back from an 8 point advantage so late in the season is very uncharacteristic of a United team, again losing a lot of goals at home and requiring the Ginger Magician Scholes to steady our midfield means the rebuild is as yet incomplete. But to take it to the wire on the final day of the season, only losing out on goal difference will give this squad hunger and could meld them together for next year. We'll be back again next season and I hope the City challenge is too.


The Blue Moon has risen, but I still have plenty of great memories of Red skies at night.