Goalkeepers and Defenders                                                 

So, another review is here, the good people at PR Genie have decided that more time and devotion shall be spent on my couch as I trawl through some obvious, some surprising,and some downright ridiculous candidates for the best Manchester United XI. In stark comparison to the otherwise impressive Rooney Goal Machine, the opening titles and graphics have a slight air of class about them, less Europa League, more Champions League perhaps. Loud classical music blares triumphantly with the overblown grandiosity of a late ‘90s SKY Sports advert. The basic format is from a competition invented by the club’s website in 2011 where fans vote on the best players for each position, based on what I’m guessing is a rigid 4-4-2 formation.

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United finally knocked Liverpool off  their perch last season. Following an endless supply of trophies under Sir Alex Ferguson, none meant more to United’s global legion of fans than their 19th league title – simply because it finally put Liverpool in their place. When Alan Hansen captained Liverpool to their most recent championship in 1990, the tally read 18-7 in Liverpool’s favour and few would have given the Scot a prayer of capturing one championship, never mind 12.

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The bare facts are familiar to football fans the world over. On February 6, 1958, BEA Flight 609 carrying the Manchester United team back from their European Cup quarter final against Red Star Belgrade crashed on take off at Munich airport killing 23 passengers, among them eight of the Busby Babes. The stories of tragedy and heroism behind those headlines are perhaps less familiar. How the team’s 21 year old star, Duncan Edwards sent a telegram to his landlady after the aborted second take off telling her of the flight’s cancellation and assuring her he’d be home the following day. How goalkeeper Harry Gregg battled to drag his fellow passengers from the flaming wreckage to safety.

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Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly was Britain’s first ever football ‘glossy’. Packed with hand tinted photographs and celebrity articles, its arrival on the bookstands in September 1951 brought colour and glamour to the nation’s football hungry public after years of wartime deprivation and austerity. At its peak in the late 1960s the magazine was selling 254,000 copies. Charles Buchan’s Manchester United Gift Book: Selections from Football Monthly 1951-73 is a 144 page hardback published by Malavan Media in October 2007 which is full of wonderful nostalgia for anyone around my age.

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It was hardly unexpected, but still a sad farewell! Manchester United midfielder Paul Scholes has announced his retirement from football but I still would love to have seen him give his farewell to Old Trafford after the Blackpool game a week ago. The midfield maestro has been one of the most respected players in world football over the past 15 years. Perhaps the most meaningful compliments for the Salford born hero are those which come from his own peers. Some of the biggest names in world football – past and present, who have been emphatic in their praise for him.

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His statue stands outside Old Trafford together with fellow legends Bobby Charlton and George Best. In the 1960s, Denis Law was ‘The King’, a goal scoring genius who relentlessly attacked the game – and the occasional opponent, with a dedication and enthusiasm which held his legions of loyal subjects in devoted awe. The deadly trinity of Law, Best and Charlton swept opposition from its path and led Manchester United to win the FA Cup in 1963 and the League in 1965 and 1967. Had it not been for a cruel injury, Law would have also been part of the side which became the first English club to lift the European Cup.

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