Cast: All Change
Our team had seen some significant departures as several of the
cup winning team took the chance to ‘break’ England. Morgaro Gomis moved to Birmingham City who
had just been relegated from the Premiership while his partner in crime Prince
Buaben moved to Watford, also in the Championship. Mihael Kovacevic moved abroad following the
previous season which had been badly affected by injury. Darren Dods moved on to Falkirk with the best
wishes of everyone at Tannadice (he would continue to be the model pro right
into his forties) whilst David Robertson surprisingly turned down the offer of
a new United contract and moved to St Johnstone seeking regular football. Robertson picked up a bad injury there and
his career never recovered. I always had
a feeling that he would never be as appreciated anywhere else as he was at
United because his attributes could look well hidden, although they were there. Finally, and for me perhaps most sadly, was
Craig Conway’s decision to move on to Cardiff City in the Championship. The most significant and publicised transfer-to-be
hadn’t happened however. David
Goodwillie started the season still with United and, a free man. He had been subject to bids from Cardiff City
and Rangers (we’ll get to them later on don’t worry) both of which were
ridiculously low (sub £1 million).
Stephen Thompson was holding out for a lot more than this for three
reasons 1. He was worth a lot more 2. We got SFA for any of the other
departures due to their contracts running out.
Why none of them were offered new contracts after 2010 is a complete
mystery to me since Gomis, Buaben and Conway were all worth 500 grand or more
each whilst Kova was certainly worth £250k at least. Those four players along with Goodwillie should
have wiped out a fair chunk of our debt and paved the way for the promising
group of kids who were working with Stevie Campbell and Ian Cathro, so that the
club would not need to sell them at the first offer. 3. The club was massively in debt. We like all
other clubs in Scotland had spent a bit when Setanta Sports were pumping money
in but then were badly affected by the shocking revelation that a wee Irish Broadcaster
didn’t actually have all the money they promised and couldn’t make any of what they
had speculated back because no cunt wants to watch Hamilton v St Johnstone on a
wet Monday night so advertisers don’t want to pay. We were also still paying out on big
contracts handed out by Eddie Thompson under Ian McCall and Gordon Chisholm (Jobby
and his taxi driver). Craig Levein had also persuaded Eddie and then Stephen to
allow him to build a big squad and our wage bill was astronomical so despite a
cup win, we actually lost a lot of money in 2010.
In came some decent players though: Gavin Gunning came in
from Blackburn Rovers. He had impressed
for Motherwell the previous season, particularly against us although there were
rumours that he was something of a ‘character’.
John Rankin signed from Hibs. He
had been on United’s radar for a few years and had been frozen out by Colin
Calderwood. I was a bit sceptical of
him. To me he always seemed niggly and
lightweight. Willo Flood returned for the 15th time. Finally, after a bit of arm
twisting of Peter Houston, a young laddie called Gary MacKay Steven signed from
Airdrie for about £500 and a set of tracksuits.
He had a good pedigree though, having played for Liverpool and Fulham’s
youth squads. Little did we (especially
the manager) know, just how good this kid was. Scott Robertson also came back from injury
only to break his foot in a friendly at Forfar, whilst Danny Swanson had sadly taken
a turn for the worse mentally following the assault the previous season and the
subsequent court trial which brought it all back up again. He even gave up a Scotland
place. Some younger players were
cementing places though: Johnny Russell, Keith Watson and Barry Douglas were
now all regular starters whilst two even younger lads: Stuart Armstrong and
Scott Allan were now going to be involved in the squad regularly (or so we
thought).
I Survived the Snug Bar Rammy
I can’t spell the name of that Polish team we played at the
start of the 2011-12 season. Their fans
were a shower of cunts though, so I’ll just refer to them by insults because I’m
not wasting a Google search on them. Our
game against Slash was on Premier Sports and was in the middle of the afternoon
which brought memories back of games in Romania and Yugoslavia back in the
day. One boy I know who went to Poland
commented on what a great time they were having until the day of the game when
their fans gathered and started lobbing bottles and pint glasses at the United supporters
who were getting on buses to go to the stadium.
I say stadium but, by all accounts it was a temporary death trap surrounded
by a cage with a shower of miserable armed Police guarding it. United played ok
in the first leg actually and although still tentative, looked like they had
learned a bit from last year in Greece and whenever Johnny Russell and Goodie
combined we caused their defence problems but never seemed to get the shot away
quickly enough. Scott Robertson’s injury
along with an injury to Garry Kenneth had forced us into a reshuffle with John
Daly playing centre half and Scott Severin playing in midfield. To be honest, I never felt we were ever under
any great pressure in the game and it was a total sickner when they scored late
on. Had we scored over there we’d definitely have won the tie.
Due to the big Polish community in Dundee there was always
going to be a big away support at the return leg at Tannadice. I feel sorry for the Poles who live in Dundee
with Brexit and everything else that is associated with it. I have and continue to work with a lot of Poles
and other Eastern Europeans and they are good, likeable, hard working people
(well mostly, there’s always the odd lazy bastard in any walk of life). However, if I was them I’d have been fucking
mortified at being associated with the absolute shitshow that turned up in Dundee
that day. Big fucking Igor-looking
hulking advertisements for the dangers of anabolic steroid use with zero
personality beyond asking ‘you fight?’ (see picture below).
When I got off the bus at the junction of Dura Street and Dens Road, I
was offered a scrap by one of them as soon as I crossed the road. The cunt, unusually was only about 5 foot,
but I had noticed out the corner of my eye that about ten of his much bigger
and more menacing pals were actually hiding around the corner at the bottom of
Alexander Street and peering around to see what my response would be (seriously,
I am not making this up and I’d love it if people shared their stories on this
day/night below). A polite, “Na, yer
alright pal,” was swiftly followed by pulling over of a passing taxi.
Unreal. The driver actually couldn’t
take me too but the prolonged negotiations that I was only going up to the Snug
and quite fancied getting there without getting my head kicked in was enough for
the squad to move on, presumably to look for their next potential victim. They
weren’t all bad, and there was one further on who asked me for directions and
was perfectly pleasant but he was the exception for sure. Every cunt had MMA gloves on as well. WTF is that all about?
You could make a case that the first 20 minutes of football
that night were the best of the Levein/Houston era, and possibly the decade by
United. David Goodwillie was absolutely
magnificent: fast (he was never naturally quick either) as fuck due to his
brain being about three moves ahead of everyone else on the pitch, almost
telepathic in his understanding with Jon Daly, now restored up front. It’s not an exaggeration to say this performance
must have added about £1 million on his transfer fee. Up until this game no-one was talking about anything
above about £2 million for him. The
atmosphere was electric at the game.
Whilst I cannot condone anything with a racist element to it, “You’re only
here for the berries,” was actually quite restrained from our end given what
was being chanted back seemed to involve a lot of throat-cutting gestures and
pointing towards the United end. Garry Kenneth was excellent and Scott
Severin also rolled back the years in midfield before running out of steam
after about 45 minutes. Did we let them off the hook? Yes. Fucking zonal marking
resulted in an absolutely shite goal being conceded then in the second half where we
seemed to drop deeper and deeper allowing them to have more and more of the
ball before a screamer caught Dusan out (it wouldn’t be the last one either). A sickner, but at least we gave it a good go
trying to play our own game unlike against AEK Athens. I hate it when Scottish teams completely
change systems and personnel (usually in the negative sense) when playing in
the home leg of a European tie.
Back to the boozer to drown the sorrows with a nice relaxing
pint. Or not. Here is the Hollywood recreation of the 'Snug Bar Rammy': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh08hyT7H_0
I remember a Dundee boy running in and shouting, “gie me that fucking pint glass,”
before trying to take my mates pint off him (no chance). He then grabbed an
empty, went back to the doorway only to be pelted with a hail of glass bottles
and tumblers before he could chuck anything back. Then, what seemed like ball bearings started
piercing the window of the Snug lounge before the whole window came in. The busy lounge then emptied, not outside for
a scrap, but into the toilets (this defied logic because they are fucking
tiny). Our group never made it that far
and a few of us grabbed stools whilst I’m sure one person (Steven) went behind
the bar and took a bottle of voddy off the optic (he also went “Whey-hey,” when
it went quiet only to get about a dozen death-stares off of us, not funny at the time mate). The bit that my mates and I always laugh
about was some boy (big lad too who was hiding in the toilets opened the door a
wee bit and shouted, “Go and shut the blinds,” to which my mate Brian immediately
retorted, “You go and shut the fucking blinds.”
Alas, he preferred to shut the lavvy door instead and presumably go back
to shitting himself. We waited for the
pile-in which never happened (I certainly wasn’t going outside looking for it,
but I suppose if they’d came in you’d have had to go for it) although we could
hear utter carnage outside. One boy who
worked behind the bar come in with his arm cut open said that the police had
managed to disperse the group. After a
few minutes a few of us went outside for a nerve-soothing smoke to be greeted by a street completely
covered in glass. The cunts had actually went around the back of the pub, got a
glass bottle bin and were using them as weapons whilst they had actually chucked
the bin at the window to pan it in. Incredibly, when I got dropped off back at
Dura Street at Lidl to get the bus back home to Forfar they were still walking
about in dribs and drabs growling at all and sundry. I got berated by the wife the next morning
because I’d came in so late having gone to the pub in Forfar to sink a few nips
to calm my nerves. The look on her face
as I relayed these events was actually priceless as she realised I was not
making this up. I then went to the dentist in
Dundee later that day and the cunts were still wandering about although by this
stage they all looked a bit dazed and confused, unclear about what to do
next. I’ll tell you what to do: fuck off
and never come back.
The Cracks Start to Show
By October the 29th we had only won two games in
the league, had lay down at Celtic Park as usual, been beaten by a shite and
soon to be dead Rangers team but worst of all had lost at home to a Dunfermline
team who I’m pretty sure went down with the lowest points total in the time of
the SPL. I don’t know if we felt sorry
for Agent McIntyre that day (he’d repay the favour in 2019 mind you) but it was
absolutely dire stuff. Goodie had gone for a lot of money but the club was still
skint. Online meltdowns were now a weekly occurrence on Facebook, Twitter and United
forums like Mad and East Football. I
personally had a rant at Stephen Thompson at the end of this game to be met
with a vigorous shake of the head as if somehow he had no part to play in what
was playing out. Houston had introduced
a few younger lads, most notably, an attacking midfielder called Scott Allan. This laddie just looked on a different
level. Cool as fuck on the ball, two
good feet, able to wriggle out of tight situations and the ability to spot a pass
out of nowhere, particularly the reverse pass which was his speciality. He’d been up at Forfar on loan and was really
impressive and excelled in one of our two league wins at Tynecastle. This laddie had superstar written all over
him. A couple of caveats though;
firstly, playing him would involve a change in formation to a 4-5-1 so he could
play off a lone striker, not popular with our support who had seen years of 4-4-2
working really effectively. Secondly, he
was posted missing when the chips were down at Parkhead.
And then he disappeared.
I remember the Final Hurdle putting a missing-persons advert out for
Alex Cleland in about 1990. It was a wee
bit like this. Rumours began to surface.
United had offered Allan a very good contract which he had turned down
asking to become the second highest paid player at the club. Also, his part in the Goodie, Swanson, Flynn
brawl had not gone down well at the club (causing his debut to be delayed,
allowing Stuart Armstrong to make his debut instead). He had taken the huff for being left out of
the squad for a friendly at Cowdenbeath and had instead been sent with the
reserves up to Elgin and even though Houston had assured Allan that it was only
so he could get more of the match to get up to speed, he seemingly strolled
about and did fuck all. Finally, that
Houston had fallen out with Thompson because Houston felt Thompson had offered
Allan far too much dough (he/his agent still wanted more). Houston told me personally that he was
concerned that United were about to repeat what had happened with Greg Cameron
only a few years before in offering a lucrative contract after a handful of
promising performances and that, like Cameron, he was concerned that United would
have to completely change their high-tempo style to accommodate one player when
it should have been the other way round.
He didn’t know if Allan would be able or willing to change. After years of player harmony, even through
Goodie and Robertson’s allegations, things did not appear too rosy at
Tannadice. Peter Houston was working
part-time with Scotland as Craig Levein’s assistant. No-one really had an issue with this, to me
it was the best of both worlds since I still wanted Scotland and Levein to succeed. However, a pattern had emerged. We kept losing the first game after an international
week. The tempo was dreadful. Again,
rumours started to emerge that the United players were just pissing about when
Houston was away and that the quality of coaching and leadership underneath
Houston was poor. My old boy told me
that football players, apart from the very top ones, are like schoolkids when a
supply teacher takes over for a day, just taking advantage and messing
about. Another issue was that Houston was
seemingly turning up on the Thursday/Friday (a day or so later than he should
have been after an international break) then throwing his weight around with
the players about the state they were in.
The players were getting pissed off with what was going on allegedly* (circa
the Ivanhoe, next to the bookies in Lochee (Fleet Rule)). It was difficult to gauge
what was going on from Arabzone clips at this time because the training ground ‘exclusive’
content mostly involved daily videos of players playing badminton with the coaching
staff, including Houston. £4.99 a month well-spent
as always.
So, on the 29th of October we lined up against Dunfermline,
having been put out of the League Cup by Championship side Falkirk a few days
earlier on penalties in a game that we actually played ok in but lost two
stupid late goals. It was clear that we
lacked pace and width though. Houston had been persisting with Barry Douglas (a
left back) at left midfield with Willo Flood on the right. Neither looked comfortable in the roles.
Playing one up front made this even worse in some games. The papers had cottoned on to what was brewing
at Tannadice, particularly the fact that our esteemed Chairman had cut short
his holiday to Florida to return to Scotland, allegedly telling Houston to get
his finger out of his arse or else. Finally,
Houston rolled the dice, playing Ryan Dow and Johnny Russell either side of Jon
Daly and the Finnish boy with the stunning burd, before bringing on Scott Allan, Stuart Armstrong
and, finally, GMS as subs in the second half.
United blew Dunfermline away and Radio Scotland were slavering over how
exciting United looked in the last 20 minutes with all of these technical, pacy,
attacking young players on the pitch at the same time.
Houston, We Have Lift Off
From then on in United ‘kicked-on’ (TM) big-style. We began
to tear up the league as the Scott Allan situation was resolved by selling him
to West Bromwich Albion where his career would go nowhere and introducing Gary
MacKay Steven who would quickly become the fulcrum of this United team. Literally, everything went through him. He is
without doubt the most exciting United player I have ever seen. Johnny Russell was moved up front and gave us
a line up much more like what had given us success before with a high-tempo in
midfield where Scott Robertson was now looking outstanding along with John
Rankin who had proven me wrong and developed into an excellent player, who also
seemed to really GET the club. We absolutely
took the piss out of Rangers in the Scottish Cup in every sense of the word in
the knowledge they were about to go into administration then die (see next instalment)
then lined up to play Celtic. I am absolutely
convinced that had we won this match we would have won the Scottish Cup that
season. I am also absolutely convinced
that had a certain Robbie Neilson not gave Samaras a WWE -style flying forearm
after about 25 minutes (that we had completely dominated, with GMS tearing them
a new one) we would have won this game and the Rangers QF game of 2010 would
have been topped. As far as I am concerned, winning the Championship this
season is the least Robbie can do to make up for this moment of madness. Houston
took GMS off after the red card too which was shockingly negative. As a small consolation we actually beat Celtic
at Tannadice in the league a month later, helping us get back into Europe once again, something which
before Christmas looked an impossible task.
This win was even sweeter given that the ‘hilarious’ Celtic support were
copying the Poznan at the time when Scott Robertson scored and all stopped to turn
around to see what was going on.
Clamped. This is a bit of an
Empire Strikes Back ending I know. So,
as a consolation, here’s a video of GMS doing his stuff. See you later and thanks for the feedback, it’s
amazing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZvJZwjvSjI
Best ain yet bud.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot!
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