TV Moment 3: Champions League 1999
Am I a secret Man U fan? This is a difficult question to answer, but there is a clue in the fact that I once wrote a poem called 'I am a Secret Man U fan'. So now you know several of my dark secrets all at once.
I'm not a Man U fan, by the way, I'm a Spurs fan, but sometimes if a plumber comes round, sees my book shelf with Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography lined up next to Ryan Giggs' and the 'Class of 92' DVD and asks "Are you a Man U fan then?" and I say "No, I'm a Spurs fan", he's entitled to look a little puzzled.
I'm not a Man U fan, I'm a Spurs fan. Go the Lillywhites, rahrahrah. I've been a Spurs fan since 1985 and my favourite player is Mitchell Thomas or Vinny Samways and, wow, it's been an exciting few decades to be a Spurs fan, what with all the silverware, title challenges and down-to-the-wire relegation struggles. No, in short, when your own team habitually finishes between 4th and 14th and wins one minor piece of silverware every decade (oh I know that's more than most clubs), you need to get your kicks elsewhere.
And remember the 90s, when we lived at home, didn't have Sky etc? When watching live football mainly meant Champions League and that meant Man U? Remember that? Course you don't.
I'm trying to excuse the fact that Man Utd's 1999 treble was one of the most thrilling sporting sequences of event I can remember. But I know it's inexcusable.
When did I become a secret Man U fan? It wasn't immediate. I had a full half-decade of watching Man Utd more than any other team and not succumbing. I know this because I remember a few things. I remember watching the 1996-1997 title decider between Man Utd and Liverpool on a satellite link in a bar in a frontier town on the border between Uganda and Rwanda, having not watched any TV, let alone sport on TV, for three months (I am entirely showing off here) and desperately wanting Liverpool to win. Who, in 1997, was the favourite English footballer of South Ugandans? McManaman, obviously. Man Utd won 3-1.
I remember Man Utd going out weakly in the knock-out stages of the 1997-1998 Champions League, the match going on while we were in a bar called McSorleys in St Andrew and I wasn't even watching and couldn't give a shit, the only person that cared was my Mancunian friend Richard Smith. Whatever happened to Richard Smith, we're all wondering.
So even in March 1998, I was not a secret Man U fan, like I pretty much am to this day. I already had a soft spot for Ryan Giggs, there's no doubt about that. I'd take them winning the title over Arsenal, of course I would. I was a Spurs fan. But I'd probably have preferred almost anyone but those two at that stage. I didn't even hate Chelsea too deeply at that stage, but we'll get to that.
It was the next season, 1998-99, their glory year, their treble year, that did it. Probably a coming together of factors. Sympathy for David Beckham after the amount of shit he got from the 1998 World Cup and the way he was the outstanding player in the league the next year. The fact that a couple of years of living in Scotland, putting up with Sportscene and general anti-Englishness in sporting matters, makes a fellow stick up a bit more for anything English. The fact that Arsenal were again the main title rivals. But mainly, mainly of course, the fact that the 1998-99 Champions League was completely flippin' fantastic!
Not convinced? Let me remind you, blow by blow, of Man Utd's journey to the 1999 Champions League final.
Firstly, qualifying match with LKS Lodz, dealt with.
Secondly, qualifying group, winners goes through plus best two runners-up from 6 qualifying groups, the group is ... Brondby .... Bayern Munich ... Barcelona ... the qualifying group! To get through to the last 8. Not a bad Barca team, Rivaldo, Figo, Cocu, Luis Enrique etc. ( a young Xavi on the bench) not a bad Bayern team either, obviously.
Then, having qualified as a high second placer behind Bayern, quarters versus Inter Milan, semis versus Juventus, final vs Bayern.
You remember? You remember how good those games were? The group stages were life and death and we'd congregrate in someone's dingy flat and drink beer and shout at the TV and watch 3-3 vs Barca, 2-2 vs Bayern, 3-3 vs Barca again! Epic life-and-death games, Scholes, Giggs, Beckham in their real prime, the unlikely world-beating combo of Cole and Yorke upfront, rumbunctious, absurd football. Who wouldn't support this lot?
The quarter versus Inter was relatively pain-free, though not entirely, and then the semi vs Juventus, widely considered the best team in Europe at the time. Zidane, Davids, Inzaghi, Deschamps, that little punk DiLivio, they played Man U off the park at Old Trafford, depressingly so, 0-1 and could have been more, till the late equaliser from Giggs gave some hope. Maybe that was it, that moment there, when my favourite footballer whacked a late goal into the roof of the net in the Champions League semi-final, that I was finished. I want these red shitheads to win. A lot.
The second leg, you'd have thought that late goal would give Man Utd momentum but no. Juve at the Stadio Delle Alpi ripped them apart, 2-0 within 15 minutes, the perenially offside or scoring Pippo Inzaghi. Pippo, we jeered. Fucking Pippo. And then, then what? They say that game was Roy Keane's, that he sucked up being booked and knowing he'd not make the final and inspired his cowering team mates to glory. Maybe, maybe, he was a fair player, but I remember Cole and Yorke,choreographed, sliding through Juve's loosening catenaccio, clawing it back, 2-2 for most of the game and then Cole with the late winner. Amazing.
Giggs was injured a lot that year, a shadow figure in the league, but he shone in the Champions League, especially those early group stages. He also shone in the FA Cup ... for all of 10 seconds. But those ten seconds ... again, how could I resist the strong surge of those emotions? How could any of us, sitting there in the Dunvegan (20 metres from McSorleys), that epic semi-final replay vs Arsenal, the misplaced pass from Vieira? You know the rest. I remember thinking "Of course, that's what he's supposed to do".
Of course it was partly the general "support the English team" thing. We nearly all did that. All of us apart from Danny, a fierce Liverpool fan who just could not bring himself not to loathe everything about Man Utd. I understand. I've been loathing every Chelsea second for the last 15 years.,but that year, I remember, that same month, rooting for Chelsea in the Cup Winners Cup semi-final, rooting for them in one of those flats, drinking vodka and forgetting about the mixer, watching Chelsea and drinking really too too much, and after that the only definite instance of memory loss in my life. Dark, that night. That's what supporting Chelsea even for one 90 minute period did to me. Never again.
So it was. Three games. League decider, FA Cup, Champions League Final. In a row. Wouldn't you know it, the league decider was against Spurs, and I knew for sure then. I couldn't help it. Man Utd needed to win to gain the title, to deny Arsenal, it all made sense, what could I do? Spurs went a goal up. I was kind of happy, I pretended to be happy, but when Man U, through Beckham and Cole, pulled it back and turned it round, I was a happier happy.
The FA Cup final, a drab inevitability - it was that procession more than anything else that really relegated the FA Cup. 2-0 vs a Newcastle team that barely turned up.
And on to the Nou Camp, Wednesday 26th May. Right at the end of the St Andrews term. I am pretty certain that the way it went down was that my football team, Smooth American Blend, after an utterly triumphant inaugural year in which we gained promotion and won the Kate Kennedy six-a-sides (you will likely hear more about that!) had a meal and a drink in that same Dunvegan, watching the final. We were all there. Danny, Richard Smith, oh you know ...
Wasn't a great game, actually. Man U had a mish-mash team. Blomqvist, Giggs on the right, and Bayern were the better side. We all know what happened. They did win. It was good. Danny sucked it up but was not happy. Andy Lyle sucked it up but was not happy.
The rest of us, Scots, Welsh, English, American, Northern Irish, we were all happy. We were so happy we went to Dundee. The high life. Some went clubbing. Some, including me, followed Richard Smith to the casino he'd begun to frequent regularly. The casino would come to claim Richard Smith. It claimed me that night but never again.
I went mental. How mental? With five minutes til the cab was coming to take us home, drunk on joy and success and mainly drunk on drink, with a full £10 in my pocket, I risked it, risked it all, well, you know a bit of it, and don't ask me how, ended up with £22. £22! Casinos of the world, don't tell me that no one ever beats you! £22 up I am, to this day!
So that's it, that night, a good night, a great football season all round. Listen, this is my rationale. Football, football's the big game. Where are the big moments of true triumph and joy? We're England fans, aren't we? Let's say. (or Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, it's not important for this point) . You don't need me to tell you none of us have won anything for almost 50 years. When you win a qualifying group or a second round match you celebrate a little, but not wholeheartedly, because that is a long way from job done. In international football, we've all been so far from actually having anything to celebrate.
So, then there's club football, There are loads more tournaments more regularly so there's loads more winning. And there's been domestic winning and a bit of international winning. The Champions League final is obviously the big one, it decides who the best football team in the world is for that year. It does.
English teams have been in 8 finals, which isn't that bad, actually, and won 4. One of those was Chelsea vs Bayern in 2011, which I'm sure pleased Chelsea fans. One was Man U beating Chelsea in 2008 - ok, that was pretty awesome, but a) it was a bit domestic and b) I watched it on my home telly alone and didn't go to a casino afterwards. Liverpool vs AC Milan in 2005 - yes, that's probably better. That was amazing, but a) it wasn't the first time it happened and b) again, no casino.
So I've written about 1999, the first English team to win the Champions League, the year that bunch of boys from '92 beat the world. There's romance in some stories where there isn't as much in others. With the Beatles, there's romance, with the Eagles, less so. With Paul Newman, there's romance, with Tom Cruise, less so. So it is, with Chelsea winning the Champions League in 2011, in fact with anything to do with Chelsea, I dare you to find the romance; with Man Utd, and that Man Utd team of 1999, I dare you not to.
I'm not a Man U fan, by the way, I'm a Spurs fan, but sometimes if a plumber comes round, sees my book shelf with Sir Alex Ferguson's autobiography lined up next to Ryan Giggs' and the 'Class of 92' DVD and asks "Are you a Man U fan then?" and I say "No, I'm a Spurs fan", he's entitled to look a little puzzled.
I'm not a Man U fan, I'm a Spurs fan. Go the Lillywhites, rahrahrah. I've been a Spurs fan since 1985 and my favourite player is Mitchell Thomas or Vinny Samways and, wow, it's been an exciting few decades to be a Spurs fan, what with all the silverware, title challenges and down-to-the-wire relegation struggles. No, in short, when your own team habitually finishes between 4th and 14th and wins one minor piece of silverware every decade (oh I know that's more than most clubs), you need to get your kicks elsewhere.
And remember the 90s, when we lived at home, didn't have Sky etc? When watching live football mainly meant Champions League and that meant Man U? Remember that? Course you don't.
I'm trying to excuse the fact that Man Utd's 1999 treble was one of the most thrilling sporting sequences of event I can remember. But I know it's inexcusable.
When did I become a secret Man U fan? It wasn't immediate. I had a full half-decade of watching Man Utd more than any other team and not succumbing. I know this because I remember a few things. I remember watching the 1996-1997 title decider between Man Utd and Liverpool on a satellite link in a bar in a frontier town on the border between Uganda and Rwanda, having not watched any TV, let alone sport on TV, for three months (I am entirely showing off here) and desperately wanting Liverpool to win. Who, in 1997, was the favourite English footballer of South Ugandans? McManaman, obviously. Man Utd won 3-1.
I remember Man Utd going out weakly in the knock-out stages of the 1997-1998 Champions League, the match going on while we were in a bar called McSorleys in St Andrew and I wasn't even watching and couldn't give a shit, the only person that cared was my Mancunian friend Richard Smith. Whatever happened to Richard Smith, we're all wondering.
So even in March 1998, I was not a secret Man U fan, like I pretty much am to this day. I already had a soft spot for Ryan Giggs, there's no doubt about that. I'd take them winning the title over Arsenal, of course I would. I was a Spurs fan. But I'd probably have preferred almost anyone but those two at that stage. I didn't even hate Chelsea too deeply at that stage, but we'll get to that.
It was the next season, 1998-99, their glory year, their treble year, that did it. Probably a coming together of factors. Sympathy for David Beckham after the amount of shit he got from the 1998 World Cup and the way he was the outstanding player in the league the next year. The fact that a couple of years of living in Scotland, putting up with Sportscene and general anti-Englishness in sporting matters, makes a fellow stick up a bit more for anything English. The fact that Arsenal were again the main title rivals. But mainly, mainly of course, the fact that the 1998-99 Champions League was completely flippin' fantastic!
Not convinced? Let me remind you, blow by blow, of Man Utd's journey to the 1999 Champions League final.
Firstly, qualifying match with LKS Lodz, dealt with.
Secondly, qualifying group, winners goes through plus best two runners-up from 6 qualifying groups, the group is ... Brondby .... Bayern Munich ... Barcelona ... the qualifying group! To get through to the last 8. Not a bad Barca team, Rivaldo, Figo, Cocu, Luis Enrique etc. ( a young Xavi on the bench) not a bad Bayern team either, obviously.
Then, having qualified as a high second placer behind Bayern, quarters versus Inter Milan, semis versus Juventus, final vs Bayern.
You remember? You remember how good those games were? The group stages were life and death and we'd congregrate in someone's dingy flat and drink beer and shout at the TV and watch 3-3 vs Barca, 2-2 vs Bayern, 3-3 vs Barca again! Epic life-and-death games, Scholes, Giggs, Beckham in their real prime, the unlikely world-beating combo of Cole and Yorke upfront, rumbunctious, absurd football. Who wouldn't support this lot?
The quarter versus Inter was relatively pain-free, though not entirely, and then the semi vs Juventus, widely considered the best team in Europe at the time. Zidane, Davids, Inzaghi, Deschamps, that little punk DiLivio, they played Man U off the park at Old Trafford, depressingly so, 0-1 and could have been more, till the late equaliser from Giggs gave some hope. Maybe that was it, that moment there, when my favourite footballer whacked a late goal into the roof of the net in the Champions League semi-final, that I was finished. I want these red shitheads to win. A lot.
The second leg, you'd have thought that late goal would give Man Utd momentum but no. Juve at the Stadio Delle Alpi ripped them apart, 2-0 within 15 minutes, the perenially offside or scoring Pippo Inzaghi. Pippo, we jeered. Fucking Pippo. And then, then what? They say that game was Roy Keane's, that he sucked up being booked and knowing he'd not make the final and inspired his cowering team mates to glory. Maybe, maybe, he was a fair player, but I remember Cole and Yorke,choreographed, sliding through Juve's loosening catenaccio, clawing it back, 2-2 for most of the game and then Cole with the late winner. Amazing.
Giggs was injured a lot that year, a shadow figure in the league, but he shone in the Champions League, especially those early group stages. He also shone in the FA Cup ... for all of 10 seconds. But those ten seconds ... again, how could I resist the strong surge of those emotions? How could any of us, sitting there in the Dunvegan (20 metres from McSorleys), that epic semi-final replay vs Arsenal, the misplaced pass from Vieira? You know the rest. I remember thinking "Of course, that's what he's supposed to do".
Of course it was partly the general "support the English team" thing. We nearly all did that. All of us apart from Danny, a fierce Liverpool fan who just could not bring himself not to loathe everything about Man Utd. I understand. I've been loathing every Chelsea second for the last 15 years.,but that year, I remember, that same month, rooting for Chelsea in the Cup Winners Cup semi-final, rooting for them in one of those flats, drinking vodka and forgetting about the mixer, watching Chelsea and drinking really too too much, and after that the only definite instance of memory loss in my life. Dark, that night. That's what supporting Chelsea even for one 90 minute period did to me. Never again.
So it was. Three games. League decider, FA Cup, Champions League Final. In a row. Wouldn't you know it, the league decider was against Spurs, and I knew for sure then. I couldn't help it. Man Utd needed to win to gain the title, to deny Arsenal, it all made sense, what could I do? Spurs went a goal up. I was kind of happy, I pretended to be happy, but when Man U, through Beckham and Cole, pulled it back and turned it round, I was a happier happy.
The FA Cup final, a drab inevitability - it was that procession more than anything else that really relegated the FA Cup. 2-0 vs a Newcastle team that barely turned up.
And on to the Nou Camp, Wednesday 26th May. Right at the end of the St Andrews term. I am pretty certain that the way it went down was that my football team, Smooth American Blend, after an utterly triumphant inaugural year in which we gained promotion and won the Kate Kennedy six-a-sides (you will likely hear more about that!) had a meal and a drink in that same Dunvegan, watching the final. We were all there. Danny, Richard Smith, oh you know ...
Wasn't a great game, actually. Man U had a mish-mash team. Blomqvist, Giggs on the right, and Bayern were the better side. We all know what happened. They did win. It was good. Danny sucked it up but was not happy. Andy Lyle sucked it up but was not happy.
The rest of us, Scots, Welsh, English, American, Northern Irish, we were all happy. We were so happy we went to Dundee. The high life. Some went clubbing. Some, including me, followed Richard Smith to the casino he'd begun to frequent regularly. The casino would come to claim Richard Smith. It claimed me that night but never again.
I went mental. How mental? With five minutes til the cab was coming to take us home, drunk on joy and success and mainly drunk on drink, with a full £10 in my pocket, I risked it, risked it all, well, you know a bit of it, and don't ask me how, ended up with £22. £22! Casinos of the world, don't tell me that no one ever beats you! £22 up I am, to this day!
So that's it, that night, a good night, a great football season all round. Listen, this is my rationale. Football, football's the big game. Where are the big moments of true triumph and joy? We're England fans, aren't we? Let's say. (or Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland, it's not important for this point) . You don't need me to tell you none of us have won anything for almost 50 years. When you win a qualifying group or a second round match you celebrate a little, but not wholeheartedly, because that is a long way from job done. In international football, we've all been so far from actually having anything to celebrate.
So, then there's club football, There are loads more tournaments more regularly so there's loads more winning. And there's been domestic winning and a bit of international winning. The Champions League final is obviously the big one, it decides who the best football team in the world is for that year. It does.
English teams have been in 8 finals, which isn't that bad, actually, and won 4. One of those was Chelsea vs Bayern in 2011, which I'm sure pleased Chelsea fans. One was Man U beating Chelsea in 2008 - ok, that was pretty awesome, but a) it was a bit domestic and b) I watched it on my home telly alone and didn't go to a casino afterwards. Liverpool vs AC Milan in 2005 - yes, that's probably better. That was amazing, but a) it wasn't the first time it happened and b) again, no casino.
So I've written about 1999, the first English team to win the Champions League, the year that bunch of boys from '92 beat the world. There's romance in some stories where there isn't as much in others. With the Beatles, there's romance, with the Eagles, less so. With Paul Newman, there's romance, with Tom Cruise, less so. So it is, with Chelsea winning the Champions League in 2011, in fact with anything to do with Chelsea, I dare you to find the romance; with Man Utd, and that Man Utd team of 1999, I dare you not to.
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