You gotta fight for your right to party
IT WASN’T just Manchester United fans that were left bruised and battered and as a deflated as a three-week old helium balloon at the weekend.
The young fella celebrated his seventh birthday in traditional fashion with a good old shindig with his pals on Sunday, and of course doting dad was in the thick of the action.
All was going well, apart from the odd minor disagreement that is, until yours truly was summoned by junior to partake in a bout of five-a-aside on the astro pitch.
My best days (if they ever existed) are well behind me so trying to keep up with seven, eight, nine and the odd ten or eleven-year-old really put my fast-fading stamina to the test.
If only I could have compensated for what I lacked in verve by utilising the wisdom of my years of experience in a clever exercise of energy conservation. Not a bit of it.
What I did do was try tricks that I would have struggled to pull off 20 years ago, trying to showboat and pirouette around youngsters as if I was Maradona before he followed a more decrepit path.
One such manoeuvre, which to a casual onlooker probably appeared about as slick as a drunken dad dance but in my mind was almost Messsi-esque, saw me turn my ankle in a direction it’s almost certainly not designed to – particularly on a 40-something with more aches and pains than Sergio Ramos has racked up red cards.
I should have heeded the earlier warning when I scored (in my mind) a peach of a goal with my bad foot (well the worst of my two at best middling feet) but ended up landing on my fat arse in the process.
One of the birthday boys’ more considerate friends, or to be more precise the only one who wasn’t laughing heartily at my expense, rushed over to check on my well being.
I informed him the only thing wounded was my pride, which in hindsight probably would have gone way over a seven-year-old’s head like a badly thrown frisbee.
Speaking of damaged self-esteem how Jose Mourinho can continue to carry his head at any sort of reasonable height is beyond belief.
My exploits on the field of screams may have left me temporarily red-faced but if I continually sent out a team that performed like the Red Devils I’d want the ground to swallow me whole, chew me up and spit out the unsavoury pips.
His side’s performance at Anfield, where they were lucky to only suffer a 3-1 defeat, was nothing short of deplorable, another noshow to add to the ever-growing list of joke-shop displays by the far from special one and his bunch of not so merry men.
If Mourinho was a horse trainer and the Manchester United players were his steeds, he’d be fined heavily and his nags would face a long spell on the sidelines under the non-triers rule.
If Lukaku, Matic and the like were of the equine variety a trip to the glue factory would be a distinct possibility.
Liverpool, on the other hand, are full of energy, physicality, skill and an unwavering will to win, and to make it even better they’re a joy to watch in full flow.
I’m far from a Liverpool fanboy but you have to just stand up and applaud what they’re doing at the moment and if they can achieve the unthinkable and dethrone Manchester City it will be fully deserved.
Obviously there’s a hell of a long way to go in the title race, but the signs are there that they’re in it for the long haul.
Manchester United supporters may scoff at the sometimes cautious and other times almost arrogant self-belief of Liverpool fans, expecting them to trip up once again, although secretly they’re frantically saying a few novenas to try to stop the long-awaited title from winging it’s way to Merseyside.
The truth is the United faithful have morphed into what they have ridiculed Liverpool fans for over the past couple of decades.
Always harping on about their glorious history and not living for the here and now.
Right now it’s party time at Liverpool where they can dare to dream, although it’s still at the beer and nibbles stage, a long way from the popping of champagne corks.
Meanwhile, Manchester United are like the green-gilled sick child that’s overindulged on lashings and lashings of sticky chocolate.
The high is a distant memory, and now they’re left with a rancid, almost unbearable sugar low.
There’s no quick fix for this one, not even the ever-loudening cries of ‘Mourinho Out’.