No holding back as jubilant City pick up a pinta
The ruckus after the Old Trafford derby gave an insight into the modern football dressing room, writes Jim White
The manager who had once slid along the touchline on his knees accused City of disrespect
Now we know, when it comes to a brawl, what the modern Premier League footballer prefers to pour over his opponent’s head. Beer he leaves to cricketers and champagne to Formula One drivers (and who knows what specialist beverage the darts lads will be flinging around Alexandra Palace when they start their world championship this week). Yes, when it comes to a post-match fracas, the footballer picks up a pinta.
Or at least milk is the weapon of choice among Manchester City players. After they had won at Old Trafford on Sunday, they were enjoying themselves in the visitors’ dressing room a little too loudly for Jose Mourinho’s taste.
The manager who once celebrated victory as a visiting coach at the stadium by sliding along the touchline on his knees, angrily accused his guests of being disrespectful to their hosts. Their response was to try to soak him in the white stuff. At a stroke, they delivered the biggest boost the dairy industry has had from football since that telly ad in 1989, in which a young Liverpool fan was filmed reluctantly drinking milk because Ian Rush told him if he did not he would be good enough to play only for Accrington Stanley. Here was the most successful team in the country apparently fuelled by cows.
Oddly, the selfies that emerged on social media of the Oasissoundtracked City celebration showed not just broad smiles, clenched fists and cartons of cow juice, but an explosion of ticker tape. Someone had brought along some serious pyrotechnic props. Perhaps this was not quite as spontaneous as might initially be assumed.
While it seems unlikely that even Pep Guardiola’s extensive staff includes a resident party planner, someone had an eye on how to mark the moment. But then, remember, this City side are being recorded every step along their triumphant way this season for a fly-on-thewall documentary.
It is being made by the same operation who brought us that masterpiece of unintended comedy, Being Liverpool, a film which exposed so trenchantly the expansive gap between Brendan Rodgers’s ego and his achievement. The difference this time is that the film-makers are likely to catch the process of proper success. This time it is almost certain they will be witnesses to real history, as opposed to the aftermath of cosmetic dentistry.
Intriguingly, United had denied the film crew permission to take their cameras into the Old Trafford dressing room. Clearly, only United’s official Far Eastern pot noodle partner is afforded such privileges.
But we can rest assured footage from camera phones of the exuberance will make its way into the final cut. And that was presumably the plan: after all, these days, everyone has in their hands the capacity to be a Steven Spielberg.
Which is why the people who will be most annoyed about the manner in which the brouhaha has dominated the reporting of the match will be the film-makers. Here they were, hoping to deliver all sorts of insights into a winning machine. And now, thanks to the intervention of Jose Mourinho, the secret is out: it is all fuelled by milk. In the modern Premier League, nothing stays private for long.