When United crisis actually meant the drop

The BT Sport documentary on Manchester United’s relegation season of 1973-74, Too Good to Go Down, is a lovely bit of telly, taking in the preceding post-1968 decline and then the rebirth up to the triumph of the 1977 FA Cup final. The Salford poet John Cooper Clarke is a fine narrator and it is marvellous to see how alive and alert so many of the era’s protagonists are looking, including the 90-year-old Tommy Docherty. Wisely, there are no major comparisons made with the current United crisis. In those crazy, unpredictable 1970s you could really plummet but these days the safety net of the super clubs’ great wealth will always save them.