aka Dus

The Kop will Sheikh with laughter when the Manchester United fans start singing that tomorrow night against Benfica, and on Saturday versus Mac City, on Sunday week against West Ham, all over Christmas against Villa, Wigan and Reading, etc etc etc.....

Almost seems like there's no point having any views - they don't matter. But personally I'd rather if football didn't turn into a version of Formula 1.

The finest minds in comedy are starting to roll out the obligatory nicknames. Al Liverpool FC Osama Bin Dippers £IV?RPOO£ Tell the forum your favourite one.

There could be a certain Arab-Scouse symmetry. "Who do you support?" - "Al Liverpool FC, la."

What's the difference between Etihad Airways and Emirates...?

Change is hard.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishin...1961877,00.html MacKenzie 'reignites Hillsborough row' Tara Conlan Friday December 1, 2006 MediaGuardian.co.uk MacKenzie: his alleged comments were reported in the Liverpool Daily Post. Photograph: Guardian A law firm has been bombarded with angry emails from Liverpudlians after it hosted a lunch at which Kelvin MacKenzie is alleged to have reopened the row over the Sun's coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. Yesterday, the former Sun editor spoke to guests at an annual business event organised by Mincoffs LLP, the Newcastle law company confirmed. During the private lunch, Mr MacKenzie is understood to have been asked if he went to Liverpool much following the Sun's infamous coverage of the football disaster. The emails from furious Liverpool fans were prompted by a report in the Liverpool Daily Post which alleged he said, at the Mincoffs event, that he was "not sorry then and I'm not sorry now" over the Sun's reporting of the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989, in which 96 people died. The Daily Post claims a source told them Mr MacKenzie had said: "All I did wrong was tell the truth." The source also alleged Mr MacKenzie said: "I went on The World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth." Mackenzie is also alleged to have said: "All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster. The only thing different we did was put it under the headlines 'The Truth'". Mr MacKenzie appears to have been told the lunch was off the record as the Daily Post's source said: "He said if the things he had said today got out, he was sure the whole thing would blow up again." The former Sun editor's reported prediction appears to have come true as today Mincoffs was inundated with emails from Liverpudlians. After The Sun ran the story in 1989, in which it accused Liverpool fans of stealing from bodies caught in the crush at Hillsborough and of urinating on the dead, it caused a furore in the city. Sales of the Sun in the area dropped by almost 40% and some newsagents refused to sell the paper. In July 2004, the Sun printed a full-page apology describing its coverage of the disaster as "the most terrible mistake in its history", but it is estimated that the paper still sells 50,000 fewer copies of the paper as a result of Hillsborough. Mincoffs today declined to confirm or deny Mr MacKenzie had made the Hillsborough comments. However, Mincoffs partner Richard Arnot said: "We do not condone anything that causes upset to the people of Liverpool." It is understood Mr MacKenzie was not paid for his appearance as he is an acquaintance of Mincoffs' chairman, but asked for a donation to be made to a hospice. It is not the first time Mincoffs has had a controversial speaker at its annual lunch, with previous guests including former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell. Mr MacKenzie had not responded to MediaGuardian.co.uk's calls at the time of publication. Although the Liverpool Daily Post's story is understood to have raised eyebrows at Wapping it is thought the Sun itself - where MacKenzie is a columnist - has not received many calls or emails. However, the newspaper has released a statement to the Merseyside press, saying only: "The Sun has already apologised for what happened and we stand by that apology." · To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332. · If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Sinnotts, I think thats called.

I don't think it's either FWIW. Not wanting the club to be owned by people outside the UK is hardly xenophobia.

With any luck Terry Henry's huff will last into the New Year.

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£1 million quid for 13 games...? I still think his impact will be limited.

Why should Scot be embarrassed by what Andy says? Why would I be personally embarrassed by what anyone on here says? I'd be f***ing embarrassed if anyone off here was singing about Manchester United at a Liverpool v Boro / Chelsea / Celtic etc etc etc ad infinitum game though.

It's not about "having class". It's about "acting with class". And Chelsea certainly don't. Although they're not exactly alone in that, they're pretty much the market leader.

He'll play and he'll perform but he hasn't scored too many goals for HIF since going back to Sweden last summer. It's a no risker for Manchester United but over 13 games I think his impact will be limited.

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I can't wait til we get all this investment so we too can spend 20 million quid a time on players who will arrive, play below their ability and who we can then ship off at a loss when they finally afdmit they are here for the money and want to go back to where they came from, where they like to be and play their football. That's real football for you.

I bet Rushian even gives a bollix who you are or what you think.

Good enough article but the Telegraph preaching about class though...?

Anyone gotta link for that?

Reminder of how useless our Academy is.

What have the G14 actually achieved since 2000?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai...n28.xml&page=1 'Some years ago, when Baroness Philippine de Rothschild was entertaining Robert Mondavi at the chateau that bears the famous family name, they were talking about the things that wine makers like to talk about: grapes, soil, sun. Then she said: 'Making wine is a pretty simple business. It's the first 200 years that's difficult'. Just like that ? voila! Mondavi, quite a player himself, crept back to northern California, pierced to the quick. There are certain things understood in the blood, the first lady of wine was saying, which constitute an inheritance that has nothing to do with spending money or vaulting ambition. The Rothschild rapier came to mind the other day when Peter Kenyon, Chelsea's chief executive, spoke freely of their intention to become the biggest club in the world ? 'brand leader', no less ? by 2014. More specifically, he was telling his previous employers at Old Trafford, where he is not the most popular man, that their days as top dogs were numbered. In the mephitic world of football, which attracts so many people of exceptional venality, Kenyon stands out as possibly the most absurd figure of all. Not bent, not nasty in the way that others are; just absurd. For all his talk of world domination the former sportswear salesman from Stalybridge is little more than a highly-paid errand-boy, sent on missions by a mysterious, easily bored Russian, for the benefit of a manager who labours under the misapprehension that he is Count Bismarck, and the Premiership represents a map of Europe in 1870. So those of us who are slightly sceptical about the Stamford Bridge revolution cannot pretend it does not give pleasure to inform 'Roman the Terrible', 'Jose the Horrible' and their lap dog 'Petrushka' that, even if they win the Premiership every season until the stipulated 'harmonisation' year of 2014, they will still come a distant second to Manchester United. And Liverpool. And Arsenal. And a few others beyond these shores. Status is not something you can buy over the counter at the grocer's, like a bag of King Edward's. 'I'll have half-a-pound of tradition, please, and throw in a few slices of heritage while you're at it. Oh, and some turnips, for Michael Ballack'. It is something that develops incrementally over decades of achievement. Of course, if the acquisition of players counted for everything, Chelsea have already planted their pole on top of football's Everest, and there are untold millions in the kitty (not generated by success on the field, as at other clubs) to buy dozens more. They could bring in Dan Carter, Roger Federer and Ricky Ponting tomorrow if they wanted, and perhaps they should. Those entertainers would bring a touch of class to what is essentially a soulless, mercenary team. Class is the key word. The people who own, manage and administer Chelsea underline, week in, week out, what Oscar Wilde meant when he defined a cynic as 'someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing'. They spend money like drunken sailors, and brag about there being 'more where that came from'. Then they wonder why the world outside their frantic little parish withholds its respect. For let us be honest: Chelsea are loathed with greater intensity, by more people, than any club in the history of English football. Don Revie's Leeds United side were not liked because they kicked people, and tried to laugh it off. Manchester United are disliked and envied in roughly equal measure, but they are admired for their football, and their history. Arsenal used to send crowds to sleep every week. Now they are rhapsodised by the very people who, not so long ago, wouldn't pay 'em in washers. Even Liverpool in their glory years had their detractors. But Chelsea are loathed because they have spent half-a-billion pounds to keep internationals in gravy, and yet prefer to grind out victories; because 'The Interpreter' considers himself to be 'special'; because they decline to behave with the grace of champions (they don't even acknowledge the possibility of grace); because some of their players earn £130,000-a-week and grumble it's hard to find a suitable property in London; because their supporters, an odd compound of ample-buttocked 'A3 Men' and 'Showbiz Charlies', many of whom couldn't tell a goal-post from the groundsman's cat, present such a disagreeable spectacle. Even in the old days, when Charlie Cooke and Peter Osgood offered sound reasons for enjoying their football, there was something unappealing about them: all that guff about whooping it up with film stars in the King's Road (it's Fulham Road, actually), and tales of 'Chopper' Harris, a so-called hard man who was regarded as a joke north of the Trent. 'I always scored against Chelsea', a true warrior of those bloody times once confessed. 'Harris never came near me, and he got rid of the ball pretty sharpish if I went looking for him'. Chelsea may well retain the Premiership, even if Michael Ballack and Andrei Shevchenko continue to play like Hinge and Bracket (value for money there, gentlemen!). They may even win the Champions League. Having doled out so much brass, and banged on about what it would mean to win that bloated competition, they will look pretty silly if they don't. If referees or opponents get in their way, their fans can always fire off death threats (the full story of the Anders Frisk affair has not been revealed), and 'The Interpreter' will pout away like Margaret Rutherford as Madame Arcati. Or they might, at this late hour, absorb a lesson that even 'dynamic brands' might find useful. Great football clubs have a sense of history; not only their own, but also that of the game. Anfield and Old Trafford reek of history but so too do the Parks of Villa, St James's, and Fratton, where success has been more spasmodic. Proper football clubs want to be successful but they feel a responsibility to the game at large, if it is possible to put it so romantically without people sniggering. Chelsea are not interested in anything so opaque. Furthermore, they give the impression that they actually enjoy being disliked. Envy, they call it. A sense of detachment, others might say. West Bromwich Albion is a football club. Accrington Stanley is a football club. Chelsea has not been a football club for some while. It is a vanity publication, run by vulgarians for whom modesty is a badge of shame, and underwritten by a rich man whose loyalty to a foreign investment cannot be taken for granted.

Agree with your post on both counts. Exactly what I thought when I read his comments. Not the first time KHR has 'spoken out' recently in a very pointed way, trying to make Bayern look like the honest broker of the super clubs. Wonder what the ultimate agenda is...

Cutting Manc humour the scriptwriters of Shameless couldn't match.