How I fell in love with Manchester United

Just like crores and crores of people in India, I was a Cricket fanatic. Other than Cricket, I watched a lot of Wrestling. During the commercials in between various wrestling shows, small chunks of Glory Glory Man United were played. I really started to listen to these snippets and even started humming them when they appeared.

I knew that a sport named Football existed and had even watched the 2002 final and the 2006 final of the World Cup. Zidane was a player I watched closely during the world cup and wanted France to win the World Cup in 06. My jaw still drops after seeing him headbutt Materazzi onto the floor.

I bought a playstation console and got addicted to playing Fifa 06. As I started to play more and more football on the console, my interest developed in Football. I was browsing through the channels and I came across a Football match between a blue and a red team (The 2007 Fa Cup final between Chelsea and Manchester United). The match went to extra time. I wanted the team in red to win because I knew a little about them. But United lost the match after Drogba scored the only goal in extra time.

I was a little disappointed and don’t know why, but I started watching United’s matches in the next season. United were playing a great brand of football (slick one touch passing, amazing counter attacks )and I started to like the team a lot. Then, on the 6^th of February, I saw a thirty minute show on The Munich Air Disaster on some news channel and at the end, I had tears in my eyes. That was the moment I fell in love with Manchester United. I started looking for archive videos of the Babes, read about the Munich Air Tragedy on the internet. To this day, I still get emotional talking about the Babes and usually am teary eyed on the 6^th.

After that, I started to read news stories related to United, dig up archived United videos. I followed United religiously. I had a science paper on the day after the Champions League Final in Moscow and was up all night watching the match on the television. And when Ronnie missed his penalty, I thought we were going to lose but then Terry slipped and Van der Sar saved Anelka’s penalty in sudden death. I was over the moon and still remember to this day, VDS raising both his arms in jubilation and Ronnie crying on the turf after we had won.

My Love for United grew with time and it has become a drug without which I would probably die. My dream is to go to Manchester, walk on the holy turf of Old Trafford and see the REDS in person.

May God bless us all & May God bless UNITED.