Manchester United’s Seven Deadly Sins: #6 – Lust

Sir, I want some more

Sir Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex Ferguson first announced his retirement in 2001 and eventually walked away in 2013. He had done it all in 1999 and actually thought as much: until he realised he could probably do more. So he decided to stay put in 2002. The Glazer family took full control of the club in 2005 and Ferguson won more, and was happy to back them in face of protest from fans because they allowed Manchester United to win more.

He desired a second European Cup and got that in 2008. He wanted to knock Liverpool off their perch and did that officially in 2009. And he won some more trophies after that. He would do things out-of-character in order to win, even if didn’t always work out that way; he was happy to break up a midfield four of Beckham, Scholes, Keane and Giggs when he signed Juan Sebastian Veron, hoping to bring his side in line with others on the continent.

It didn’t work and £28.1m Veron left in 2003. But he tried. When United lost 6-1 to Manchester City in 2012, Ferguson described the performance as “suicidal”. United, a man short, kept going forward. “We should have just said: ‘We’ve had our day’.” Later that season, with United closing in on the league, they surrendered a 4-2 lead against Everton. They lusted after a bigger margin but instead went on to concede two late goals.

And so because City had won the title, Ferguson bought the country’s top scorer, Robin Van Persie, despite already having a number of attacking players at his disposal. Van Persie was not cheap and, at 29, was considerably older than the other players United usually look at. Still, it worked a treat — Ferguson soon had another trophy. He left the job as football’s greatest winner, even taking delight at having surprised so many with another promise of retirement, this time for real.

Billy Meredith wants player power

Two Germans once envisaged a workers’ revolution in the West that would shape the 20th century. Neither envisaged it not happening, nor the diluted form that favoured reform that took its place. But, hey, one of them hasn’t got a frighteningly large sculpture of his head for no reason. A consciousness was developed and it spread to all the places where the worker felt alienated: even football.

This was the early 1900s, and football was slightly different then. There was a maximum wage of £4 (“why don’t soldiers and nurses earn that sort of money?”) and the Manchester clubs did not hate each others’ guts quite as much, united by shared experiences and their hatred of the southern-based Football Association.

If there’s one thing that’s stayed the same through time, and not just in football, it’s the widely-held contempt for those in charge. Billy Meredith, who played for both City and United, was one of the first to challenge the FA.

Meredith was quite the footballer: those who spoke about football spoke of Meredith. In 1935, Sir Frederick Wall wrote vividly of the “football prince … Meredith the magnificent” in his book 50 Years of Football.

“Of the back-heel pass he was a ready exponent and he remains the only man I have ever seen chewing a quill toothpick while playing in the hardest of matches.” Meredith sounds like an early-day Eric Cantona (whose toothpick was his open collar); the best and most expressive player on the field who liked to do things on his own terms, regardless of who it upset.

Meredith’s transfer to United came only after the destruction of his all-conquering City side — in which he played a large part. In a tell-all, he admitted to bribery charges but claimed he was not alone in the act, and put the success of a working-class club like City (which the FA were apparently so perplexed by they went to investigate) down to the fact that players were mostly paid above the maximum wage.

In breach of the rules, many were ordered to leave City at once. “The team delivered the goods, the club paid for the goods delivered and both sides were satisfied,” Meredith said, describing what must have seemed like a football-utopia. And not just to him: the FA, as we know, would only kill the maximum wage in 1961. Meredith didn’t know.

The desire for player power consumed Meredith. He told a popular union paper in 1909 that working-class professionals have, for too long, “put up with indifferences and injustices of many kinds”, it is only now that they have realised the extent of it. The biggest injustice — “the rank injustice” — was the £4 maximum wage. The Players’ Union, set up by Meredith and team-mate Charlie Roberts, sought to end put an end to it.

The FA initially played along to the union before deciding, in 1909, to have nothing to do with it. The wage ceiling would stay forever, and failure to resign from the union would put careers at risk. How lovely. Inevitably, many left (only Manchester United refused to back down, and were suspended, though temporarily). Meredith saw class traitors: “The unfortunate thing is that so many players … do just what they are told … instead of thinking and acting for himself and his class.”

While he continued to dazzle on the field, and find great success from it, Meredith could never quite put this behind him. He would later tell a Players’ Union secretary to “always remind your members that caps and medals didn’t look after me in my old age.”