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GOOD Ultras - three-part series on BBC Scotland. Davinia Taylor's choice of tunes. Bright evenings incoming. The Rise & Fall of Madchester - BBC Sounds. This Life - BBC iPlayer. 6 Music festival in Manchester. Champions League back on the horizon. Moses Itauma. Mowgli in Corn Exchange. Race Across the World back on. Corbieres. Not changed in years and still one of Manchester's best bars. Hope it never closes. Project Hail Mary. Book - The Only Plane in the Sky. New Jose Gonzalez album. Another rewatch of Ken Burns' Vietnam Documentary. Getting a new puppy in time for summer. Consistency with exercise. Lincoln in the Championship. Chelsea imploding. Lammens reading UWS united we stand HE'S & BAD breaks. Trump having access to the nuclear codes. Non-stop rain in the hour before kick-offs this season. Evening kick-off times. The never-ending 115 saga. Everyone over 40 asking me if I've heard of a cool new band called Geese. Family members getting old and sick. De Ligt being out for who knows how long? Passport controls in the EU. Nice one, Brexit. Four weeks between home games. War. A young crowd buzzing off Geese's gig at Victoria Warehouse. Social media companies being held to account. Stretfest - a free community festival two miles from Old Trafford. The normally very dull Metros on Moss Rd turned into a rave. Eccles Town Hall ballroom being used for big events. Richard Keys playing Alan Partridge. Tehran on Apple TV. Morrissey's new album. Steranko in Didsbury. Free coaches to Bournemouth. Employee Rights Bill. The right to protest and those who exercise it. Listening to opposition podcasts after they have lost. Watching the United youth teams/U21s/U18s academy. Lots of promising players, many playing 'up' beyond their years and great to see them playing well. David Hockney exhibition: A Year in Normandie. Extended international Cheating Chelsea getting a token punishment. Cairo hasslers and them fucking car horns. Maguire missing Leeds. New flatmate not understanding that you need to put rubbish in the bin, not on the shelf next to the front door. Watching people you thought were sound climb that greasy career ladder for themselves and kick everyone else back down it in the process to get a pay increase. Noticing a sliding-doors moment after it's too late. Aldi's wagyu burgers. Morrissey cancelling gigs. Hip Store closing (do one JD Sports). The AFCON Senegal/Morocco debacle. Fake keeper injuries. All players in centre circle and no coaching staff on playing area if it happens. Transfer 'journalists'. Aggregator accounts. Fuel prices. From the regulars on the Groundside forum uwsonline.com
page 3
EDITORIAL UNITED WESTAND We're closing in on the end of a season which none of us want to go through again. It's not the football. United have done better than most expected and, right from that first game at home to Arsenal, there was a sense that the team would be significantly better than last season, which wouldn't be difficult after finishing 15th. It's the lack of games, of continuity and momentum. It's like being at snooker - I don't know where I'm going with this as I've never been to snooker - when the action is on the other table. We miss it and football misses United. The FA Cup needs United in it, Europe too. This is the time of year we're supposed to be most excited. Even a year ago we had Lyon and Bilbao, plus Wembley finals in the previous years. There's nothing like that this year. Tuesday to Thursday nights, the only days of the week when we're not playing, has been background noise from competitions we're paying little attention too. It has been a season of two and even three-week breaks before some games. Of too many Monday-night matches, too many fuck-yous to fans and a lack of domestic cup football when we needed it most. That Grimsby League Cup result was one of the worst in the club's entire history. Going out to Brighton in the FA Cup stung too. But, where it matters most for now, in the Premier League, it has been better. There have been lows and a few shocking performances and defeats, just as there always have been and always will be, even in the best seasons. But few expected third, which is where United have reached in the last month. We've got a team who've scored plenty of goals without ever seeming prolific; a side which has conceded too many goals without ever seeming chaotic at the back. As I write this, Forest, in 16th, have conceded the same as United. That's United, a team that has made Old Trafford home again, with an impressive record. Things must get better away, with only five wins from 16 matches before the visit to Stamford Bridge and a goal difference of zero. So how do United improve? There's detail about where we are with transfers in Guttersnipe, but I said in the last editorial that prospective players will want to know who they are going to play for, how often, in which competitions, what formation and whether that person will improve them as a player. It all stands, but I've spoken to a lot of people about the man likely to help convince players to join: Michael Carrick. Carrick knows Manchester United better than perhaps any manager on the planet, he's calm, confident and trustworthy. Put him in front of a player and that player will have a positive impression because he can explain to him in detail what he wants from him. It helps that midfielder is the key position this summer and Carrick played there. He doesn't have the star reputation of a Luis Enrique, but equally there are no negatives against him. He's seen to have improved United, taken the team to third in the strongest league in the world. The key, after a top-five finish this season to get back into the Champions League, is to get United to second and first. To continue with smarter recruitment headed by Jason Wilcox, while all the time being handcuffed by a two-decade cloud called the Glazers, and the fact that United can no longer outspend domestic rivals, not for transfer fees or wages. As one agent told US: "United is a club that wants to pay £120,000 per week for established first-teamers. Maybe a few star players will get more, but it's a deeply in-debt club which must watch what it pays." The games aren't coming thick and fast as we'd hope, but there's one per week now for a month or so and United must hold nerves and the good form which has brought surprising stability this term. Enjoy this issue, Andy Editor FEATURES 12 United's Youth Team 15 Never Meet Your Heroes 18 The End of the Jib As We Know It? 22 A Scouse Red 26 This May Be the Last Time: Mickey Thomas 34 FC United Going Up? 39 Transmission Rosellas REGULARS 04 Jim White 05-07 manUvia 08 Guttersnipe 42 GAWI

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GOOD

Ultras - three-part series on BBC Scotland. Davinia Taylor's choice of tunes. Bright evenings incoming. The Rise & Fall of Madchester - BBC Sounds. This Life - BBC iPlayer. 6 Music festival in Manchester. Champions League back on the horizon. Moses Itauma. Mowgli in Corn Exchange. Race Across the World back on. Corbieres. Not changed in years and still one of Manchester's best bars. Hope it never closes. Project Hail Mary. Book - The Only Plane in the Sky. New Jose Gonzalez album. Another rewatch of Ken Burns' Vietnam Documentary. Getting a new puppy in time for summer. Consistency with exercise.

Lincoln in the

Championship. Chelsea imploding.

& BAD

breaks. Trump having access to the nuclear codes. Non-stop rain in the hour before kick-offs this season. Evening kick-off times. The never-ending 115 saga. Everyone over 40 asking me if I've heard of a cool new band called Geese. Family members getting old and sick. De Ligt being out for who knows how long? Passport controls in the EU. Nice one, Brexit. Four weeks between home games. War.

A young crowd buzzing off Geese's gig at Victoria Warehouse. Social media companies being held to account. Stretfest - a free community festival two miles from Old Trafford. The normally very dull Metros on Moss Rd turned into a rave. Eccles Town Hall ballroom being used for big events. Richard Keys playing Alan Partridge. Tehran on Apple TV. Morrissey's new album. Steranko in Didsbury. Free coaches to Bournemouth. Employee Rights Bill. The right to protest and those who exercise it. Listening to opposition podcasts after they have lost. Watching the United youth teams/U21s/U18s academy. Lots of promising players, many playing 'up' beyond their years and great to see them playing well. David Hockney exhibition: A Year in Normandie.

Extended international

Cheating Chelsea getting a token punishment. Cairo hasslers and them fucking car horns. Maguire missing Leeds. New flatmate not understanding that you need to put rubbish in the bin, not on the shelf next to the front door. Watching people you thought were sound climb that greasy career ladder for themselves and kick everyone else back down it in the process to get a pay increase. Noticing a sliding-doors moment after it's too late. Aldi's wagyu burgers. Morrissey cancelling gigs. Hip Store closing (do one JD Sports). The AFCON Senegal/Morocco debacle. Fake keeper injuries. All players in centre circle and no coaching staff on playing area if it happens. Transfer 'journalists'. Aggregator accounts. Fuel prices.

Lammens reading UWS united we stand HE'S

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