My Beautiful Game is a place for people we like to describe their perfect football match. Our guests get to choose everything that would add up to make their ideal game. Teams, year, ground, players, score, what they’re wearing, who they’re going with, what they’re drinking, where they’re heading afterwards.
This week, we’ve invited John Brewin. You probably recognise him from the Football Weekly podcast, and John has been out on the road covering football for more than 20 years. He’s also a Manchester United fan, with Fergie, Scholesy and other names heard (quite) long ago, all featuring heavily below…
I'm going to watch…
I’m an exiled, emotionally distanced Manchester United fan. I’m not one of those football reporters who pretends he doesn’t have allegiances. I have also followed my hometown club, Macclesfield, since 1989. There could barely be two more disparate teams to have watched; Macc usually struggled in the Football League. It’s more fun now they have reformed and are charging up non-league, though awful—tragic even—what was allowed to happen to my old club.
I like Robbie Savage, Macc’s manager. There, I said it. I think his heart’s in the right place, though I was walking back from Moss Rose recently with my brother, and the sound of a jet engine interrupted our conversation. Turned out it was Robbie in his Lamborghini.
If I were to be transported back to any era, it would be mid-1990s football, before business—the Glazers, Abramovich, Abu Dhabi, venture capital—properly took hold at United. I stood on the Stretford Paddock in the last couple of seasons before Old Trafford was rebuilt in 1992, and Giggs, Scholes, Butt and the rest of the Class of ‘92 were relatable local lads not much older than you—you could imagine running into them down the pub. Occasionally, that did actually happen, though never a Neville. I once saw Posh and Becks going into the chippy in Alderley Edge; she was a regular there, I’m told.
In the Stretford End, I’d watch Paul Scholes pinging passes in the unfussy manner of someone working at Kwik Fit, and yet he was one of the best players in the world. We were spoiled. The best nights were the European nights, usually against Juventus. So bring on Juventus.
