The Busby Babes

One cold and bitter Thursday
in Munich, Germany
Eight great football stalwarts
conceded victory
Eight men will never play again
who met destruction there
The flowers of English football
the flowers of Manchester
Matt Busby's boys were flying
returning from Belgrade
This great United family
all masters of their trade
The pilot of the aircraft
the skipper Captain Thain
Three times they tried to take off
and twice turned back again
The third time down the runaway
disaster followed close
There was slush upon that runaway
and the aircraft never rose
It ploughed into the marshy ground
it broke, it overturned
And eight of the team were killed
as the blazing wreckage burned
Roger Byrne and Tommy Taylor
who were capped for England's side
And Ireland's Billy Whelan
and England's Geoff Bent died
Mark Jones and Eddie Colman
and David Pegg also
They all lost their lives
as it ploughed on through the snow
Big Duncan he went too
with an injury to his brain
And Ireland's brave Jack Blanchflower
will never play again
The great Matt Busby lay there
the father of his team
Three long months passed by
before he saw his team again
The trainer, coach and secretary
and a member of the crew
Also eight sporting journalists
who with United flew
and one of them Big Swifty
who we will ne'er forget
the finest English 'keeper
that ever graced the net
Oh, England's finest football team
its record truly great
its proud successes mocked
by a cruel turn of fate
Eight men will never play again
who met destruction there
The flowers of English football
the flowers of Manchester

Greater Manchester PCC-Another Publicly Funded Parasite

Tony Lloyd, not Shirley Williams

Last November the electorate showed what they think of our rulers' wonderful idea of Police and Crime Commissioners by not bothering to turn out to vote for them. That huge rejection was seen as a ringing  endorsement by our idiotic Prime Minister. That made him officially the biggest prat in the country.

But now, step forward Pillock Cynic and Clown  Police and Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester, former labour MP Tony Lloyd. Within eight months of garnering a pitiful percentage of the votes of the austerity hit electorate, he has decided he is so important that he needs a deputy on £55,000 a year.

In these austere times it's funny how our rulers always manage to find extra cash to splash while the rest of the country, living in the real world, have to tighten our belts.

If those holding public office in this country want our respect they'd better start bloody well earning it!

The Times They Are a-Changing

Northern Quarter or Ancoats?

Yesterday I was in Manchester. I walked from the city centre to my parents' home in Gorton, about three miles. It was a route, up Ashton Old Road, that many of us took home in our younger days after a night pubbing and clubbing. Over thirty years on I found myself growing nostalgic and thoughtful, as well as more knackered than I ever remember being all those years ago on the walk!

The first thing I found in Manchester was the St Patrick's Day parade. I'm afraid my view is that we should have these parades only when the Irish start having St George's Day parades, hopefully never! I find something cheap and tacky about supposedly sane people dressing up as leprechauns and wearing ludicrous Guiness hats. As for the claim to Irishness of people after drinking a pint of Guiness, don't get me started on that one. If you love Ireland so much it's only a short flight or boat crossing away.

So I decided to get out of the way of all these Plastic Paddies and headed to Ancoats. Except Ancoats has now been renamed the 'Northern Quarter'. Northern Quarter? What is it a quarter of? A quarter of the city centre maybe? A quarter of Ancoats? It's a ludicrously pretentious attempt to make parts of Manchester, and other English cities, sound  a little more exotic and continental. Fine in Paris but bloody hell, Manchester? Sorry, no, it's still Ancoats and should always remain Ancoats. It was the heart of industrial Manchester where terraced streets lived in the shadow of great Victorian mills, while not wanting it preserved in aspic, renaming it is cultural barbarianism and an insult to our heritage.

As I headed down Gt Ancoats St., maybe soon to be renamed Northern Quarter Boulevard, I decided to see if a great old pub called the Moulders Arms had survived the recent massacre of the great British pub. But no, not only is it shut but it is now the derelict site you see above. This was the sad story all the way up Ashton Old Road where most of the great old Victorian pubs have either been demolished or turned into white goods superstores or tile warehouses. The Seven Stars, one of my old granddad's many watering holes, seems to be just about surviving, but for how long?

Urban wasteland or Beswick?

I just about remember the old heavy engineering and steel works along the road around Beswick and Openshaw. My Aunty Agnes lived on a terraced street running off the Old Road opposite the works in Openshaw and I remember the hooter  sounding and seeing thousands of men swarming through the gates on push bikes or on foot to hop on one of the old Manchester Corporation buses lined up to take them home. Now there are green spaces on one side with tiny lego type houses and flats while there is still a high wall on the other hiding huge mounds of rubble where the factories used to stand.

Going back in time the greatest shock to those people, long gone, who lived in this part of Manchester when it was thriving would be the demographic change. In the hour or so my nostalgic meander took me I must have passed twenty or thirty people. Not a single one was a native English speaker. The only white people I heard speak were Polish or from some other Eastern European country. I couldn't help wondering what they must make of East Manchester. I know what older people left in East Manchester, who were here fifty or more years ago, think of it in 2013, and it's not very much. At least I could pop into the African and Asian foodstore, another former pub, to stock up on jerk seasoning.

Sunny Gorton

I once heard Billy Connolly telling how, living in Los Angeles, he used to get strong nostalgic longings for the Gorbals where he grew up in Glasgow. Eventually he went back feeling rather emotional but, like East Manchester, he found it had changed. He then had the realisation that what he was pining for was not actually the Gorbals, it was for that period in his life when he lived and grew up there. I know exactly what Billy Connolly meant after my nostalgia filled promenade up Ashton Old Road.

Magazine-Shot By Both Sides-In Seedy Manchester Clubs

Busy and can't be bothered ranting about anything, so thought I'd share one of the best tracks of the late seventies. Reminds of me of some seedy Manchester clubs such as the Cyprus Tavern, the Continental, the Ranch. Seedy but fantastic.

If you detect a hint of the Buzzcocks that might be because Howard Devoto (lead singer) was frontman after forming the Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley in 1975. Devoto left to form Magazine in 1977. Here goes:

Student Radicals or Pampered Brats?

There was the inevitable trouble in Manchester when the pampered brats, aka students, threw another temper tantrum. They think that their educatuion should be free, paid for by the taxes of checkout girls on minimum wage rather than their own taxes when they start earning over £22,000 or so.

What I found especially shocking was the treatment meted out to Aaron Porter, the Chairman of the National Union of Students. He had to be escorted from the rally at the end of the march by police for his own protection. His crime? He is a Tory apparently. But not being very bright the far-left students hurled anti-Semitic abuse at him too, thinking that the name Aaron is exclusively Jewish. Such nice people. Do you really want to waste your taxes trying to educate them?

They then started breaking up to avoid being kettled by the police. Kettling, if you don't know, is when the police surround a group and pen them in to stop them going on a violent rampage. This is because when they get tired of attacking the police and public buildings they go on the rampage atttacking businesses they claim don't pay a fair share of taxes. Presumably so the tax can be wasted on the students' pampered existences.

"What does mummy say?"-"Be nice to me or else!"

I accept the need for civil disobedience in extreme circumstances, tuition fees is not such a circumstance. Having said that let the students demonstrate but kettle them if it gets out of hand.

Putting it another way how would you feel if you were in Next with your kids doing some shopping and you were all terrified by a rampaging mob attacking the shop? That's why, when student demos, or any demos get out of hand, the police do what they have to do.

Over the decades I've been on many demos, none of which have led to the kind of violence we've seen in the current spate of student demos. If they had turned violent, and my parents had known I was involved, I would have got a good bollocking when I got home, even as a 21 year old student. But not these pampered little misfits, oh no. Today's students are defended by mummy and daddy who formed a group called Stop Kettling Our Kids.

Hardnosed far-left revolutionary thugs I might disagree with, but there is a grudging respect. Rupert and Tarquin hiding behind mummy and daddy when the police stop their fun? Do me a favour.

Manchester City Council-Still Slaves to Political Correctness

Today in Manchester the Lord Mayor opened the full council meting wearing leg irons and chains to mark anti-slavery day. What a pathetic and patronising gesture. Anti-slavery day is apparently on October 18th, but I suppose Manchester City Council just  couldn't wait.

It's about as pathetic as their statue of Abraham Lincoln on Brazennose Street. It bears an extract of a letter from Lincoln to 'the working men' of Manchester thanking them for their support during the US Civil War. But of course, the City Council know better than some old Yankee and have changed the wording on the staue to 'the working people' of Manchester.

Still, as long as the nitwits of Manchester vote Labour the world will continue to get an occasional laugh at the stupidity of Manchester City Council and its voters.

The Jam, The Electric Circus and Tony Wilson

I've just found The Jam In The City at the legendary Electric Circus in Manchester. In addition it is introduced by Tony Wilson aka Anthony Wilson aka Anthony H. Wilson, sadly no longer with us. Neither is Manchester's Electrc Circus come to that.



That appearance can't have been long before the authorities forced the closure of the Electric Circus, 1977 I think.

Manchester City FC

Before you carry on this is not my usual venomous attack on Manchester's smaller club. I will actually admit to having a few friends and three cousins who support 'the dark side' of Manchester, and I feel very sorry for them at the moment, as I actually do for all genuine City fans.

In 2005 a few thousand of us threw in our season tickets at Old Trafford in protest at the Glazer takeover of our beloved United. In reality the Glazers were the final straw, many of us had become pissed off with the ever growing commercialisation of the game, with Sky dictating kick of times and their money meaning clubs could afford to increasingly treat the fans like serfs while going for the high paying corporate 'customer'. Our clubs had become corporate monsters, a consequence of the mid-1980s when the FA turned their backs on their own rules as first Tottenham, then others, ceased to be football clubs and became PLCs, out to do nothing more than make a profit, then more profit and even more profit no matter how. Indeed Eric Cantona cited excessive commercialisation, especially of his name and image, as one of the reasons for his premature retirement.

In 2004 one of the biggest watersheds happened, the ultimate kick in the face for football's true fans. Wimbledon FC became an American style franchise and were moved to Milton Keynes, becoming the hated bastard club that is 'MK Dons'. Football had finally sold its soul. But the takeover of Wimbledon had spawned, in 2002, AFC Wimbledon, a club set up by true football fans, owned and run by them and now riding high in the Blue Square Premier.

Those of us in Manchester who had spurned United in 2005, after following them for decades home and away and throughout Europe, needed a new home. It felt like a particularly awful divorce. No more Old Trafford where I'd spent many happy, and some thoroughly miserable Saturdays since the early 1960s. No more terrifying experiences at derby games or at West Ham, or being tear gassed by French police in Lyon. No more flights from Manchester with my dad to see them in Athens, Munich, Madrid or Milan et al. What now?

A group of dedicated lads had already been thinking of a breakaway club since the early '90s, when Rupert Murdoch was circling like a shark. So the blueprint was dusted off and with help from AFC Wimbledon, Supporters Direct and others FC United of Manchester was born.

So back to City. One of the people advising on the birth of FC United was a Manchester City fan and journalist, David Conn. If you care about football and only make one resolution for 2010 please resolve to read his book The Beautiful Game? Searching the Soul of Football. It really is gut wrenching reading for the fans of any professional football club in the country.

Yesterday I had the misfortune to see Roberto Mancini's press conference when he was unveiled as the new manager of Manchester City. He seems a pleasant enough fella but, bear in mind, he has been in negotiations these last three weeks to become their manager while Mark Hughes was still managing them, and only losing two games this season. My view is that given the time United gave Alex Ferguson, Hughes could have succeeded, but that's for City fans to argue about.

What really made me wretch was the arrogant bastard called Garry Cook, the Chief Executive of Manchester City. Personally I wouldn't buy a penny Arrowbar off the creep and I suggest that Mancini keeps checking regularly between his shoulder blades.

Cook is one of those grey suited twats who seem to have no interest or awareness of football, but could have an orgasm at the sight of a healthy balance sheet. He kept stating how City are just like any other 'business'. Well tell that to somebody who was watching City from the Kippax in the '60s and '70s you nobhead. As Shankly said: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that." But Cook will never understand that statement, and I doubt he is human enough to even detect the irony.

He then explained the sacking of Hughes by explaining how they had done a "trajectory" of points for the rest of the season. That "trajectory" showed Hughes falling short of their targets at the end of the season. Well there speaks an accountant with no soul, no knowledge of human nature and less knowledge of football. Using Cook's "trajectory" method Wimbledon FC wouldn't have even entered the FA Cup in 1988, after all they could never win it. Could they? Wimbledon again.

So if, God forbid, I were a Manchester City fan I would now, if I hadn't already, be looking for another club. After all, Maine Road FC, formed by the City supporters club, is still going strong in the Vodkat League, where FC United were playing until a couple of seasons ago.

More and more fans around the country are turning away from the top flight, and it is actually very refreshing. Yes, occasionally you miss visits to the big clubs of England and Europe. But if I can't get to see FC United now, the next best thing is a trip to the Giant Axe, home of Lancaster City FC.

And I'm enjoying football more than ever now.

PS I've just found out that Cook's "trajectory", the one he cited Hughes as not being on target to achieve, was 70 points by the end of the season. They are currently on 29 points after 17 of 38 games. If they win their two outstanding games they will be on 35 points at the halfway stage. Perhaps Cook just finds the name Mancini more glamorous than Hughes. Or perhaps he thinks it's still only 2 points for a win!

Manchester Jewish Museum

Manchester Jewish Museum is one of those little gems that many people, even born and bred Mancunians, are unaware of. I heard yesterday that it is in serious financial difficulty and could close in the spring of 2010. The BBC cover the story here.

I came across the museum a few years ago when I was doing some research into the history of fascism in the Manchester and Salford area. They have a tremendous oral history project chronicling the history of Manchester's Jewish community, their archive holds hundreds of interviews with people who arrived in Manchester early in the twentieth century, and many with those who stood up to the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s when Manchester and Salford were a particular stronghold for Mosley.

To lose this treasure would be terrible and I would urge anybody visiting Manchester to visit and support the museum. If not I am sure they would appreciate a donation so that the museum can be saved for when you do one day visit Manchester.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

I love to see a bully get his comeuppance, especially when it's on my old stomping ground, Gorton in Manchester.

The footage below was taken outside the Gorton Mount pub on Mount Road, Gorton. It's where my Auntie Kath had her wedding reception in the mid-1960s. I was a page boy, about 5 years old but remember it well amazingly. The area was pretty tough even then, but nothing compared to today.

Anyway, here is a gang member proving what a nobhead he actually is. Enjoy:



And a pint for the fat fella who got the gun off him, Gorton's very own Harry Callahan!!

Magazine-Song From Under The Floorboards

I heard this classic on BBC Radio 2 yesterday as I was driving through my old stomping ground of East Manchester. I was probably there when I heard it for the first time a thousand years ago. Well, in 1981.

It still sounds so good I thought it was only right to share it:



More on Howard Devoto and Magazine here.

Patronising The Peasants

I was right, and my beloved was less than impressed. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess because she married a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, flounced into Wythenshawe and made herself look a right pillock to anybody who didn't grow up in an ivory tower with a silver spoon up their jacksy! How's that for mixing metaphors?

She and her PR lackeys no doubt, decided to make her look like the next drooling 'queen of hearts' by heading to a big council estate to open a community centre. That it was it really but she kept whining on about biting off more than she could chew. Get a life you sad old bag. In the midst of this social and economic desert she finds a bastion of morality to appoint as her right hand woman, enter fat ugly bird who can't get a CRB check because, on behalf of her spoilt little brats, she smacked another mother about after pulling half her hair out.

But the saintly Fergie forgave her and made her head honcho. Just hope Fergie pisses her off in the next episode and receives a good slap herself. No wonder the people of Wythenshawe are pissed off with it all.

Wythenshawe and the Duchess

My beloved grew up in Wythenshawe and her parents still live there. She maintains it's a tough but solid part of Manchester, I claim it's soft and is really in leafy Cheshire rather than real Manchester. I maintain that Gorton Manchester, where I grew up, is much tougher. We both agree that both places have problems but they are basically sound.

Looks like Duchess Fergie is off to patronise the peasants of Wythenshawe on telly tonight though, so others can decide how grim it is, or isn't. Having seen the trailers it looks sadly like it will be condescending, stereotypical bullshit in the extreme.

As it's next to Manchester Airport why not visit for your next holiday. I know a lovely little council house with a spare bedroom in Woodhouse Park, then you can make your own mind up.

Bet the snooty cow won't be venturing into Gorton for Part II!

Oh Manchester, So Much To Answer For.

The Times reports on Islamist terror groups' use of fake colleges to smuggle terrorists into the country. That's a strange departure as, up until now, they've always used British lads from Luton or Bradford. But there you go, our security services must be right, they did assure us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction didn't they?

What particularly struck me was that much of the report centres on East Manchester, where I grew up. Roughly speaking that means Gorton, Levenshulme, Openshaw and out to Tameside which includes Hyde and Hattersley. I can't help imagining the high dudgeon of the local citizens, indignant that Al Qaeda should lower the tone of East Manchester in such a terrible way.

Of course they are forgetting that Openshaw saw one of the first IRA murders on the mainland in the 1970s, outside my local as it happens. That Gorton, Hattersley, Hyde and Ashton-under-Lyne were where the Moors Murderers did their evil deeds. That Hyde was where Harold Shipman had his surgery. I'm bloody sure that he, and the previous events, did a great deal more to lower the tone of the neighbourhood than a few more terrorist raids that will probably lead to nowt but a few illegals, as also happened recently in North Manchester.

My parents always harp back, bless 'em, to the golden days when you could leave your front door open, not like theses days. I always have to check with them if by that they mean the 1950s, the decade when they suffered their only ever burglary and one grim night heard the screams of a woman being murdered in a nearby alley.

I suppose we all have our coping mechanisms. Mine is Morrissey and The Smiths so here we go:

Manchester Must Be Punished

Last year Manchester told Her Majesty's Government to bugger off, in a quite spectacular way too. They voted against the imposition of a congestion charge. The government were very pissed off not to say angry.

How dare people see that their arguments about the environment were crap.

How dare people see that their argument, that if Mancunians said 'No' the government would not fund the new metrolink to the airport, was blackmail.

How dare people see that it was just yet another tax on motorists.

So Mancunians are now being punished by being given the chance to have a voluntary ID card before anybody else in the country. Well thanks for nothing. It's time all Mancunians had their nails done so they look good when they wave two fingers, or a single middle finger, at the government yet again. Don't fall for it!!

And good luck to the airline pilots fighting against the sneaking in of governemnt ID cards.
Full Story Here

More Class From Manchester

Congestion Lies

A report in Manchester Online proves how the government and the 'Yes' campaigners in Manchester lied about the level of congestion. While they lied about possible gridlock traffic levels were actually going down.

Sean Corker of Manchester Against Road Tolls, said: "Tens of millions of pounds were spent on the congestion charge plans over a two-year campaign, and now we are told congestion is going down.

"Someone has not been telling the truth and it is time somebody resigned."

Thankfully the overwhelming majority of Mancunians had the good sense to vote against the proposed congestion charge in December. All we need to do now is scrap bus lanes, chicanes, speed humps and traffic lights. Hey presto, congestion will virtually disappear.

Sometimes I Just Can't Be Bothered!

I've had a really busy day in Manchester, where the snow was much heavier than here in North Lancashire. I had to leave home earlier than is natural and intended blogging this evening but after a tough but exciting day, I just can't be bothered.

So when Mrs B gets home it's jerk chicken with a bit of salad, a glass of water as we are trying to be a little healthier these days, and a night of TV (Whitechapel) and a catch up on my current Joe Nesbo novel, The Devil's Star.

Just one thing I thought of today. I wonder if all these workers who are on strike because of foreign labour support football teams that only have English players?

Deluded People and Conmen

I cannot get excited about what is happening in Washington today. The US election was like some sort of second rate reality TV show, 'Who's Got the Pres Factor?' or something similar.

What really worries me is that all he seems to have been elected for was being 'black', although his white momma might have something to say there, and for constantly gobbing off about the need for 'change'. What concerns me is that nobody in the States seems to have asked what that change actually is.

What about the overt racism? The hysterical assumption throughout the world, not just in the USA, that because he is black he is good and will be a great president. Why?

Finally on Obama, if Bono is over there grovelling and crawling then he must be a complete shit! I would go so far as to say that Obama is as big a conman as Bono, but more scary considering his position.

Step forward the next international conman in the news today, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City Football Club. He did a great 'Obama' on the football world. Poor deluded City fans fell for the waffle, yet again, that they were about to become the richest and therefore best football club in the world. After all they were buying Brazilian genius Kaka for an obscene £100,000,000 weren't they? But what they got instead was Craig Bellamy, a £12,000,000 Welsh misfit.

Still the great Sheikh bought them the £32,000,000 genius Robinho didn't he? Except it is reported today that Robinho has thrown a tantrum and run off to Brazil.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

But then there are Yanks and Manchester City fans.............

Boris Was Right!

What a fantastic weekend. Caught up with my old mate Steve in Sheffield on Friday for a cracking pre-Christmas Chicken Madras, not far from Hillsbrough which is one of my favourite football grounds.

On Saturday I went to Bury to watch FC United beat the Scousers from Marine FC. If you don't know then Marine are based in Crosby, described as the 'posh' bit of Liverpool. That really means it's the part of Livrpool where the real Scousers go to burgle and rob off wealthier people than themselves.

Which reminded me how right Boris Johnson was when he savaged Liverpool a few years back, and how cowardly and hypocritical he was to grovel and apologise because the Scousers whinged. People from outside Manchester often ask why Mancunians dislike Scousers with such intensity. It's basically because they rob, steal, murder and maim each other then wallow in self-pity and victimhood and blame the rest of the world. Even when one of them is found guilty of attempting to murder a Bulgarian waiter Scousers organise a campaign and manage to turn him into the victim.

Mancunians on the other hand just enjoy a good party and having a good time. Of course the government puritans have now announced that Manchester has the highest level of drink related illness in the country, they always have to look for a negative! No, we just party harder than anywhere else. I'd rather die of cirrhosis in Manchester than an overdose of dodgy coacaine in Liverpool or a stabbing by a 10 year old Scouser on a mountain bike he'd pinched.

So what got me onto this train of thought? Apart from FCUM beating Marine it was going to see James at Manchester Central last night. We went for a Turkish meal before one of the best concerts I've been to, other than Morrissey, for years. The restaurants were packed with people going on to see James or to the Arena to see Elton John, typifying Manchester on a Saturday night. I couldn't help thinking that while Manchester was partying Liverpool would have been full of people buying cocaine from ice-cream vans and stabbing each other. Shame on you Boris.

Which reminds me of the old joke. What do Scouse girls use for protection during sex? A bus shelter.

And finally. Did you know that Sheffield, like Rome, is built on seven hills?