Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at Old Trafford Football Ground located just outside of the city boundaries of Manchester, Lancashire. The club is one of the most successful clubs in England, having won the FA Premier League/Football League fifteen times, FA Cup eleven times and the European Cup/UEFA Champions League twice. The club has had the highest average attendance in English football for the majority of the past fifty seasons.

The club was formed as Newton Heath (L&YR) F.C. in 1878 as the works team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. After nearing bankuptcy in 1902, the club was taken over by J.H. Davies who changed its name to Manchester United. United appointed Sir Matt Busby as manager after the Second World War, and his then-unheard-of policy of producing most of the players through the club's youth team brought great success, with the club winning the Football League in 1956 and 1957. This success was halted by the Munich air disaster of 1958, in which eight of the club's players died. It was thought that the club might fold, but once Busby had recovered from his injuries he built another great team which went on to win the football league in 1965 and 1967, and became the first English winners of the European Cup in 1968.

The club did not see great success again until the 1990s and early 2000s, when Sir Alex Ferguson guided them to eight league championships in eleven years. In 1999, Manchester United became the first team to win the FA Premier League, the FA Cup and the European Cup in the same season — a record that has still not been equalled. The club had been run as a Public Limited Company since 1991, and a takeover was a real possiblility. An attempted takeover by Rupert Murdoch had been blocked by the British Government in 1999, but in 2005 Malcolm Glazer completed a hostile takeover of the club, despite considerable protests from many of United's supporters.


History

Early years (1878-1945)

The club were formed as Newton Heath (Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway) (Newton Heath (L&YR) for short) by a group of Manchester railway workers in 1878. The name was soon shortened to Newton Heath and became locally known as 'the Heathens' (hence the later nickname of 'the Red Devils'). They were founder members of the Football Alliance in 1889 and joined the Football League in 1892 when it merged with the Football Alliance.

The earliest known film of Manchester United is the 2–0 victory at Burnley on 6 December 1902, filmed by Mitchell and Kenyon.

The club faced bankruptcy in 1902 and was rescued by J.H. Davies who paid off the club's debts and changed the name to Manchester United, changing the team's colours from gold and green to red and white. With their new name, they won the league in 1908 and the FA Cup on April 26, 1909 against Bristol City at Crystal Palace. Then with financial assistance from Davies, United moved from Bank Street to a new stadium at Old Trafford in 1910. They won the Championship for the second time in 1911.

The team struggled between the first and second world wars, and by time the second world war began they were £70,000 in debt.


The Busby years (1945-1969)

Matt Busby was appointed manager in 1945 and took a then-unheard of approach to his job, joining the players for training as well as performing administrative tasks. He was immediately successful, with the club finishing second in the league in 1947 and winning the FA Cup in 1948.

He adopted a policy of bringing in players from the youth team whenever possible, and the team won the league in 1956 with an average age of only 22. The following season, they won the league again and reached the FA Cup final, losing to Aston Villa. They also became the first English team to compete in the European Cup, and reached the semi-final.

Tragedy struck the following season, when the plane carrying the team home from a European Cup match crashed on take off at a refuelling stop in Munich. The Munich air disaster of 6 February 1958 claimed the lives of eight players and another fifteen passengers. There was talk of the club folding but, with Jimmy Murphy taking over as manager while Matt Busby recovered from his injuries, the club continued playing with a makeshift side. They somehow reached the FA Cup final again, where they lost to Bolton.

Busby rebuilt the team throughout the early 1960s, signing players such as Denis Law and Pat Crerand. The team won the FA Cup in 1963, then won the league in 1965 and 1967 and the European Cup in 1968, the first English Club to do so. This team was notable for containing three European Footballers of the Year: Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best. Busby resigned as manager in 1969 and was replaced by the reserve-team coach and former United player Wilf McGuinness.


1969-1986

United struggled to replace Busby, and the team struggled under Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell before Tommy Docherty became manager at the end of 1972. Docherty, or 'the Doc', saved United from relegation that season but United were relegated in 1974. The team won promotion at the first attempt and reached the FA Cup final in 1976, but were beaten by Southampton. They reached the final again in 1977, beating Liverpool and preventing their opponents from completing the first ever treble, which United would go on to win in 1999. In spite of this success, and his popularity with the supporters, Docherty was sacked soon after the final when he was found to have had an affair with the physiotherapist's wife.

Dave Sexton replaced Docherty as manager in the summer of 1977, and made the team play in a more defensive formation. This style was unpopular with supporters, who were used to the attacking football preferred by Docherty and Busby, and after failing to win a trophy Sexton was sacked in 1981.

He was replaced by the flamboyant Ron Atkinson who immediately broke the British record transfer fee to sign Bryan Robson from West Brom. Atkinson's team featured new signings such as Jesper Olsen and Gordon Strachan playing alongside the former youth-team players Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes. United won the FA Cup in 1983 and 1985 and were overwhelming favourites to win the league in the 1985-86 season after winning their first ten league games, opening a ten-point gap over their rivals as early as October. The team's form collapsed, however, and United finished the season in fourth place. The poor form continued into the following season, and with United on the edge of the First Division's relegation zone, Atkinson was sacked.


The Alex Ferguson era, pre-treble (1986-1998)

Alex Ferguson replaced Atkinson and guided the club to an 11th place finish. The following season (1987-88), United finished second, with Brian McClair becoming the first United player since George Best to score twenty league goals in a season.

However, United struggled badly throughout 1989, with many of Ferguson's signings not reaching the expectations of the fans. There was speculation that Ferguson would be sacked at the beginning of 1990 but a win in the third round of the FA Cup over Nottingham Forest kept the season alive and United went on to win the competition.

United won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1990-91, beating that season's Spanish champions Barcelona in the final, but the following season was a disappointment for United as a late season slump saw them miss out on the league to rivals Leeds United. Meanwhile in 1991 the club had floated on the London Stock Exchange with a valuation of £18 million, thus bringing its finances into the public eye as never before.

The arrival of Eric Cantona in November 1992 provided the crucial spark for United, and they finished the 1992-93 season as Champions for the first time since 1967. They won the double (the league and the FA Cup) for the first time the following season, but legendary manager and club president Matt Busby died that year, on 20 January 1994.

In 1994-95, Cantona received an eight month suspension for jumping into the crowd and assulting Crystal Palace supporter Matthew Simmons. Drawing their last league match and losing to Everton in the FA Cup final left United as runners-up in both the league and FA Cup. Ferguson then outraged the supporters by selling key players and replacing them with players from the club's youth team, including David Beckham and Paul Scholes. The new players, several of whom quickly became regular internationals, did surprisingly well and United won the double again in 1995-96.

They won the league in 1997, and Eric Cantona, announced his retirement from football at the age of 30, several years earlier than most players. They started the following season (1997-98) well but their results were affected by a series of injuries and they finished the season in second place, behind the double winning champions Arsenal.


The treble (1998-99)

1998-99 was the most successful season in the club's history as United became the first English team to win The Treble - the league, the FA Cup and the Champions League in the same season. (See The Treble for an explanation of different types of "Treble" or Manchester United Treble for a more in-depth look at the 1998-1999 season.) The final of the Champions League, widely regarded as the one of the greatest finals ever, was especially exciting as United were trailing 1-0 with one minute to go, but two goals from corners in stoppage time gave them a win over Bayern Munich (The only team ever to have come from behind to win a Champions League final in normal time.) The club's first choice central-midfielders, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, missed the match through suspension. Ferguson was knighted for his contributions to British football as a result.


After the treble (1999-present)

United won the league by record margins in 2000 and 2001 but the press saw these seasons as failures as they failed to regain the European Cup. Ferguson adopted more defensive tactics to make United harder to beat in Europe but it was not a success and United finished the season in third place in 2002. They regained the league the following season (2002-03) and started the following season well, but their form dropped significantly when Rio Ferdinand received an eight month suspension for missing a drugs test. They did win the 2004 F.A. Cup, however, knocking out Arsenal (that season's eventual champions) on their way to the final.

The 2004-05 season was characterised by a failure to score goals, mainly due to the injury of striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and United finished the season trophyless and in third place in the league. This time, even the "consolation prize" of the F.A. Cup eluded them — although they completely outplayed Arsenal and had a Rio Ferdinand goal disallowed in one of the most one-sided finals ever seen and were beaten on penalties. Off the pitch, the main story was the possibility of the club being taken over and at the end of the season, Tampa businessman Malcolm Glazer acquired a controlling interest in the club. United made a poor start to the 2005-06 season, with team captain Roy Keane leaving the club to join his boyhood heroes Celtic after publicly criticising several of his teammates, and the club failed to qualify for the knock-out phase of the UEFA Champions League for the first time in over a decade.

In the January 2006 transfer window, the club signed Nemanja Vidic from Spartak Moscow, a Serbia-Montenegran defender and a member of the national side's "famous four" defensive line that conceded only one goal in all of it's World Cup Qualifying games. Another January signing was Patrice Evra from AS Monaco, who turned down both Liverpool and Arsenal to move to Old Trafford.

As of February 11th 2006, United are 12 points behind Chelsea (after Chelsea deservedly lost 0-3 to Middlesbrough) in the Premiership title race and will need something little short of a miracle if they are to prevent Jose Mourinho's giants from retaining the title. But they are about to face Wigan Athletic in the League Cup final and have qualified for the F.A Cup Fifth Round, so there is still a good chance of United salvaging something from the 2005-06 season.


The Malcolm Glazer takeover

Main article: Malcolm Glazer takeover of Manchester United

On May 13, 2005, the United States of America businessman Malcolm Glazer acquired a controlling interest in the club in a takeover valuing it at approximately £800 million ($1.47 billion). On May 16, he increased his share to the 75% necessary to delist the club from the Stock Exchange, taking it private again, and announced his intention to do so within 20 days. On 7 June he appointed his sons Joel, Avrum, and Bryan to the board with Joel becoming Exectuive Co Chairman, Avram Non Exective Co Chairman and Bryan a Non Executive Director, at the same time Sir Roy Gardner resigned the chairmanship, and two other non-executive directors resigned.

Some United fans have expressed concern that in the fallout from the Glazer takeover, which left the club £265 million in debt, Manchester United will no longer have the money to compete in the transfer market with the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea. The Glazers have promised that Sir Alex Ferguson will still be able to purchase "big-name" players.


Support

Before the Second World War, few English football supporters travelled to away games because of the time and cost. As United and City played home matches on alternate Saturdays, many Mancunians would watch United one week and City the next. After the war, a stronger rivalry developed and it became more common for a supporter to choose one team to follow exclusively.

When United won the league in 1956, they had the highest average home attendance in the league, a record that had been held by Newcastle for the previous few years. Following the Munich air disaster in 1958, more people from outside Manchester began to support United and, as travel became quicker and cheaper, many started to go to matches. This swelled United’s support and is one reason why United have had the highest league attendances in English football for almost every season since then, even as a second division side in 1974-75.

A 2002 report, Do You Come From Manchester? indicate that Manchester City have a higher proportion of season ticket holders living in the Manchester area, althogh they sold fewer season tickets overall. The club estimates they have 675 million fans around the world, with 80 million fans in Asia alone.

In the late 1990s and early part of the 2000s, an increasing source of concern for many United supporters was the possibility of the club being taken over. The supporters’ group IMUSA (Independent Manchester United Supporters' Association) were extremely active in opposing a proposed takeover by Rupert Murdoch in 1999. Another pressure group, Shareholders United Against Murdoch (which became Shareholders United and is now the Manchester United Supporters Trust) was formed at around this time to encourage supporters to buy shares in the club, partly to enable supporters to have a greater say in the issues that concern them, such as ticket prices and allocation, and partly to reduce the risk of an unwanted party buying enough shares to take over the club. However, this scheme failed to prevent Malcolm Glazer from becoming the majority shareholder in the club. Many supporters were outraged, and some formed a new club called F.C. United of Manchester. The new club plays in the North West Counties League Second Division, and attracts an average attendance of almost 3000.

Although the full effects of Glazer's takeover on the club's support are not yet known, the club has claimed a record number of season ticket sales, however, given the many empty seats in the ground in some European games and lack of freedom of information from the club, this is as yet unverified.