THE AUTHOR  

I'm the one on the far right in the strip - the first one I bought after 4 years of saving up!  

Okay, true confessions time. When I first started to get to know football, I supported both Manchester United and Liverpool (Gasp! Shock! Horror!). The year was 1985, and I was 7. We had  arrived in England from Malaysia the year before, and we lived in a football-team-less city - Durham. Well, perhaps they did have one, but the team never made it to the leagues, at least not yet.

So anyway, I liked watching Liverpool play because they had this superb striker, some Welsh bloke called Ian Rush. Man, can he bang them in. It was pure bliss just watching him slam them home. But at the same time, there was another player who caught my eye - some bloke with a dodgy haircut and brittle bones called Bryan Robson. He never scored as many goals as Rush did, but I loved the way he was always in command of his team - Manchester United. He was such a strong figure - commanding, always ready to take charge, always played on even when the results weren't in United's favour - which, in those days, was quite often.

It often came down to the Match of the Day games where United would play Liverpool, and I'd be all mixed up. Yes, I wanted Rush to score some more goals, but I wanted United to win as well. In the end I usually just shut the telly off - couldn't stand the anticipation. I was only 7, mind you. Of course, there came the time when one had to choose a team to support, really. My friends were egging me on because of my 'lack of loyalty' - being a foreigner I was unfamiliar with the Manc-Scouse sentiments. I kinda fancied Liverpool because they were winning, but United to me were a wee bit stronger. More spirited, more collected - couldn't beat the team spirit.

And then the inevitable happened. Ian Rush left for Juventus. There wasn't much to watch Liverpool for anymore - well, there was the Rush lookalike John Aldridge but he was crap. Without Rush, there no longer was a spark in the Liverpool team, so I basically gave them up. Rush did come back, but he was no longer as lethal as he was, and by then I had fallen in love with Captain Marvel and his Band of Merry Men at Old Trafford. There was no looking back, really.

It's a bit of a relief, looking at matters in retrospect, that Rush left for Juventus. And Robbo stuck on at Old Trafford. Because if matters were reversed, I could be a Liverpool fan today. Perish the thought! Oh well, they say all things happen for a reason.

That's of course, about me and United. For my personal website, surf on over to http://members.xoom.com/adderz.

 

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