Onside - Chronicles of a Football Lover #1

“She’s not Rachel.”

It’s hard to not be angry with Ross for the list even as he knocks on a closed door knowing he destroyed what he had wanted for so long. But for me that small piece of paper perfectly defined me since 2003 when I saw Manchester United take on Arsenal.

I don’t think I knew many choice words at that time. But I knew anger.

April 2003. I was sitting infront of the tv still trying to figure out the best team in England since I decided to take interest in football post the World Cup. And the EPL was where it was at. Arsenal were the title holders while Manchester United, a curiously persistent team, came to their den named Highbury to snatch the trophy away. United started well, with their wonderful forward Ruud Van Nistelrooy clipping the ball over the hapless goalkeeper. But then soon were dragged back by a fortuitous goal by Thierry Henry.

I chuckle a bit as I write that. ‘Fortuitous’. How biases cloud our mind – I could easily have said a scrappy and deserved goal for the pressure they were exerting. But the 27 year old me is very different from the 12 year old I was back then. Maybe I was more impartial.

But then impartiality went out the window.

1-1 with the title on the line, Henry, the man I had grown to despise during the World Cup, got the ball from the midfield and clear, pushed it past Barthez. 2-1.

No.

Replays showed that it was offside. While I was a novice when the World Cup started, I knew what an offside now was.

And that was it. My mother must have been scared out of her wits when she heard the scream. She still doesn’t understand it, I think – cause it’s the same refrain I get even today.

“It’s just two teams playing son. Why are you getting angry?”

Why mom. Why?

Because it was unfair. Because United were fighting – and they didn’t deserve that. And even amidst that argument I was about to present, United answered it for me.

Solksjaer, who I would later come to know as the folklore hero of 99, from the right wing swept in a cross and Giggsy, oh Giggsy, put it in like the floating butterfly and stinging bee all rolled into one.

Justice had been earned. And love had been gotten. The title would be found as well some weeks later.

It’s been almost 15 years since that day. Since a child erupted in anger at a goal for the first time in his life. When inside a few minutes, hate and love had been crafted into his heart.

But if you were Chandler and Joey and asked me to make a list now, I can find a lot of things. Doesn’t play attractive football. Living on the joy of past glories. Buys titles. Chokers. I can be as rational as Ross tried to be.

And yet when I come to the column of every other club, it will be the same sentence I write, no matter how old I get – the angry child of 12 or the somber adult of 27. For that child comes out every moment we score. Every moment we concede. Every time we win. Every time we lose. And I hear the familiar tune start playing.

“It’s not Manchester United.”