In any serious relationship, severe, earnest energy is expended on getting and being got, and football fans are no different. In the guise of their club, which, despite it all, is still constituted by them, they evaluate its apprehension by interlopers; whether players and managers understand who they represent, and the consequent duties incumbent upon them.
Despite plenty of pontificating and prevaricating, rarely are these notions complex, or even unique; clubs are distinguished far more by history than principle. In the case of Manchester United, the requirements, more or less, are fast, attacking play, fighting spirit, youthfulness, attitude and zest.
These were values personified by Matt Busby, a man who understood from personal and professional experience that football is only football – and yet, at the same time, a whole lot more. “I love its drama,” he wrote, “its smooth playing skills, its carelessly laid rhythms, and the added flavour of contrasting styles. Its great occasions are, for me at any rate, unequalled in the world of sport. I feel a sense of romance, wonder and mystery, a sense of beauty and a sense of poetry. On such occasions, the game has the timeless, magical qualities of legend.”
The narrative aspects that he invokes define not just football, or even sport, but the vast majority of human interests and obsessions: consider art, literature, music, gaming, politics, psychoanalysis and gossip. And at the centre of each is a cast of performers who provoke, inform, compel and engage, altering emotions and intellects – often forever.
As such, their impact and influence is significant, and the best of them come to symbolise values that extend beyond their basic function. For example, Eric Cantona’s canonisation owes as much to his altercation with Matthew Simmons – an act that almost certainly cost his club a league title – as to the four that he delivered.
All of this explains why Louis van Gaal is the perfect replacement for David Moyes and Sir Alex Ferguson – United all over, even if he fails. And though his pedigree suggests this to be unlikely, it also fortifies him with an important degree of levity, because his career will not be defined by it. Should he succeed, he will still boast finer achievements; should he not, his reputation will get by.
Particular personalities suit particular positions. Those that have worked at United are covered by an umbrella term unprintable in a family newspaper, but defined as “one that is formidable” by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. In this milieu, the trait is defined by consuming, contagious, charismatic confidence, underpinned by paternal warmth and dispassionate ruthlessness – or, put another way, Louis van Gaal.
The men who succeeded Busby – Wilf McGuinness and Frank O’Farrell – were very different. McGuinness lacked authority and O’Farrell presence, known as a quiet man. And, like Iain Duncan Smith, he was unable to impose his authority upon a rowdy rabble in thrall to past glories.
On the other hand, the brash animation of Tommy Docherty, next in the post, manifested itself on the pitch and transmitted to the stands. This allowed him to remain when United were relegated, after which he led them back up as champions, to consecutive cup finals, and a near miss in the league.
But the controversial circumstances surrounding his sacking prompted a cautious board to appoint the cautious Dave Sexton. He lasted just under three years, dismissed following a run of seven consecutive wins; the football was dull, and therefore intolerable according to Busby’s credo.
Ron Atkinson, on the other hand, understood that style is integral to substance, even if he was too absorbed in his own – a frippery held against him as soon as things went wrong. But, in the meantime, United twice won the FA Cup and twice entertained their way into title-winning positions, as well as supplying some memorable European nights.
After him arrived Ferguson, a man inspired as much as daunted by Busby’s legacy. His confrontational nature and rhetorical skill meant that even when the football was tedious, which it frequently was, he was not. Crucially, he recognised that Manchester United must never be boring – and really, there exist few more damning insults in any context.
Indeed, since survival became more assumption than objective, much of the human project can be viewed as a treatise against exactly this. Broadly speaking, boredom is why sport was invented, its name taken from an archaic word that meant “a source of amusement and entertainment”. Nowadays, people seek it relentlessly in almost everything that they do, a mania illustrated, say, by the presence of books in toilets and smartphones in pockets.
Under Van Gaal, Manchester United will not only amuse, but entertain. He is aggressive, imaginative and charming and his teams are aggressive, imaginative and charming, reliably serving their principal purpose: captivating a captive audience.
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