United, funny stories.

Partizan

As a slight diversion on waiting for Sunday post your funny stories about United's history, players, matches and fans.

One of Wilf McGuinness's first games for United's first eleven was against Wolves at Molyneux, after Sir Matt had done his usual speech to the troops about passing to a red shirt, Jimmy Murphy came in to really wind them up, "McGuinness, what will you be spending your win bonus on" Wilf muttered something about saving up for a new car, "Bollocks lad, you'll be bying your Mother some flowers and chocolates" Wilf agreed, "Now Son, your'e up against Peter Broadbent, tricky customer, if he has his way your dear old Mum wont be getting her treat" Murpy continued in this vein for several minutes, berating Broadbent as a chocolate thief, and how sad McGiunness's poor old Mum was going to be. By the time they got onto the pitch Wilf was fumming about this injustice, shortly after kick off Broadbent recived the ball and started hurtling down the wing, Wilf plowed into him like a tank, and depositted poor old Broadbent on the running track, as McGunness stood over him Broadbent asks, "What the hell was that for" to which Wilf reply's "Show my Mum some respect, you bastard"

Partizan

George Bests most notorious moment came when he was caught in bed by his manager Wilf McGuinness at the teams hotel, on the afternoon of the replyed 1970 FA Cup semi final against Leeds. Best had chatted up the Woman on the hotel stairs. Only an intervention by Sir Matt Busby stopped McGuinness from sending Georgie home. "He had an absolute nightmare, McGuinness recalled, "We drew 0-0 again and Geroge had the chance to win it, but fell over in front of their goal.

Cornell

I had witnessed SAF grow mad only in three occasions. Here is one of them

If I remember well it was the summer when Manchester United signed Yorke. SAF was invited to Malta and he took Yorke, Rai, Van Del Gouw, Clegg and Wallwork with him. I remember that the club was filled with supporters who came to the club 2 – 3 hours before just to book a good place. I was assigned by the club to take care of the players inside the premises, something that I always like to do because it enable you to have close contact with the players and develop a good friendship. At about 3 pm SAF came with the players at the club, but Yorke wasn’t there. SAF seemed to be at ease and in a joyful mood. The first thing SAF did was to tell the supporters that Yorke would be there in about 30 minutes due to “important personal issues” and then he joined the supporters, signing autographs and socializing with them. I gave little notice to SAF (which was surrounded by the Supporter’s club committee whom I don’t link so well with) and decided to spend the afternoon talking with Rai whom I consider as one of the most down to earth players in the world. Time passed (about an hour) when suddenly SAF raced angrily from the main room right to the committee room. It was clear that something was wrong. Rai told the lads to leave everything and join the gaffer in the committee room and I escorted them to the committee room.

SAF was furious. His face was red, his eyes were filled with anger. The committee was trying to calm him down but it was in vain

“I will not let Yorke making me look as an idiot that was sure” he roared as he took my mobile (without my permission) and called Yorke on the mobile

From the argument I could understand that Yorke lateness wasn’t due to a personal circumstances but do to the fact that Yorke was doing some extra homework with a Russian whore. SAF was furious with him calling Dwight an idiot and a liar, and threatening him that he would surely fine him for such actions. We stood there silent
As if paralysed by SAF and everyone was surprised by the man who turned from a great gentleman into a monster in a split of a second. When the call finished, SAF looked at everyone right into our eyes, one after the other starting from Rai and finishing with me. He knew that he managed to scare the hell out of us and seemed satisfied of that result. He grinned and said “Yorke is not coming today but Ill sort him out, don’t worry”. Then he walked towards me, gave me the mobile and said “Thanks”. I confess that in my life I was never afraid of anyone, but SAF did managed to scare the hell out of me.

After that he went out, apologized for Yorke whom according to him “didn’t managed to solve his personal problems in time” and left the club with a great smile on his face and as confident and at ease as ever. I admired SAF in how he tackled the problem and the way he protected his players despite the fact that he was furious with him.

Years had passed since then yet the witnesses of that event had never talked with each other about that Summer afternoon when we all witnessed some for the first time SAF hairdryer. I promised myself to do my best not to see it again but unfortunately it wasn’t.

Snake Doctor

Dippersripper

A1Dan

Devilish will never be beaten!

Collina

From Gary and Phil's diary from the 1997/98 season, very funny book, btw:

11th of August, Phil Neville:
I went to Old Trafford this morning, and bumped into Henning Berg in the toilet.
"All right there! 'ave you signed for us or something?"
"Yes, I've just done it! Its all been hush-hush."

25th of August, Phil Neville:
There was an emphasis on shooting this morning. The manager wants us to sharpen up and get more shots in on goal. I never score, I just get in the way and get hit a lot!
I haven't scored for the first team yet, but I did hit the post on my debut against Wrexham over two years ago. Gary scored his first one last year against Middlesbrough and likes to have a pop at me about not managing it yet. On saturday, he was laughing because his odds on scoring were a lot shorter than mine - Gary was 40-1 and I was 60-1! My dad always has a fiver on me scoring and it's getting expensive.

24th of September, Gary Neville:
Their [Chelsea's] chairman, Ken Bates, has also been quoted as saying that we are just a club from the slum side of Manchester. To me, Chelsea could move their stadium to the middle of Harrods and win fifteen championships on the trot, and even if you moved Old Trafford to downtown Beirut they still wouldn't be as big as us.

28th of October, Gary Neville:
Phillip is one of the most welcoming people to new players - he's foreign-daft. Scholesy is sure Phil's a foreigner himself. He went out with Jordi Cruyff last night. I'm sure they bored each other to death!

29th of October, Gary Neville:
Phil did a horrendous tackle on Nicky Butt during the practice match this morning. It put them both in the treatment room, but they're PL now. The Gaffer stopped the tackling after that.
Phil was feeling a bit guilty. When I went into the treatment room, I told Butty, "You don't mess with the Nevilles!" It's a good job he had two bags of ice on his leg or he would have hit me.

30th of October, Phil Neville:
My shin was still a bit sore after yesterday, but both Nicky and I trained. Nicky was blaming me and promised to 'do' me. He was only joking ... I think.

1st of November, Phil Neville:
When we arrived at the Cliff, we were told there was a meeting. That meant the team was going to be announced for Wednesday's game against Feyenoord, and Denis was fit so I wasn't confident. When Kiddo came down and said "Ole, the Gaffer wants to speak to you," I thought "He's not told me, so I should be all right." Then Kiddo came back and said, "You as well, Phil" so I knew I was gone.
I walked into the Boss's room and we just looked at each and burst out laughing. We both knew the score. He said how well I've been playing recently and not to worry about anything. I'll be back in.

4th of November, Phil Neville:
The night before an away European match is alwats probably the best training session ever, because everyone is so excited and the ground is always good.
Unfortunately, I embarrased myself. I went to cross the ball with my left foot but my right foot touched the ball first, so I completely missed. Everyone collapsed on the floor laughing. The club video magazine guy was filming and he said it was hit duty to show it. So I threatened him with legal action.

5th of November, Gary Neville (after a match against Feyenoord where the Feyenoord players did nothing else than kicking United players and cheating):
At the final whistle, the gaffer was shouting, "Get off the pitch! Don't swap shirts with them! They don't deserve to wear the United shirt!"

10th of November, Gary Neville:
The police received a complaint from an Arsenal fan about Teddy Sheringham kissing his shirt after scoring yesterday. Ridiculous. Listen to the stick players get off fans. Can you imagine Teddy going to the police station after the game at Spurs in August and saying, "Excuse me, I'd like to make a complaint against the White Hart Lane crowd"?

15th of November, Phil Neville:
Scholesy put me through, but my shot nearly hit the corner flag. I turned around and he was laughing at me!

22nd of November, Gary Neville:
I had an absolute nightmare from start to finish! I didn't make any mistakes, but my distribution was non-existent. Every time I got the ball, all I could see was blue. I had a shooting chance in the first half and I thought, "Right, here we go!" My shot went miles wide.
At half time the Gaffer wasn't happy. He turned to me and said, "Gary Neville, do you know we're playing in red? And when are you ever going to score from thirty yards?"

27th of November, Phil Neville:
Teddy had a couple of chances, and I had a horrible shot. My only excuse is that I was dazzled by the floodlights ... honest! Fortunately, Ryan had an even worse effort so everyone forgot about mine. (...) I got a bang in the teeth and an elbow in the eye and had to off with blurred vision, so I didn't see the last two goals - an own goal and Teddy's great strike - until the highlights programme.
As I walked off the pitch with the Doc, he said, "Did you have blurred vision then you took that shot?" Very funny.

6th of December, Phil Neville:
The boss was really happy after the game. He loves winning at Anfield. When ha came in the dressing room he shook everyone's hand and hugged everyone. We are normally in on a sunday before a European game, but we asked, "Boss, do we get a day off tomorrow?"
"No way, you've done nothing yet," he said, and brought us back down to earth.
As we got on the coach, the Gaffer asked the masseur Jimmy Curran how the B team had got on against Man City that morning. He was ecstatic when Jimmy said they had won 3-2. That just sums him up. Even when the first team wins at Anfield, he's still looking to the future. He doesn't want to lose at any level.

16th of December, Gary Neville:
A woman came up to our table while we were eating and asked Becks for a kiss. When he said no, she asked and I refused as well.
"I'm not going to tell the News of the World, you know," she said. "Has it occured to you that it might not be the fact that you're going to the News of the World that's bothering us?" I replied. "It might just be that we don't want to kiss you."
She screamed and stormed off.

10th of January, Gary Neville (after a 2-0 win against Tottenham):
The manager came into the dressing room afterwards and said, "You lot will get football banned if you carry on playing like that, it was terrible to watch!" He was laughing.

19th January, Phil Neville:
Gary was 66-1 in the programme to score the first goal, and in the second half he had a shot that went miles over. The manager turned around to us and said, "More like bloody 166-1!"

29th of January, Gary Neville: (Fergie didn't like that his players played golf, of injury reasons))
Tonight, Ryan and I went with Alex Ferguson to St Luke's church in Salford. (...) It was a good evening, but Giggsy and I got totally stitched up. A local artist called Harold Riley, another friend of the Gaffer, was also there. Harold does sketches for The Belfry Golf Club and the first thing he said to us when he came up to us was, "When you were playing golf down at the Belfry last week ..."
Our anti-golf Gaffer shot Ryan and I a disapproving look.
Later on, the Reverend's speech only made matters worse. He said the greatest thing that Alex Ferguson had brought to Manchester United was team spirit. The girls who work behind the bar at the pub "where the players regularly go for their team meeting" had told him that they couldn't believe how well we all got on.
Uh-oh! The Gaffer isn't supposed to know about our "team meetings". He looked round at Giggsy and me and said, "The pub, eh?"
"Yeah, Gaffer. Great food!" replied Ryan.

30th of January, Phil Neville:
In the practise match, the bibs beat Saturday's team 1-0 and I scored the winning goal. From a corner it hit my chest and went in, but they said I'd handled it. Giggsy blasted the ball at me and called me a cheat. Big Peter wasnt't happy either. We do shooting practise every day and that was the first I've ever put past him! I think he only really tries when Gary or I are shooting. I enjoyed rubbing it in, celebrating like it was a Cup Final winner.

8th of February, Gary Neville: (who had a rough clash with Hughes earlier in the season)
I bumped into Mark Hughes at Heathrow and we had a laugh about our battle at Stamford Bridge in January. "I'd kick my own grandmother if she was in my way on a football pitch," laughed Sparky.

Wes

funny stuff.

I once went to a game and the crowd starting singing Yip Jaap stam. That were v. funny, likes. eh eh

The_Red_Hope

Great Stuff.

Johnno

I heard one about Kevin Moran being roomed with Gordon McQueen on away trips for years and McQueen had a penchant for doing smelly farts.
One time, McQueen had just got out the shower with a towel wrapped round him and as he was coming out the bathroom, let out a bad fart so Moran called him a ‘smelly fucker’. McQueen retaliated by running up to him on the bed, lifted the back of his towel and stuck his arse in Moran’s face to fart on him, but he followed through and sprayed shit all over his mush by accident and had to leg it back into the bathroom and lock the door to escape from the livid Moran.
Was from a book about United in the Eighties apparently….

Suedesi

Eh? Who are you?, Devilish in disguise?