If you ask Premier League teams who would they want to play against in the FA Cup Final - Manchester City or Lincoln City, they'll always name Lincoln City.
Does it make them a special club? Oh, come on.
When did you realise that, actually, we're not a unique club?
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Does it make them a special club? Oh, come on.
unique
juːˈniːk/
adjective
- being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
"the situation was unique in British politics"
synonyms: distinctive, individual, special, especial, idiosyncratic, quirky, eccentric, isolated
- being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else.
And yet some people say we're unique, because we won the Treble, the title in 2007 or in 1993. Do they think about it because we won a title before the WWII? No, trophies don't make clubs unique, but it's the same with people's own feelings. Just because you think so, it doesn't mean it's true, right?
So European Cups is the sole arbiter of what makes a club unique? Against my better judgement I looked at this thread. I’m off. I really think age, language barriers, stupidity and wums has ruined what enjoyment of the caf I used to have.
Okay, then an accident makes a club special. Wow. Did you even know that Torino also had a plane crash? Would you ever call them a special club? Probably not.
What's interesting is also that if you want your club to become special, just hope for a plane crash. Wow! Easy!
I apologise in advance for the ad hominem but it does actually sound like you've gone nuts and are currently posting from an insane asylum in Krakow.
Edit: I said that before seeing your reply to my post. Yes, insane asylum.
And yeah I realise Torino had a plane diaster too. The key point was United rebuilding themselves to the peak of European football.
Edit: I said that before seeing your reply to my post. Yes, insane asylum.
And yeah I realise Torino had a plane diaster too. The key point was United rebuilding themselves to the peak of European football.
Ah no. We’re just like all the rest. All we do is spend spend spend
So, are the Premier League titles, as some of the posters in this thread wrote? Wow, we've one 20 league titles.
In 1992, when we had just seven, we weren't a special club, but now we are. Plane crash? Now it makes us special even more, because we won more than Liverpool!
Oh dear. Dear oh dear.
Lots of football teams involved in plane crashes with the survivors still being successful
Torino 1949
CD Green Cross 1961
The Strongest 1969
FC Pakhator Tashkent 1979
Lima 1987
Chapacoence 2016
I am not saying Sir Bobby isnt a great achievement, it so obviously is, its just not unique
All clubs are unique. Stupid point being made.
You’re mad list at the top of this thread could be dismissed with a longer list of things that makes us genuinely unique, a list dating back decades. I don’t have the time to write that list. Hopefully someone else does. Odd poster I must say.
The point I was making is that United built themselves up to being the best team in European/world football football with many of the same players/manager who lost friends and colleagues in the plane crash. That's unique.
I can't believe that so many of you take "unique" so literally. I know that every club is different (which makes them, in a way, special, because there is no other club that is the same), but you know what was the thread about. About that feeling some posters have, that we're unique.
We're unique, because United mean "we play youth", "we play local lads", "we don't spend", "we don't change managers too often", "we don't spend money".
All I was asking you was whether (and if yes, when) did you start to think that we're actuallny similar to many other top European clubs. Which is what we didn't want to accept, right?
Jeez.
We're unique, because United mean "we play youth", "we play local lads", "we don't spend", "we don't change managers too often", "we don't spend money".
All I was asking you was whether (and if yes, when) did you start to think that we're actuallny similar to many other top European clubs. Which is what we didn't want to accept, right?
Jeez.
I generally agree.
Empires rise and fall (and sometimes rise again).
‘Past performance is no indication of future performance’ as all financial products have to say.
The ‘uniqueness’ of United stems from the tragedy of Munich. The world suddenly knew a lot more about a single far away football team, in a well timed (from a football point of view) global media event. 10 years later this was reamplified with a risen from the ashes team winning the EC.
That’s a strong and compelling narrative, and a very decent ‘product’ to sell.
Prior to Munich and coupled with the EC , United were on a level with umpteen clubs, rising and falling, jostling for top dog for comparatively small periods of time.
Although Uk crowds (ie supporters) were generally the highest from the end of WW2 - still never understood that - (other than the media narrative of Old Trafford being bombed and it’s effects and perception?)
The comparative wastelands of the 70’s/80’s were sustained on the recent past. Liverpool rose from the ‘umpteen’ to become the club of that time.
And then the empire rose again in the 90’s.
The ‘umpteen’ dwindled to about 6, then Chelsea made the leap, and later, City.
It was into the 90’s/00’s that ‘entitled’ became an overused word, and a very negative one.
Used by Liverpool fans on the back of their previous 2 decades, used by United fans on the back of the post-Munich and current (at that time) steamroller success.
I doubt that United will lose their title of ‘biggest’ club in the UK. It would take a generation (20 odd years) of being a yo-yo club to begin denting the acccumulated support. And that has as much chance of happening as Trump acting like a President.
So, to answer the question of the OP title: never, because it never was to anyone other than a club’s own fans.
Never particularly thought of us as a unique club
Oh jeez, OP on a downer is he and hoping to drag everyone down with him 
Pretty much every single club is unique and a special history just strengthens that, United have a very special history. The Munich disaster, resulting with Sir Matt on his death bed yet returning to make the all of club’s dream come true within 10 years and become the first English club to lift the European Cup is the stuff of fairytales.
But do carry on miseryguts.
Pretty much every single club is unique and a special history just strengthens that, United have a very special history. The Munich disaster, resulting with Sir Matt on his death bed yet returning to make the all of club’s dream come true within 10 years and become the first English club to lift the European Cup is the stuff of fairytales.
But do carry on miseryguts.
Essentially you want a thread about us no beign a ‘sacking club’. We are a sacking club. Always have been. We’re unique for other reasons. Accept that you’re use of language resulted in this fail of a thread, dust yourself down and move on. That’s my advice.
Quite literally, there is only one Manchester United - so the club is unique in that.
Once again, it's the club I support (for every United fan) so it's unique in that.
Our history is ours alone - rising from the tragedy of Munich to the glory at Wembley a decade later - it's unique
Setting unprecedented records under SAF - that was unique too.
No two clubs are alike - and each is unique. If you think "unique" = "right to win every trophy, every year", well, nobody is unique.
We are Manchester United. We are and will forever be unique.
PS: As for your "we play youth" point somewhere, do look up the current streak levels for clubs that have always had at least one youth academy player in the playing team. Let's talk after that. Oh, and we were also unique in allowing Moyes to last that long!
Once again, it's the club I support (for every United fan) so it's unique in that.
Our history is ours alone - rising from the tragedy of Munich to the glory at Wembley a decade later - it's unique
Setting unprecedented records under SAF - that was unique too.
No two clubs are alike - and each is unique. If you think "unique" = "right to win every trophy, every year", well, nobody is unique.
We are Manchester United. We are and will forever be unique.
PS: As for your "we play youth" point somewhere, do look up the current streak levels for clubs that have always had at least one youth academy player in the playing team. Let's talk after that. Oh, and we were also unique in allowing Moyes to last that long!
You’re just trying to be unnecessarily philosophical about it. You don’t connect with what makes United unique anymore so you think others shouldn’t either.
And Solskjaer has won it....!
Augero...!
Just the same I guess. Last minute goals that won trophies that loads of other teams have won.
You ask a United or City fan about them and they will tell you exactly why it’s not the same. They will tell you so much more about it. Where they were when it happened, the context of the season, who they grabbed when it went in, who they called after the game and where they drank that night. They’ll have a million stories about it and will be able to recall crazy little details.
That’s why it’s unique, because every fan experience the same thing, the same way but still completely unique to them.
To say differently is just the same as how people who don’t like football say “it’s just 22 men running around a pitch, kicking a bit of plastic”.
What meaning of the word unique did you want people to use? Similar in what regard? Being similar to a few clubs in a game that has thousands and thousands of football clubs should still qualify as your bastardised version of unique.
Both of these quotes sum up my feelings to be honest.
In that sense the Munich disaster and our recovery is unique.
However its easy to argue that Torino lost 18 players in their crash (compared to our 8) and that Torinos survival as a club is equal if not more impressive than our achievement.
Having said that its not really an argument I want to have. Those two crashes took 54 lives and ruined many others and playing disaster top trumps seems to me to be disrespectful to those killed and injured. Equally using our uniqueness to garner an appeal as a special team if that uniqueness is based on the deaths of people in plane crashes seems abhorant to me
Of course we are unique. Manchester United is one of if not the most famous club in world football with a rich history and an enormous fan base across the globe. If we are not unique then who is?
Are you seriously using Munich against supporters of Manchester United?
And then denying that lower league teams see Manchester United as THE dream draw?
You’re a waste of sperm and eggs, stop trolling us.
What a stupid thread. United is a special club and always will be. The club has way too much history to just fall under the normal club category. We've had some of the greatest moments to some of the worst from having the most talented team that everyone thought was special and was going to go on and win trophies to having that team ripped apart by an awful tragedy. Sir Matt Busby survived the plane crash and rebuilt a team that consisted of survivors like Sir Bobby Charlton and Bill Foulkes. 10 years later we're European Cup champions. If that's not special then I don't know what is and that's what our club is built on.
It's a good thing that I didn't do any of that then.
Why the feck would you have a rant about something likes this? What is actually wrong with you?
United were not unique when Ferguson stepped down. Ferguson was unique and the Football club history was interesting , romantic- if not unique.
When United removed the words "football club" from its crest in 1998 the romance was well and truly dead. It became a full blown business. You and I as fans became commodities. How much can they squeeze out of us is the philosophy. The actual football is the product they "sell". The money men couldnt give a shit if they sell a bad product now and again so long as no everyone decides to abandon the brand. Luckily football fans like me are sentimental and no matter how bad the product tastes we will always keep going back in the hope of getting served something nice. We know it can be done.
United are not unique. They are just a massive corporation designed to make money, like all of the other big premier league clubs.
We keep going back as its bred into us - the good old days when football was played by men in the proper way. Its not like that anymore.
Its full of overpaid douche bags with shit hair cuts and even shitter opinions.
But the moneymen dont care - as long as they are making money, so maybe United are unique insofar as they have managed to grow into the billion pound business from scratch where as the other clubs in the top end of the PL have all had foreign sugar daddies.
Liverpool are a unique club also. I’d say us and them are probably the only unique clubs in England.
I don’t actually know what point you’re trying to make anyway.
Every club has their own history yes, just none in the UK with the pedigree of ours.
If you’re so unhappy with the way our club has gone don’t support them anymore. There’s plenty of people who will still love our club despite a few years of turbulence since Sir Alex left.
Wow.
OP seems obsessed about uniqueness.
Also Insensible to start a minor pissing contest about Torino vs Munich for arguments sake. Is that really the level you wanna take it to win a stupid internet-disgussion? Terrible.
Also Insensible to start a minor pissing contest about Torino vs Munich for arguments sake. Is that really the level you wanna take it to win a stupid internet-disgussion? Terrible.
I think was your misuse of the term that mislead people, or so it would appear. The term "unique" in itself has fairly distinct area of usage and is easily misinterpreted. I get what you meant though
For what it's worth I never felt United were a uniquely run football club, sure we held dear certain principles - the examples you mention above for instance - but that never stopped us splashing the cash (busting transfer records in the process) when the need arised.
Jesus, I didn't even read the bottom half of his post.
What a fecking dumb thing to say.
It happened when Ferguson left.
When that happened, the whole dynamic of the football side of the club changed, both in terms of vision and structure.
Ferguson retiring wasn't just the end of his career or the end of his era - it also marked the end of a paradigm at the club.
When that happened, the whole dynamic of the football side of the club changed, both in terms of vision and structure.
Ferguson retiring wasn't just the end of his career or the end of his era - it also marked the end of a paradigm at the club.
We've hit a new low today on the Caf. Shutters for now.
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