It doesn’t matter ‘Have you ever seen a Mackem in Milan?’
It’s more ‘Can you see a Manchester United fan in London?’
We arrived on a Friday afternoon and honestly you would never guess they were in a cup final at Wembley.
In fact, I’d estimate that on any random day during the year walking down Oxford Street, through Covent Garden, through Trafalgar Square… you’d see more Manchester United supporters than we’re seeing this weekend.
There are two in our (Torquay…) hotel, a shrewd couple indeed, but they must feel they’ve taken a wrong turn, so there are few of their fellow Man U fans.
Fair enough, I always expected Trafalgar Square to be packed with blacks and whites on Saturday night (and I wasn’t disappointed!), but Manchester United fans are just nowhere to be seen.
We’ve had a really good time these last few days, we only made a rather brief visit to Trafalgar Square, instead of wandering around London, visiting as many different bars as possible.
Wherever you go, there’s plenty of Newcastle United, but very, very little Manchester United.
You almost end up feeling sorry for them, they have very few of their kind to share the weekend with. Almost.
No doubt our enemies will say things like well, you haven’t won anything in decades…and they’ll be right.
However, I just think that Newcastle United fans, a great many of them, are ready to have a good time.
Yes, of course winning at Wembley is what it’s all about, BUT having a splendid time is also very special. It’s not like it has to be a choice. Have a great weekend in spite of everything and if the team wins…well tell me mum I won’t be home for tea anytime next week.
Yes, Manchester United have won “a few” more trophies since we last collected trophies, BUT not recently. Since 2017, Manchester United have won exactly the same number of major trophies as Newcastle United. At 6:30pm (7pm if there’s overtime/penalties) one of us will be at the top of the tree when it comes to winning the latest trophies.
Not that they’ve been to many finals in the meantime, it’s been five years since Manchester United reached a Wembley final, losing to Chelsea in the 2018 FA Cup final.
I am in awe of how many Newcastle United fans have come with no tickets and no expectation of getting one, just wanting to be a part of it and have a laugh in the meantime. Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of this?
Talking to these strange Manchester United fans we’ve seen, most of the fans they know come for the game and go straight home.
It just seems like a different mindset to the vast majority of them.