www.red11.org DAILY NEWS
Date: Sun Jul 04 GMT+00:00 1999
Mail: barry@www.red11.org
This Issue:
1. WE WANT TO PLAY IN THE FA CUP
2. RE: - MUTV/Sky Sports2
3. The FA's in a different world - Paul Wilson Sunday July 4, 1999
4. BANKS FORCED UNITED OUT OF CUP - Sporting Life
5. Season Ticket
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Daily MANCHESTER UNITED NEWS Sun 4th July 1999:
Barry Daily Comment:
Beckham is to be married today in Ireland.
Click here: http://www.red11.org/mufc/beckham.htm
There is a Daily News Survey running for those with www:
Fill in the form at
Its the presentation of the European Cup at Nou Camp
Video including sound 57secs 1.5 meg Real Video Use Real Player Plus G2
Free at www.real.com
http://www.real.com/R/HPplay-1R/www.real.com/products/playerplus/index.html?src=990611home_5
Latest MUFC Squad song is now available in stereo at www.red11.org
Stereo Sound: REAL AUDIO: 607k 4mins "stereo"
http://www.red11.org/mufc/sound/99/lift_it_high.rm
MP3 4.6meg 4mins "stereo"
http://www.red11.org/mufc/sound/mp3/lift_it_high.mp3
RED sky at night BARCE' delight
More fun here: http://www.red11.org/mufc/barcedance.htm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
MANCHESTER UNITED STATS v ALL teams on the Web
http://www.red11.org/mufc/stats.htm
Previous News:
BSKYB Takeover news/pics at http://www.red11.org/mufc/bskyb.htm
Brian Kidd Press conference, pic, real audio
http://www.iol.ie/~redcafe/kidd.htm
Peter Schmeichel's last Season at United!
http://www.red11.org/mufc/news/schmeichel.htm
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NEXT MATCHES
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01-AUG-1999 [15:00] Manchester Utd. vs Arsenal (FA Charity Shield, AWAY)
08-AUG-1999 [16:00] Manchester Utd. vs Everton (FA Premier League, AWAY)
11-AUG-1999 [20:00] Manchester Utd. vs Sheffield W (FA Premier League, HOME)
14-AUG-1999 [15:00] Manchester Utd. vs Leeds U (FA Premier League, HOME)
22-AUG-1999 [16:00] Manchester Utd. vs Arsenal (FA Premier League, AWAY)
Friendlies:
August 3rd Omagh Town, St Julian's Road ground
August 4th Wigan Athletic
****Pre season tour details JULY 1999 ***
Melbourne Sydney
Thu 15/7 MAN. UNITED V SOCCEROOS evening in Melbourne
at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground- capacity 90,000.) kick off 20.00hrs.
- Melbourne Cricket Ground 5 minutes from the city. Good transport available
Tickets available - starts from $60.00 - behind the goal -next up is $90.00,
$130.00 and $150.00
Sun 18/7 MAN. UNITED V SOCCEROOS STADIUM AUSTRALIA, Olympic Boulevard,
Homebush Bay, Sydney NEW SOUTH WALES 15.00 local time
Tickets for Sydney game try here:
http://www.ticketek.com.au/frame.asp?url=search/search.asp
then type MANCHESTER in the search field.
+ Far East
Wed 21/7 Shangai first time ever!!!
This match will be watched by 80,000 fans
The game has sold out with the Shanghai Star reporting the home side's
chairman Yu Zhifei as saying: ''It is unprecedented that the tickets
should sell out for a match five weeks in advance."
Sat 24/7 Hong Kong Repeat of the 1997 game
"ALL matches will be shown "the same day" om MUTV.
UNITED Stats v All teams:
http://www.red11.org/mufc/stats/
*** FINAL PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE AS AT 16/05/99 ***
Pos Team P W D L F A W D L F A GD Pts
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Manchester United 38 14 4 1 45 18 8 9 2 35 19 43 79
2 Arsenal 38 14 5 0 34 5 8 7 4 25 12 42 78
3 Chelsea 38 12 6 1 29 13 8 9 2 28 17 27 75
4 Leeds United 38 12 5 2 32 9 6 8 5 30 25 28 67
Here are the first matches in the coming season 1999/2000 fixture list:
ALL FIXTURES at: http://www.red11.org/mufc/fix9899.htm
15 July Melbourne pre season Australia
18 July Sydney pre season Australia
21 July Shanghai pre season Shenhua
24 July Hong Kong pre season South China
1 Aug Wembley Ch Sh Arsenal
4 Aug Friendly Wigan Athletic
8 Aug away PL Everton
11 Aug home PL Sheffield Wednesday
14 Aug home PL Leeds United
21 Aug away PL Arsenal
25 Aug away PL Coventry City
27 Aug Monaco ESC Lazio UEFA Super Cup in Monaco
at Stade Louis II, kick off 8.45pm.
30 Aug away PL Newcastle United 13.00 UK
THE FANTASTIC TRIPLE WAS WON!!
Personal stories here: http://www.red11.org/mufc/barcelona.htm
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Click On pic for Full Size!"
Subject: WE WANT TO PLAY IN THE FA CUP
United players in plea to PFA
MANCHESTER UNITED'S players are in torment over the club's ditching of the
FA Cup and have admitted to their union boss they are desperate to play in it.
PFA boss Gordon Taylor stepped up the campaign for holders United to
defend the most famous club cup in football when he revealed that Old
Trafford stars have told him they want to take part.
The news came as the row developed into a full-blown clash between soccer
bosses at the highest level, with UEFA attacking FIFA for forcing United
to choose between the FA Cup and a world club championship tournament in
Brazil in January.
Sports Minister Tony Banks pleaded for help in finding a solution to the
fixture clash between the two competitions after admitting he was willing
to listen to fresh ideas about sorting out the farce that has plunged
soccer into turmoil.
Taylor disclosed the unrest among United's players when he said: "Every
player I have spoken to has made it clear they want to take part in the FA Cup.
"I don't want to name names because the players are clearly in a difficult
position. They don't want to be seen to be criticising a decision made by
their own club.
"We have had a Management Committee meeting and the position of the
players has been made known to us.
"It is not just the players at United, but the players throughout the
game, in all the divisions,want Manchester United to participate. Not
enough consultation has taken place with the fans and, indeed, the
players."
The Government and the FA want United to compete in FIFA's inaugural club
championship to boost England's campaign to stage the 2006 World Cup.
But a Mirror campaign to save the FA Cup has won massive public backing.
Taylor has been in contact with United director and solicitor Maurice
Watkins.
Taylor added: "I wanted to see if there can be a solution, but the way he
put it they were either in it as normal or out of it. They don't seem to
have been offered a real alternative, and I this hard to understand.
"It is surely imperative that we find a solution, otherwise there are
clear concerns about the future of the game in this country.
"Next it will be the fabric of the league system that will be under attack
and eroded.
"A monster fixture list has been created and can't change, but surely it
can be readjusted, and we don't have the Cup draw until November."
UEFA have been against the new club tournament from the start, and last
night UEFA general secretary Gerhard Aigner said: "The consequences of
organising the FIFA club championship are now visible - in particular, the
fact that Manchester United will not be participating in the FA Cup. The
committee regrets this negative trend."
Banks admitted for the first time that there could be a U-turn, but United
chief executive Martin Edwards maintained the firm line the club has
taken.
He said: "We have been through all this a thousand times and we have
looked at every single possibility. The decision has been made and we've
got to get on with it."
Click On pic for Full Size!"
Subject: RE: - MUTV/Sky Sports2
>From: Billy Read
>I received my Sky TV magazine for July and noticed they are listing the 2
>Australian games on Thursday July 15th and Sunday July 18th as being shown
>on Sky Sports 2
>The Sunday 18th match is being shown at 6am which would indicate it's a live
>match as this is the time MUTV is showing it.
>Not sure about the time of Thursday 15th's game, can't remember.
>All this is contrary to the advertising on United's official website as
>saying MUTV is showing these games exclusively live.
>Perhaps we'll have to wait and see, keeping fingers crossed.
Billy could well be right here:
the MUTV Schedule is:
Australia July 15th 11.00am Melbourne Morning TV [CET 12.00]
July 18th 6.00am Sydney Wakey Wakey [CET 07.00]
Shenhua July 21st 12.30 pm Shanghai Good night TV [CET 01.30]
South China July 24th 8.30 am Hong Kong Breakfast TV [CET 09.30]
REPEATS of ALL games at 1800 [CET 1900] on match days
Enjpoy the viewing on Sky Sports2??
Click On pic for Full Size!"
Subject: The FA's in a different world - Paul Wilson Sunday July 4, 1999
It has been another terrible week for New FA, despite David Davies's best
attempts to pretend otherwise, and the Lancaster Gate bunker can expect
another heavy shelling in the next few days from a London seminar convened
to discuss rampant commercialism in football and the increasing
exploitation of fans.
All manner of interest groups will be represented, from the PFA to the
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants to supporters' associations
from across Europe, but the Birkbeck College event promises to be more than
the usual Task-Force-style talk shop. David Mellor will be mercifully
absent, and Sir Alex Ferguson, no less, will be sharing his concerns for
the future.
Manchester United fans disillusioned by their club's craven withdrawal from
the FA Cup will be interested to hear their manager believes they are also
being ripped off at the gate. 'Football is now big business, but the influx
of TV revenues has gone largely in increased salaries,' Ferguson admits in
a foreword to a document entitled A Game of Two Halves? 'As any fan will
tell you, the hugely increased revenues certainly haven't gone to keep
ticket prices down.'
Ferguson cites the Bosman ruling and the need for longer contracts as a
contributory factor in the salary explosion, but advises players'
representatives to exercise voluntary restraint before the paying public
becomes alienated. 'Unless something is done, the big clubs will start to
suffer like the small clubs, and fans will get priced out of grounds. Of
course fans are tremendously loyal... but there is a limit to how far they
will be prepared to pay for multimillion-pound salaries. Sooner or later
this issue will need to be tackled.'
Elsewhere on the Birkbeck agenda, Nicholas Finney OBE, a member of the
Monopolies and Mergers panel which investigated BSkyB's bid for Manchester
United, will explain in public for the first time how the decision to block
the takeover was reached, but the respite for the FA will be brief. David
Conn, author of The Football Business, will accuse the FA of 'poverty of
vision' for failing to regulate against exploitative commercialism, not
enforcing its own rules and ignoring the wider remit of Lord Justice
Taylor's recommendations. John Williams, of the Sir Norman Chester Centre
for Football Research, questions whether the FA has lost its way as an
independent regulator, becoming simply another player in the business of
football, and suggests it may need to relinquish its overseeing role to a
government-appointed body.
Ferguson stops short of calling for an independent regulator, unlike the
majority of those with whom he will share a platform, but advises the game
to sort itself out before someone else does. 'The issues involved are far
too important to be left to the Task Force or even to government,' he
claims. 'More input is needed from the game itself - the administrators,
the clubs and the fans. Football is big business, but it also plays an
important role in the country's social and cultural life. Some may see it
as just about money. I see it as much more important than that.'
Prophetic words, of course, in the light of recent events. In the final
analysis the FA Cup shambles was all about money, both because Manchester
United plc fancied a lucrative trip to Rio in the first place, and because
the FA have already committed millions to the World Cup 2006 campaign in
the hope of many more to follow.
It is naive, however, to expect a multimillion-pound business like football
to make decisions in some Corinthian vacuum. While participation in Rio
carries no guarantee of backing for 2006, it is obviously a waste of time
and money to court Fifa with one hand and stick two fingers up at their
silly little tournament with the other. Also, the FA were almost the
victims of a stitch-up by Uefa, who in the confident expectation that no
English team would get time off for Sepp Blatter's pet project, had
volunteered Bayern Munich as official European representative.
That would hardly have been fair to United or to English football, and the
FA deserves some credit for acting quickly and displaying hitherto
unsuspected flexibility. That is as far as generosity can go though. In
underestimating the importance of their own flagship competition and its
place in the public's affection, the FA made a better case for an
independent regulator in a single press release last week than the Birkbeck
brigade will manage in hours of speeches.
Or put it like this: the FA seem to take it for granted that staging a
World Cup is the be all and end all, but would they be brave enough to ask
a representative selection of the viewing public what they actually prefer
- the World Cup in 2006 or an unadulterated FA Cup?
The FA did not appear convincingly interested in exploring alternative
solutions, hopelessly misjudged the outcry from supporters and sponsors,
and did not even manage to sound disappointed about their 127-year-old
competition being scandalously compromised. The feeble excuse that this is
a one off, never-to-be-repeated exercise will cut little ice with those
such as Gordon Taylor of the PFA, who fears an alarming precedent has been set.
What the FA still shows no sign of realising is that it is not just
Manchester United supporters who are upset by the decision. It affects
every fan of every team. Dreaming of winning the Cup is just not the same
when you know there will be an asterisk against the final score in the
yearbook. The FA have also deprived next season's competition of a good
deal of glamour. Who is going to take the treble-winners' place? Rushden
and Diamonds? Halifax Town?
No, if there is anything to be salvaged from this mess - a compromise to
prevent the 1999-2000 FA Cup from becoming the most forgettable ever - the
FA needs to replace Manchester United with a team of roughly the same
stature and attractiveness. From abroad, naturally.
There need be no pettifogging about rules or precedents, since the FA have
already dispensed with such anachronisms. Just as a one-off, as a special
case for special circumstances, why not go for the neatest of solutions:
Bayern Munich are apparently looking for something to do around Christmas...
Manchester United - The Legend - http://manunited.net
Click On pic for Full Size!"
Subject: BANKS FORCED UNITED OUT OF CUP - Sporting Life
Sir Alex Ferguson insists Government pressure forced Manchester United to
pull out of next season's FA Cup.
European champions United reluctantly gave up the chance to defend the FA
Cup in order to play in the World Team Championships in Brazil in January.
The Football Association offered United the option of missing next season's
competition amid fears that a snub to the inaugural FIFA tournament would
damage England's hopes of staging the 2006 World Cup finals.
United upset their fans by taking up that offer, but Ferguson insists Sports
Minister Tony Banks left the Treble winners with no choice.
"In the last week we have been under considerable pressure from the
Government," said Ferguson.
"It is easy for everyone to criticise Manchester United but if you read the
statement from Sports Minister Tony Banks it said 'Manchester United must
go'.
"It expressed what they feel. I was so determined for us to stay in the FA
Cup and defend our Treble, but it was clear the Government wanted us to go
to Brazil," Ferguson told the News of the World.
"They are on a crusade for the World Cup. If it wasn't for the World Cup Man
Utd would not be involved in Brazil - it's as simple as that."
Click On pic for Full Size!"
Subject: Season Ticket
Just received my season ticket book in the post.
Standard Fodder really, main changes seem to be £1 reduction from
Museum/Tour every visit (upon production of book) and a form to
automatically renew your Season Ticket book each year by credit card.
Also, the club are changing all their telephone numbers from 2nd August (old
numbers will be available for a short time thereafter).
We still have to claim our yearbook from the ground on 1st August (unlike
members, who I believe get theirs posted to them).
Their are 55 spare vouchers this year!!!!!
My main gripe is that its a shame the club couldn't put a picture on the
book or card that shows us winning the EC last year....they have used a
strange shot of a players legs with a black grid over the top!!!!!!
Paul.
Click On pic for Full Size!"
Pic Link today is http://www.red11.org/mufc/images/nick_oldham/becks_wedding.jpg
To debate ALL subjects about Manchester United Football
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If ever they are playing in your town
You must get to that football ground
Take a lesson come to see
Football taught by Matt Busby
Manchester, Manchester United
A bunch of bouncing Busby Babes
They deserve to be knighted
Barry
J. Leeming Digest Prgram
by 
William
McArthur Canada
