Ciggy wrote:Time to get the ball rolling.
These articles are from the Irish Examiner:
A tale of two cities
By Richard Kurt and Steven Kelly
Richard Kurt: I’M NOT 100% sure this is true, but I do recall being told the new fad of genetically testing ancestral lineage was useless in the Holy Land because there is so little difference between the DNA of the Jews and Arabs there.
The phrase 'narcissism of small differences' might spring to mind at this point and I daresay it certainly applies in the north west of England when it comes to the matter of Red Mancs and Scousers.
Thirty years ago, we belonged to the same county, Lancashire.
Indeed, I remember as a teenager watching the county cricket team with Scousers alongside me at both Old Trafford and Southport.
The generation above tells me that in the '60s, there was hardly any antipathy between LFC and MUFC just a keen and largely honourable rivalry as we slugged it out head-to-head for the 1964 and 1965 titles.
Our respective Titans, Matt Busby and Bill Shankly, were like brothers; as late as the 1977 FA Cup final, United fans were chanting "Liverpool, Liverpool" in tribute to the Paisley team that was Rome-bound, on course to emulate what had been our singular 1968 triumph.
Culturally, we were once almost of a piece, jointly taking on those cocky imperial Londoners with our bands, actors, directors and assorted northern shock troops.
And there was a popular interplay between the cities which, after all, are only 30 odd miles apart much of which stemmed from the fact that mass Irish immigration underpinned the two fortresses, creating a shared family tradition if you like.
Something happened to us and now we snarl at each other, exaggerating our differences and ignoring our similarities: I think it was Thatcherism.
Both cities' proud working class bases were under the cosh but whilst Liverpool plunged into its whingeing militant-tinged psychosis, Manchester stood firm and, true to its 19th century tradition, hard-worked and free-traded its way out.
By the late '80s, the East Lancs. Road felt like what parts of Berlin must have done in the '70s: savagely divided down the middle, with two increasingly alien and hostile forces camped out at either end.
You'll note I've barely mentioned football so far.
That's because it has become about so much more.
The end of Lancashire in 1974 and the onset of Thatcher in 1979 produced a cultural and social divorce and now we sneer at Liverpool for its self-pity, its flower-wielding mawkishness, its blame and compensation culture, its drug-fuelled savagery, its relentlessly shameless self-promotion, its habit of fighting dirty.
Liverpool invented the twin-bladed, matchsticked Stanley knife, the golf ball packed with razor blades, the tactic of gangs picking off lone stragglers. To us, Liverpudlians are granny-stabbers, a single phrase that encapsulates what we see as their tribal immorality.
Of course, we are in the realm of caricature and generalisation here, just as the Scousers label us with all sorts of absurd tags of their own.
And at the self-styled more sophisticated end of fandom, clued-up casual types softly argue that Liverpool and United's top fans have far more in common with each other than they do with their own 'common masses'; the twin elites both worry and consult each other about the loss of their clubs' souls to globalisation, about the erosion of traditional ways, about the disgusting marketisation of the game.
At kick-off on Saturday, all that is forgotten of course. Tribal hatred takes over: Liverpool seek to end 85 years of Cup hurt.
We both know our history. Liverpool's sticks in our craw. The figures '18' and '5' need no translation, nor reminders. So yes, Saturday is about football, of course. But as Shanks would say, it's about much more than a mere game.
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Steven Kelly:
EVEN CS Lewis would have read the tales of Mancunia and pronounced them far-fetched. No lion, just loads of lying.
The scientific instruments have not been invented that could measure the distance between United Myth and United Reality.
NASA are working on it. Theatre of Dreams just about covers it, but not for the reasons they think. Thank God for that 35 miles. Any closer and war would have broken out. It's a tale of jealousy, hypocrisy and spite that has stretched over decades.
Despite never dominating the English game, their air of insular contempt for every other team once knew no bounds, and they hated us most.
So when Liverpool began to dominate, the Old Trafford thought processes (there's an oxymoron) struggled with the reality, then abandoned it in five seconds and concocted their own fantastical landscape. No wonder their managers keep getting knighted, since politicians have learnt so much about spin from the Stretford sages.
Why were Liverpool so successful when United, the self-proclaimed Greatest Club In The World, were so third-rate?
Well, we were dirty. That may be seen as a surprising claim to those who witnessed their players achieve iconic status purely for the speed they could spill the blood or shatter the bones of an opposing player (and the occasional fan).
We were lucky. Again, the almost annual theft of points or a cup place that Man U inflict on us might lead to conclude that the truth was being leaned on a tad.
We were boring. This is the best of the lot, since footage proves we were nothing of the kind, but great minds on a roll cannot be stopped by a mere trifle like evidence.
No other team is allowed to have an attacking thought.
When their turn for success was made possible by our abdication, there was no relief from the spite and hatred. It just got worse.
Ferguson claimed to have knocked us off our perch, when in fact all the other big clubs were in transition. United emerged from our shadow and fought to the death with Leeds, Villa and er Blackburn. Oh tremble ye mighty ...
Aided by an obsequious press, fearful of United fans' reluctance to suffer any deviation from their warped viewpoint, Ferguson exploited the cowardice to breaking point.
When he implied Newcastle had arranged a friendly to ensure an easier ride in the title race, Keegan went ballistic. The papers congratulated Ferguson on his psychology. The fawning never stops but he just gets angrier and bullies with impunity.
Why send a journalist to press conferences? Just send a typist, the end result is the same.
He established the blueprint for modern managerial success, as it is now embellished by Mourinho. What a debt of thanks we owe.
The mythology even extends to the cities. Living in a penniless criminal hellhole as I do, I can only gaze enviously at the palaces of Manchester, junkie free and not one car missing.
And then, as an even bigger bully swiped their sweets and Liverpool roused themselves for one last European Dream, they produced a mutant offspring called FC United.
Was it Glazer who spent over £100m on four players, who spent half that on a bunch of misfits who gave the team little but at least made the manager's son a rich man? No.
But with Chelsea's wallet crushing everything in its path and United in a puny third place, some fans formed their own club because "United have sold their soul"! Priceless.
Unlike Manchester United. In 10 years we may even have two rivalries on the go, and joy will be unconfined.
If this sounds like I'm revving myself up for the cup-tie you're right. In quieter moments the quality of their play and loyalty of their hardcore is to be admired. But in the FA Cup we've always been United's bitch, and maybe a loud, venomous howl of contempt can swing it our way. See you on the barricades.
sake, don't talk to them about football. They are so crazily focused on their own team it is unbelievable. It is not possible to have a conversation about another club without the discussion turning back to 
That doesnt make one bit of sense.?
