November 9 – KK’s Revenge
WE all know how much he would’ve loved it if they’d beaten them, but they didn’t. Alex Ferguson’s Man United team famously beat Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle side to the Premier League title in 1996.
It was on this day in 2002 that KK got some measure of revenge over Fergie when his Manchester City team beat United 3-1 in the last ever derby at Maine Road.
Keegan and Man City seemed made for each other – both have enjoyed considerable high and lows and life was rarely dull for either. Keegan joined City after his England adventure ended in disappointment with City in division one. KK got them playing his usual brand of exciting attacking football and soon had them back in the premiership.
Lining up for United that day were Fabien Barthez, Laurant Blanc and colossal-waste-of-money Juan Sebastian Veron while City had Nic Anelka and United legend Peter Schmiechel in their ranks.
Anelka got the first goal after Barthez failed to hold on to a Shaun Goater shot, and Goater then added two strikes of his own – one of which was the result of United captain Gary Neville’s bizarre ‘defending’ where he tried to shepherd the ball out for a goal kick, before deciding to knock it back to Barthez. It never got to the keeper though, as the Goat stole in to give City their second and City fans a new chant of “Gary Neville is a blue.”
United did hit back with a Solskjaer goal but it was all too little and too late, and City had their first derby win for 13 years. All this with a City team containing not a single Englishman, compared to four Mancunian’s in the United team.
Fergie was not a happy camper after the match. He said: “I’ve given them a bollocking, and quite rightly. You can’t accept that. I just feel sorry for the fans. I wish I could let them into the dressing room so the players would know what they are thinking.”
Given the number of boots flying about at people’s faces in the United dressing room we’re not sure how many fans would actually want to be in the firing line in the locker room when Fergie let rip.
Meanwhile, KK got all carried away by the result. “You look at that performance and think: ‘wow’,” he said. “Now we should go into every game knowing that, if we can beat Manchester United, we can beat anyone.”
KK’s City didn’t manage to beat everyone, but they did have a pretty good season culminating in a top half finish. Ferguson would have the last laugh once again though as his team beat off strong competition from Arsenal to win the league title again.
The hero of that day was obviously Gary Neville, so here is a little clip of some cocky wag giving poor old Gary the windup. Tomorrow we are on our travels with the Irish so come and ch-ch-ch-check it out wooaaooaaooaaoo. Oh come on! Lil’ Chris? No? Oh well.
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