How City missed out on a 16-year-old Michael OwenUpdated: December 20th, 2006
This one goes to the top of the folder marked “Typical Bloody City”.
According to this story in the excellent McVittee archives, City had the chance to land a 16-year-old Michael Owen after he came for trials at Maine Road in early 1996.
Owen had been touted round the big clubs with Arsenal offering him a £80,000 signing-on fee and Liverpool £60,000.
But Alan Ball had other ideas of his true worth. He offered him two years YTS with the promise of a two year professional contract to follow.
The day Old Trafford was rebranded
You might well have seen this before, but I stumbled across it the other day and it made me chuckle.
According to this BBC story from 2005, some mischievous electricians working at Old Trafford pulled out some of the plugs on the neon sign to form a four-letter word.
So I went on to Google Images to see if a picture of it existed. Alas, it didn’t, but typing in “Manchester United” and a certain swear word didn’t draw a complete blank. Click here to see what the search turned up.
~ Staying on the subject of United, I found a site called Beckhamcoverup.com the other day.
It appears to be the work of nightclub DJ Jason Holmes, who claims he was once sold a computer containing sensitive information by a security firm that worked for David Beckham.
According to the Rotherham Advertiser, a man called Jason Holmes was arrested and bailed for suspected theft of a computer and conspiracy to blackmail in 2004.
The site has a pretty explosive allegation concerning Beckham and Sir Alex Ferguson. It’s too potentially libellous to comment on here, so I’ll let you be the judge.
Rounding off the United/Fergie theme, Wookie’s Lair poster scall claims he almost knocked Fergie over outside Old Trafford yesterday and would like to apologise to all concerned.