Hypothetically shameful Man City fans should show gratitude for the stadium Sir Bobby secured them

Manchester City fans have Sir Bobby Charlton to thank for the Etihad Stadium, Andre Onana responds to messages, and Andrey Arshavin dons a disguise. It is, of course, Mediawatch.

The Games afoot
Ian Herbert gets his retaliation in first in the Daily Mail, launching a fierce diatribe at the shameful behaviour of Manchester City fans failing to respect the memory of Sir Bobby Charlton at this weekend’s Manchester derby which, er, hasn’t happened yet.

But it will, and some Manchester City fans will ruin it, and Herbert is furious. ‘That’s what stored up bitterness can do,’ he notes sadly. Sure is, Ian. Sure is.

But is it too much to ask that City’s fans make a positive show of respect to the memory of Sir Bobby when the teams meet on Sunday?

And, at the very least, that a minority of supporters might not be permitted to pollute the occasion with the kind of vile chants about Sir Bobby’s passing which were issuing around the Etihad at half-time during last weekend’s win over Brighton?

Now, you’d like to think it goes without saying that we all hope a tribute to one of English football’s great men would and will be respected. But it also seems reasonable not to complain about how it wasn’t until it actually isn’t. Surely.

It’s not even the general concoct-a-hypothetical-and-get-mad-about-it theme of Herbert’s piece that grates, though. There’s a gnawing sentimental nostalgia running through that’s both sickly and sickening.

The chants which were such an abomination last Saturday would have been bewildering to those of the Charlton generation, who did not know or understand that kind of attention-seeking and pumped up hate.

This isn’t journalism, this is a Facebook share from your least sane aunt.

If the intellectually-challenged few try it on again with their toxic chants, it is to be hoped that the elders in that crowd – the fathers, uncles, mothers and older companions – will shut them down in no uncertain terms.

That’s right, this is the youngsters isn’t it, with their lattes and their avocados and their ticky-tocks and their hateful chanting. Not ‘the elders’. Different generation, aren’t they? By which we mean better. Which is why whenever you see any footage of crowd trouble involving English fans you’ll absolutely never see anyone who might be a father or an uncle. You absolutely can’t almost literally see the divorce oozing out of them in some cases. No. They know better, don’t they, the fathers, the uncles, the mothers of this world.

But best of all is this justification for why City fans should be thankful to Sir Bobby.

That’s the stadium built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games which Sir Bobby helped secure for Manchester. The stadium which was fundamental to Abu Dhabi deciding to buy City, when Newcastle United and Everton were also contenders.

It’s true that City had a result with their spanking new stadium back then, no question about that. But ‘the 2002 Commonwealth Games which Sir Bobby helped secure for Manchester’ is worth a closer look.

It’s mentioned as a throwaway line in a few obituaries this week, but searching for evidence brings up far less than the very visible role Charlton played in the 2006 World Cup bid or even his efforts for London 2012.

Which is perhaps not because Charlton didn’t do anything to ‘secure’ the Commonwealth Games for Manchester, but because he didn’t really need to. No other country submitted a bid. Sheffield pulled out, leaving the English Commonwealth Games Committee to vote comfortably in favour of Manchester over London and that was that. There was no formal bidding process for the Games, no international schmoozing and handshaking to be done by the great and the good, because there didn’t need to be: just a ratification of the solitary bid on the table.

City fans should behave themselves during tributes to arguably England’s greatest ever footballer because it’s just the right thing to do; not because of some minuscule second-hand role he may have played in delivering them a new stadium 20 years ago.

Message in a podcast
We blame ourselves, really. We know what we’re going to get when we click on headlines like this one on the Mirror and can’t really blame anyone else when our piss is swiftly and inevitably boiled by what we discover within.

Andre Onana responds to David De Gea message as Rio Ferdinand reconsiders stance

You, handsome and intelligent Mediawatch reader, can probably piece this one together yourselves, frankly. All the clues are there. 1) It’s in Mediawatch. 2) Unspecified ‘message’. 3) Big hint with the inclusion of Ferdinand’s name about the precise extent and nature of De Gea’s involvement.

Yeah, you’ve got it. The David De Gea ‘message’ comes not, as someone new to the ways of online tabloid headline study might innocently surmise, from David De Gea. Instead, it comes from a podcast a few weeks ago in which Rio Ferdinand – not unreasonably – compared Andre Onana’s early struggles at Manchester United with those of De Gea when he first arrived at Old Trafford.

And Onana’s response to that podcast was to save a penalty a few weeks later.

Quite how far to the front of his thoughts Ferdinand’s words on a podcast a few weeks earlier were as Onana saved Copenhagen’s late penalty truly were is, alas, something we will perhaps never know. But we can have a good guess.

Remember when words meant something, though? Remember when ‘message’ had a defined and understood meaning and to ‘respond’ to something you actually had to respond to it? Great days.

Mum’s the word
Here’s a fun little test of your suitability for a career in modern sports journalism.

Consider these quotes from Kylian Mbappe’s mum about the PSG striker’s childhood love of Milan ahead of tonight’s game in which he is playing against Milan.

“He wore it (his Milan shirt) for training and even to bed. But like so many others: Real Madrid, France, PSG, Manchester United for CR7. He loved top strikers, but he could also wear the shirt of (Swiss striker, Alexander) Frei of Rennes.

“He is the son of sportsmen, but he was immersed in cheering for Milan right from the start. When he came home, he would only talk about Milan. If Milan lost, he could throw the remote control at the TV and say a few bad words in Italian.”

What headline are you putting to those quotes, if you even consider them newsworthy at all? Something about Milan is it? FAIL.

The correct headline here is this, as expertly delivered by the Mirror:

Kylian Mbappe’s mum makes unexpected Man Utd admission on behalf of her son

And, by that definition, a Real Madrid admission. And a France admission, a PSG admission, and a Rennes admission. But really almost entirely and exclusively a Milan admission.

Master of Disguise
‘Arsenal icon unrecognisable in beanie hat and glasses as he hops on overground to watch TOTTENHAM’ – The Sun

‘Former Arsenal star can’t fool Tottenham fans as disguise fails on way to watch rivals’ – The Mirror

The Sun and The Mirror AT WAR here. This could get ugly as the recognisability or otherwise of hat-wearing former Arsenal players opens a new front in the culture wars.

All we’ll say is that we’re pretty sure Andrey Arshavin – for it is he – was just wearing a hat and glasses rather than a disguise.

If you want to try and picture what he looked like, simply imagine Andrey Arshavin wearing a hat and glasses. He looked exactly like that.

Incoherent headline of the day
‘Man Utd ditches England for new international team swapping allegiances’

Is the Daily Star okay? Even the ‘new international team’ bit of this is wrong, by the way, because it’s about Darren Fletcher’s son switching allegiance back to Scotland.