As Tottenham move in while Real Madrid and Barcelona show off their plans, Manchester United’s home – all but untouched under the current owners – looks increasingly tatty
There is a scene in Fawlty Towers when one of the customers is checking out of the hotel and wants to tell Basil how much he has enjoyed his stay. So much, in fact, that he passes on what he thinks is a dead cert for the afternoon race at Exeter and puts a few coins into the tip box on his way to the door. At which point Sybil appears and Basil turns to his wife with a slightly startled expression on his face. “Satisfied customer,” he explains. “We should have him stuffed.”
If the Glazer family have spent long enough in England to understand that kind of humour, you wonder whether Manchester United’s owners would appreciate that line. They, too, don’t get many satisfied customers, which probably should not come as a surprise given the way they run the club and the mountains of debt they have stacked up in the process. Or the way, perhaps, they promised to keep an open line of communications and, 14 years on, we have not heard a peep from them since.
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