by Tony Attwood
I am grateful to Uncle Mike for writing in and pointing out two anniversaries for May 8. Pressure of work and the like meant that I was not able to prepare a note at the start of the day about this, but better late than never.
May 8 was the day on which we won the Double for the first time, with one of the most iconic goal celebrations of all time (you must have seen the film of Charlie George on the turf, even if you were not there), and we won the league at the Man United ground.
Memories of both days are still strong in my mind despite my actually missing both matches. In 1971 I was living in Algiers, but amazingly the cup final was on Algerian TV! Something of a lift since I had followed the rest of the season on short wave radio with atrocious reception.
As for the 2002 match in Manchester, I didn’t get a ticket to be there, so watched it on TV. What I do remember is the amazing way in which Man U were able to chop our players to bits without any retribution from the ref. It was as if he was saying “well, you come to Old Trafford ready to win the league, what do you expect?”
We had a banner up saying something like, “Old Trafford – League Champions enclosure”, and Wiltord scored. What a night.
Both great days, and now both listed thanks to Uncle Mike on our ever growing anniversary list
