Manchester United

It is noteworthy to me that Manchester United ended the weekend at the top of the Barclays premiership table. They've been trailing league leaders Liverpool for the first half of the season but a solid run through the Boxing day and New Year period combined with faltering play by Liverpool and Chelsea in recent weeks has jettisoned MY team to the top of the table... with a game in hand!
(I really wanted to post THIS picture of Ronaldo)

I'm a *Man Utd* fan and always have been. Well, I've been a fan since 1982 when, while watching the World Cup that summer I developed a pre-teen crush on the then England and Manchester United captain, Bryan Robson. Incidentally, Bryan Robson also wore the famed #7 Man Utd shirt that has been worn by David Beckham and which currently adorns the torso of footballer of the year, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Funnily enough, it wasn't cool to be a Man Utd fan in the 1980s. They were a Premiership team (called Division 1 back then) but they hadn't won the division title for 20 years. It wasn't until 1985 that they even had any Cup success, beating Everton 1-0 to win the F.A. Cup. I recognize that since I hail from Sheffield, most would question my loyalty to a team based on the other side of the Pennines (300 mile ridgeline in the north of England that separates Yorkshire from Lancashire) but as you can see, there's history to my fandom. Nowadays, Manchester United is probably the *winningest* football team in the world with the most global fan base. No one would question that its players of the last 10 years are among the most famous... I mean, David Beckham and his clothes-horse wife, Victoria, regularly appear in the US gossip magazines, People and US Weekly... hilarious for a country that doesn't even know what football is... they can't even get the name right!