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Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action

When the article linked to refers to City's roots in the Anglican church, it fails to mention the circumstances surrounding the club's formation in the inner-city Ardwick and West Gorton areas, which were that local clergyman's daughter Anna Connell was alarmed at the utter poverty and degradation she saw around her, and at the fact that the men tended to spend what little spare time they had drinking their wages. Then there was the problem of teenage gang warfare and the 'scuttling' phenomenon. Her response was to canvass the locality with a view to forming a sports club. There is no evidence that this was done on a sectarian basis as the article implies. Catholics in Manchester, as I know myself being from a Catholic background, have chosen City in their tens of thousands over the decades. I would say that a majority have probably favoured United for various reasons, but to nowhere near the extent that the article implies, and to refer to 'loyalist' City is a complete fantasy. Ditto with the claims that united are 'the club for immigrants generally': completely romanticised; successive wave of immigrants have tended to randomly favour one or the other club. Anybody who has known the pubs, schools, working class neighbourhoods and workplaces of Manchester well would acknowledge that attitudes towards the conflict in Ireland were pretty much interchangeable between both sets of fans, and in this respect the same as working class attitudes on the whole. There are no loyalist and republican professional football clubs outside Glasgow. In fact both sets of fans locally are, of course, interchangeable in most aspects.
 
LLETSA said:
It isn't a nice day anymore-it's just started raining.
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Fuckin pissed down didn't it?

And you're right, Ordsall's no more or less steeped in working class tradition than Broughton (Higher or Lower) or, if we're crossing the river, Ancoats or Collyhurst.
 
Another bizarre claim in that article is the idea that Yuri Gagarin's visit to Trafford Park (where the workface came from all over Manchester and was as much City as United) provides evidence of 'a link with communism.'
 
LLETSA said:
Another bizarre claim in that article is the idea that Yuri Gargarin's visit to Trafford Park (where the workface came from all over Manchester and was as much City as United) provides evidence of 'a link with communism.'
Click to expand...

Trumpets - I'm not into football, I'm not a red and I'm not a blue, can't see the appeal TBH, all excited over players legs - Not my direction. But yeah, what you're saying is self evidently right (I would've thought). Anyway, you can state your own case better than I can, but I'll tell you what gets right on my nerves - "We're man united and we do what we want" ...Fuck do I hate that chant.
 
LLETSA said:
Another bizarre claim in that article is the idea that Yuri Gargarin's visit to Trafford Park (where the workface came from all over Manchester and was as much City as United) provides evidence of 'a link with communism.'
Click to expand...

Its not really that bizarre. The phrase 'link with communism' is a little strange, granted.

But the trip was a trade union organised trip, they specifically went to Trafford Park because of its industry. The Foundry Union made him an honorary member and the Red Flag was flown over Albert Square.

They specifically chose Manchester and Trafford Park for a reason, that reason was because of the industrial working class nature and the trade union culture of the place.
 
Frances Lengel said:
Trumpets - I'm not into football, I'm not a red and I'm not a blue, can't see the appeal TBH, all excited over players legs - Not my direction. But yeah, what you're saying is self evidently right (I would've thought). Anyway, you can state your own case better than I can, but I'll tell you what gets right on my nerves - "We're man united and we do what we want" ...Fuck do I hate that chant.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
 
Red Storm said:
Its not really that bizarre. The phrase 'link with communism' is a little strange, granted.

But the trip was a trade union organised trip, they specifically went to Trafford Park because of its industry. The Foundry Union made him an honorary member and the Red Flag was flown over Albert Square.

They specifically chose Manchester and Trafford Park for a reason, that reason was because of the industrial working class nature and the trade union culture of the place.
Click to expand...



An industrial and trade union culture, but not a communist one-that's all I was noting. The red flag being flown over Albert Square would have been the Stars and Stripes if the US had got there first-and they'd have gone to Trafford Park and been feted by the union bureaucrats just the same.

Workers turn out for Gagarin, workers turn out for Kennedy.
 
LLETSA said:
An industrial and trade union culture, but not a communist one-that's all I was noting. The red flag being flown over Albert Square would have been the Stars and Stripes if the US had got there first-and they'd have gone to Trafford Park and been feted by the union bureaucrats just the same.
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Neil Armstrong was never invited to Trafford Park by the trade unions.

I agree it's not a 'communist link' but I sort of see where he is coming from. I think Engel's and Marx's links to the city would have been worth noting more than Gagarin's in this respect.
 
Fair enough-I suppose there was some ideological content. But as far as that article is concerned, it has no bearing on football loyalties in the area where, as I said, the workers came from all over Manchester and beyond and were as likely to support either club over the other.
 
LLETSA said:
When the article linked to refers to City's roots in the Anglican church, it fails to mention the circumstances surrounding the club's formation in the inner-city Ardwick and West Gorton areas, which were that local clergyman's daughter Anna Connell was alarmed at the utter poverty and degradation she saw around her, and at the fact that the men tended to spend what little spare time they had drinking their wages. Then there was the problem of teenage gang warfare and the 'scuttling' phenomenon. Her response was to canvass the locality with a view to forming a sports club. There is no evidence that this was done on a sectarian basis as the article implies. Catholics in Manchester, as I know myself being from a Catholic background, have chosen City in their tens of thousands over the decades. I would say that a majority have probably favoured United for various reasons, but to nowhere near the extent that the article implies, and to refer to 'loyalist' City is a complete fantasy. Ditto with the claims that united are 'the club for immigrants generally': completely romanticised; successive wave of immigrants have tended to randomly favour one or the other club. Anybody who has known the pubs, schools, working class neighbourhoods and workplaces of Manchester well would acknowledge that attitudes towards the conflict in Ireland were pretty much interchangeable between both sets of fans, and in this respect the same as working class attitudes on the whole. There are no loyalist and republican professional football clubs outside Glasgow. In fact both sets of fans locally are, of course, interchangeable in most aspects.
Click to expand...

Coming from several generations of Catholic United fans it was a bit of shock to me when my devout grandmother shortly before she died confessed to having been a closet City fan for years.
 
Red Storm said:
Its not really that bizarre. The phrase 'link with communism' is a little strange, granted.

But the trip was a trade union organised trip, they specifically went to Trafford Park because of its industry. The Foundry Union made him an honorary member and the Red Flag was flown over Albert Square.

They specifically chose Manchester and Trafford Park for a reason, that reason was because of the industrial working class nature and the trade union culture of the place.
Click to expand...
So, a link between formal bureaucracies.
 
Spanky Longhorn said:
Man U the "formal bureaucracy" club.
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It isn't really about United as a club, or their fans, but the completely romanticised version of their history the article contains. As a useful contribution to working class football culture, it's akin to that Sean Bean film where he plays a miner, or some such, who gets to play for his local club despite looking about 43 and they appear to mix up several different eras.
 
LLETSA said:
It isn't really about United as a club, or their fans, but the completely romanticised version of their history the article contains. As a useful contribution to working class football culture, it's akin to that Sean Bean film where he plays a miner, or some such, who gets to play for his local club despite looking about 43 and they appear to mix up several different eras.
Click to expand...
And sheff utd being a half-decent club. That's what killed it for me.
 
LLETSA said:
It isn't really about United as a club, or their fans, but the completely romanticised version of their history the article contains. As a useful contribution to working class football culture, it's akin to that Sean Bean film where he plays a miner, or some such, who gets to play for his local club despite looking about 43 and they appear to mix up several different eras.
Click to expand...

For being a football fan to work, you have to romanticise - he club, the players, the game itself, your relationship to it and so on ad nauseoum. Football is pretty shit if you strip the romance away and leave the cold hard reality in plain sight.
 
chilango said:
For being a football fan to work, you have to romanticise - he club, the players, the game itself, your relationship to it and so on ad nauseoum. Football is pretty shit if you strip the romance away and leave the cold hard reality in plain sight.
Click to expand...



Very true, particularly now that we're watching eleven multi-millionaires playing eleven multi-millionaires and paying through the nose for the privilege.
 
badminton5.gif
 
chilango said:
Coming from several generations of Catholic United fans it was a bit of shock to me when my devout grandmother shortly before she died confessed to having been a closet City fan for years.
Click to expand...

Not a strange one really. Mate of mine is from Mayo, his whole family bar his then non interested mum are United. They moved to Manchester 1970 and lived ojust off Parkfield Street then Horton Road, Lletsa will know just how close to Maine Road they both are. His mum-previously totally uninterested, then decided that City was her great love and she could admit it now that Niall Quinn was a regular at St Edwards RC Social club just like her and her husband....
 
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