I'm in the same boat as Heckney - only I'm in a place in Canada called Winnipeg, about as far from the footballing centre of the earth as you can imagine. 1230 kick offs start at 6am here. Old man was a match book ticket holder in the 60s and 70s will proudly claim to have been at the 1968 European Cup final and the match when Denis Law scored against us. We emigrated to Canada in the late 70s when there was little opportunity to watch matches - things got better and I'm sure many Canadian Reds recall listening to the late Graham Leggett saying "thank you very much" in a variety of languages during his weekly European football round up. I try to watch every match - much easier these days with the internet and all - remembering the pain of using the VCR to tape a key mid week Euro match when I was at work, only to have my efforts ruined by someone gabbing the score or match details when I didn't want to hear them. I'm over in the UK every year or so, and usually attend a match or two while I am there.
I have never felt the level of confusion and frustration with United as I have during the last days of Moyes' tenure. By what I now see as good fortune, I was not available to travel to the UK for most of that season - because it would it would have presented me with a problem I have never had to face as a lifelong United fan- "do I actually want to bother?".
Trying follow United from afar on the internet involves listening to many voices and trying to decipher how much of what is being said is accurate and how much is just grown men whinging. Moyes lost me when he came out with the infamous "Even Sir Alex would struggle with this squad" - you know, the one he cakewalked the league with the previous season... how could this clown be allowed to continue after saying something that stupid? I recall feeling totally despondent the 0-3 losses to City and Liverpool AT OLD TRAFFORD within weeks of each other... someone had to take action... right? Every time he always had his excuses (always designed to deflect blame from himself) and blathered on about how hard done by he was.
I have a great deal of sympathy for the punter who goes week in and week out to Sunderland these days (or the long suffering children of an old school Sunderland fan who emigrated to Canada or America or Australia, India or Asia and still follows the team with a certain passion)... I know it must be difficult watching this clueless dingbat try to right the ship. I wonder how many of them were actually happy when he was hired in the first place - "he used to managed United, led them to Champion's league quarter finals".
I am not bitter towards David Moyes... its no crime to want to be something better, something bigger than you are capable of... but he doesn't seem to have learned from his mistakes and he certainly doesn't seem to know his place. I will continue to wish poorly of his sides and hope he has no success until he comes to term with his own smallsidedness.
Excellent Moyesie.