Colin Sheridan: An open letter from a lapsed Man Utd fan to Erik ten Hag
Trafford Photo By United League Rickett/pa Hag Wire Large Premier At Former Pic: Of Before Ten Fans Refreshments Enjoy Old Erik A Match The Manager Manchester Martin
Dear Erik,
We note and acknowledge your open letter to the fans, dated October 31, 2024. We understand last week must have been a difficult for you and appreciate that thinking of others at a time when you must have been suffering yourself was a decent thing to do.
Indicative, perhaps, of your inherent goodness as a person, which was rarely in doubt during your time in Manchester. It just wasn’t that important. If we wanted a good man to be manager, we would’ve just left Ole in charge.
Anyway, the letter. What is it about the Dutch and letters? We note your compatriot Edwin van der Sar’s “open letter” to the club, dated September 3, 2020, in which he, on Ajax Amsterdam headed paper, wrote to us to address our signing of one Donny van de Beek.
“It seems our paths have crossed again,” Edwin wrote in a manner suggesting he believed this particular letter would be published in a collection one hundred years from now called “The Secret Love Letters of Edwin van der Sar.".
Enough with the drama, Ed. You’re still in all the old WhatsApp groups. It’s not like we last saw you in an allied forces field hospital on the outskirts of Arnhem after Market Garden. Get to the point.
“One of ours is joining you this season,” he continued, building the tension “and like so many others before him, he’s been with us since he was just a little boy.”
We should’ve known then, Erik, not to trust the Dutch and their open letters, any more than we should trust election promises, or footballers and their “take ownership” tweets.
Had Edwin been Irish or Scottish, say, we would have at once understood his letter to be sarcastic and trolling, and demanded the club sabotage the deal. But, given your countrymen's reputation for - how shall I put this - “economy of humour,” we took him at his word. Edwin's correspondence went on to make a very short, vague list of why we were winning the mediocrity lottery with Donny.
“We understand it’s time for Donny to move on. To dream on,” Edwin said then, and boy, do we now fully understand why Ajax were so understanding of Donny’s ambition (sending a courtesy car to drive him to Schiphol, I’m guessing).
“Please take good care of our Donny and help him dream.” We helped him dream alright, by sending him on loan to Everton.
We note there was no letter forthcoming when we signed Antony from Ajax for €102.7m, despite him being as useless as a chocolate urinal. We would’ve appreciated something. A heads up. Or a simple thank you for our charity.
Maybe the Donny letter was a canary in the coalmine, and we missed the code? Maybe, just when it comes to letters, you guys really love writing them, but just love making them crap.
Your letter, Erik, if we are honest, was peak Dutch, and not in a Cruyff way.
"Thank you for always being there for the club,” you told us, the fans, “Whether it was at a game far away or a tough match at Old Trafford, your support has been unshakeable.” Jesus. I think the worst part is, we know you wrote this yourself, and not a PA or some AI program. We would’ve appreciated some Ralf Rangnick honesty. Some Moyes despair. Some Mourinho spite. Some van Gaal animus. Instead, we got lists of really uninteresting things.
"The atmosphere at Old Trafford has always been electrifying, thanks to you. I felt it many times. Also in away games, it gave the team and me an incredible feeling to hear the United chants taking over the opponents’ stadiums, whether the game was in England, Europe or during the summer tours."
Nobody in the history of football has mentioned “summer tours” as a career highlight. Nobody. If it was new ground you wanted to break in Manchester, Erik, break it you did.
It’s funny, because for decades now romantics like me have lamented the loss of letter writing as an art form. Yet, single handedly, Dutch football people have sought to euthanise it, which is hugely ironic given how another Dutchman – onetime Groot-Zundert left back, Vincent Van Gogh – wrote almost as beautifully as he painted. The humble detail of his letters and the heroic aspiration they impart to remain – quite simply - life affirming. Vincent may have been a useless football manager, but then...
Anyway, Erik, I hope this finds you well. Rest assured, no Man United fan blames you for anything. The rot is deep at Old Trafford, and no amount of open letters will save us from repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
We’ll always have the 7-0 home defeat of Barnsley in the Carabao Cup third round.
Love to the family.
Colin
Next Sunday on November 10 in Riga, Latvia, Ireland’s women basketballers will play Israel in the FIBA women's EuroBasket 2025 qualifiers, second leg. It follows on from Ireland’s 87-57 defeat to Israel in February in a game that was overshadowed by pre-game pressure on Basketball Ireland not to fulfil the fixture in protest to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has not spread to the other Occupied Territories and Lebanon. While Basketball Ireland ignored those calls, several Irish players opted not to travel to Riga for the first leg. CEO John Feehan said they had to fulfil the fixture or be fined heavily by the governing body FIBA and thrown out of international competition for five years. The players themselves refused to exchange handshakes, pennants or traditional gifts before or after the game in protest at Israeli player Dor Saar accusing the Irish team of being “quite anti-Semitic” in the buildup.
This act of dissent drew an official warning by FIBA Europe for what it described as “unsportsmanlike conduct.” This week will see Ireland Sport for Palestine petition 35 national Basketball Associations taking part in the qualifiers, FIBA Europe and FIBA International demanding Israel is banned from the competition. At the time of writing, their letter had over 14,000 signatures (including my own). As the build-up to Sunday's game continues this week the focus should justifiably shift to why Irish players are put in the position to place this match at all. International sporting bodies have consistently proven themselves to be hypocritical in their application of a mythical moral code they selectively apply whenever the mood takes them. (Russia's absence from international sport since its invasion of Ukraine, the obvious example).
Expect plenty more obfuscation from officials this week. My bet is history will not reflect well on Israel’s continued presence in international sport. It normalises a regime and culture within which its military – widely condemned for committing war crimes and acts of genocide – is woven into the fabric of society. Nine months on since they were last put in this position, we are doing our athletes a huge disservice by expecting them to play.
As any GAA club manager will tell you this time of the year, you can literally do everything right as coach, and still win nothing. Last Thursday night in the Bronx, the New York Yankees were up five runs to zero and cruising against the LA Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series. They needed to win, and looked set to, until the fifth inning, which will go down in Yankees history as one of the most disastrous they've ever endured. The wonderful Jomboy Media on X does an incredible job of what happened next, including a delicious reference to a Dodgers scouting report that suggested the best way to beat the Yankees was to “make them play baseball.” Dodgers players were reminded in team briefings that the New Yorkers were all “talent over fundamentals.” Never did one innings of baseball typify this better than that fateful fifth. Worth watching for any coach in any sport, especially with impeccable Jomboy's commentary.
Another name to remember is fast emerging from the Irish boxing stable; Adam Olaniyan. The reigning European Youth super heavyweight champion yesterday claimed gold at the World Youths with a unanimous decision over his Uzbek opponent. The 18-year-old Tallaght native fights out of Jobstown, and has long been hailed as a huge prospect in the sport. With boxing currently not on the program for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, it is surely imperative that the sport must find a suitable new governing body, to meet the IOC’s demands, and be restored to the lineup for the Games? Not just for Olaniyan, but for every young kid with a pair of gloves. If the vipers' nest of professional boxing is the only dream young fighters have of making, surely the sport will be left to wither and slowly die.