For many years Manchester United Football Club has been proud of their Reserves (U21s/U23s) and Youths (U18s/U19s). They’ve enjoyed tremendous success, winning the prestigious FA Youth Cup a record number of times (11).
Manchester United’s last success in the FA Youth Cup, just 16 months ago, attracted a crowd of over 67,000 at Old Trafford.
I have been watching the junior teams for over 50 years and, for the past 20 or so, I’ve been running a minibus for fans to Reserve and Youth matches up and down the country. Newcastle & Sunderland, Liverpool & Everton, Swansea, Southampton, Reading, Brighton, most London clubs, Norwich, Lincoln and most places in between.
We loved watching the teams and the players have always appreciated us being there.
We’ve had seasons where our ‘home’ reserve games have been at Bury’s Gigg Lane, Altrincham’s Moss Lane, Hyde, Ashton, Northwich, The AJBell Stadium in Salford and Leigh Sports Village. Not to mention two or three games a season at Old Trafford. The point I am getting to is wherever they play, they get decent crowds (regulars who’d travel to all of the above and locals who turn up on the night).
Most times, the games have been FREE to attend. And, the Old Trafford games they used to charge a nominal £1 per ticket!
This season, the first game at Old Trafford, it was £5 entry fee (500% increase) and the attendance was significantly lower.
Manchester United even organised a pre-season friendly in San Diego (vs Wrexham) with months and months of promotions (TicketMaster USA were selling tickets at over $100 starting price). Not even the ridiculously high ticket price stopped the stadium being a near sellout – for an U18s friendly.
UEFA have organised a Youth League, which mirrors the Champions League group games, and we‘ve seen some great games over the years. Benfica with many games in between.
There is always a decent crowd and the away sections are usually full of Reds! We’ve had some great trips with some good victories.
This season, it’s Bayern Munich, Copenhagen and Galatasaray – so I emailed Bayern asking about ‘away fans attending’ and got a lovely reply with details of where fixture was being played, the kick-off time, notice that tickets are free and “we are looking forward to seeing you here”.
The Football League Trophy (Papa Johns) is a new competition where League 1 & 2 teams play against Premier League reserve teams – our latest game was at Stockport County, where over 1500 Reds descended. The game went to penalties, United won and the players enjoyed celebrating in the crowd with the travelling fans.
The next game is away at Bolton Wanderers.
The Football League Trophy games and Football League Cup (Carabao) games are all scheduled to commence w/c Monday 25/09.
For some reason, the Carabao Cup game (Crystal Palace at home) is on Tuesday 26/09 @ 8pm and the Papa Johns game at Bolton is also on the same night (@ 7.45pm) – very poor planning!
Now instead of 1,000 or so Reds travelling to Bolton to cheer on the ‘reserves’ there will be a handful who’ve opted not to watch the first team in action at Old Trafford. This could quite easily have been avoided. (Papa Johns on the Wednesday maybe)
Fringe players could then be a substitute for the first team on the Tuesday and (if not given too many minutes) get another runout on the Wednesday.
For those who can’t attend these ‘junior’ games live, there’s always MUTV (who have always advertised the fact you can watch these games LIVE ON MUTV).
But lately, more and more games are not broadcast live due to ‘blackout clashes’ – where if a Premier League game is on Sky live, MUTV can’t show a PL2 reserve (U21s) game even if only part of the games overlap.
So, if Chelsea are playing Nottingham Forest in the Premier League at 12:30 on a Saturday, Sunderland U21s vs Manchester U21s at 11:30 on the same day can’t be shown which is unbelievable.
Reserve (U21s) games were regularly played on a Friday or Monday evening, and therefore didn’t ‘clash’ with the first team in action.
Now this season, more are being played on Saturdays and Sundays where they clash with the first team, therefore, can’t be shown live on MUTV.
Lately, more U21s games have been moved to Carrington and every time we (all the regular fans) get an email to say “sorry, no fans are permitted for the game”. Yes, we know that there is some building work going on, so there’s less car parking spaces, but we can park outside and walk!
It’s getting harder and harder to watch the Reserves & Youth teams now, particularly for home games, either live or ‘live on MUTV’.
Football has always been for the fans.
FOOTBALL WITHOUT FANS IS NOTHING.
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