IS USING THE TERM "MAN U" DISRESPECTFUL, OFFENSIVE AND AN INSULT?

Due to my constant annoyance at this particular myth, I've decided to make a thread on it...finally. It's a particular problem in the newbs so hopefully this will clear up some stuff.

For a while there has been some vague assumption amongst some (usually younger) fans that the term "Man U" is some kind of heinous insult created by opposition fans after Munich to mock the dead. It's often picked up by posters on internet sites as an example of not being a proper fan or other such nonsense. Its gained considerable credence on the web because of this oddly paragraphed, grammatically mysterious rant.

Man U is not a term United fans refer to themselves as. The term is only used by other supporters as a complete and utter insult to our club. The "u" is meant to be "you" by the rival fans.

An early example of its usage is this chant by West Brom fans: "Duncan Edwards is manure, rotting in his grave, man you are manure- rotting in your grave". The origin of "Man u" is a song to insult the dead Duncan Edwards.

Liverpool and Leeds fans copied this with their own man you /u versions to insult all of the lads who died at munich.

"Man U Man U went on a plane Man U Man U never came back again"

and..

"Man U Never Intended Coming Home" (if you combine the first letter of each word you get the word "munich").

I hope this makes it clearer that saying man u is an insult, particularly to the older supporters and to see United fans using it now is shameful. I hope a few might read this, understand and spread the word.

So... Please REFRAIN from using this term ever again!!!!!!!!

If you scour the internet for proof of this, or a source, or indeed anything to back this up, you'll inevitably only be confronted with this masterpiece of the English language, posted and re-posted word for word on various forums and what nots. There's even bizarrely a facebook group, despite this being almost entirely the only source of evidence or opinion.

It is (and I can't stress this enough) complete bollocks.

Even if you bypass the bizarre logic of "u" being offensive because it's meant to imply "you", the main problem with this theory is it's terrible grasp of history.

The term Man U was created entirely by the news reporters of the 40s and 50s who used to refer to us as Manchester U or Man U to accomodate the name in print. Nothing more, or less. In fact the phrase Man U can be heard quite clearly on some of the old Pathe news reports of the babes triumphs in the mid-50s.

Furthermore to this, it was also used on club merchandise back in the day...before there was an official club shop per say and things like badges and pins were sold out of a shed outside the ground around about where the Munich clock is now...Probably by a woman called Brenda who more than likely smelt of gravy....but in a good way. The shop was - incidentally - owned by Sir Matt.


Geoff Bent, who died in Munich, emblazoned on a pin...what a disgusting shameful insult that is, why whomever made it should be strung up and tub thumped to death by internet warriors...Oh, it was the club... and Sir Matt?...ah... Whoops.

The chants themselves were indeed real (as far as I know) but the U in them was used BECAUSE we were often referred to as Man U, and not as an entirely new magical creation. Which again makes very little sense when you actually think about it.

But don't take my word for it, I'm just a 26 year old Londoner who cuts his own hair..why not take Tom Clare's word for it. A long time manc follower who has written several books on his experience watching the babes in the 50s.

Forever a Babe: Growing Up with Manchester United, by Tom Clare
Tom Clare's History of Manchester United - MUST - the independent Manchester United supporters' trust

This is an old chestnut that comes up time and time again. To give you a little bit of history about where it came from and how the term "Man U" first came to be used, I have to go back to the 50's.

If you were to look at a newspaper from that era, and particularly the football results section, you would see just what a simple explanation there is for it. Newspapers back then were done in an old fashioned way where the compositors (typesetters) used to lay out the pages of the newspapers before they went on the presses for printing. With the results sequences, they obviously could not typeset the full names of each individual club as the columns that needed to be uniformly set out, just would not match up. So what they used to do was abbreviate the name of each football club, and once they had done this the columns would line up as they were needed to be. Hence you would see a a team like Birmingham City abbreviated to B'ham Cty, Sunderland to S'land, Sheffield Wed to Sheff W and so on. So consequently, Manchester United would be set up as Man Utd or Man U, depending upon which newspaper it was.

Certainly, those latter two terms had nothing whatsoever to do with Munich. It's a story that's done the rounds for years and has no mileage in it whatsoever. Just people trying to put a different slant on things and like a rolloing stone, it's gathered stories as it's gone along.

The BBC back then was the main audio/tv outlet, but they would never abbreviate a team's name and always used to give clubs their full title.

However, in the mid 60's we started to see ITV come more into the football commentary side of things, and also, there was another breed of football journalist that started to appear, and it's from here that you started to hear "Man U" used more and more frequently. It was nothing more than sloppy phraseology and sloppy journalism. Times were changing back then and as the game started to become more and more high profile, so did those two terms. Fans picked up on it and it became a normal thing for opposition fans to use those terms. There was never any real disrespect in it - it was just what they saw and what they read.

It's interesting when you look back... even Big Fat Ron when he was at Albion, United, and clubs after that, always referred to United as "Man U". Just sloppiness.

On another note; there was no club merchandise store around in the 50's early 60's. The first shop was actually a little wooden hut (that was owned by Sir Matt!) that appeared underneath the Munich Clock in the mid-60's. It sold things like lapel badges rosettes etc and the team's name was abbreviated on those items.... that little hut developed into what became known as the Megastore, and then when Edwards got his grubby little hands on it (he bought out Sandy Busby) he jumped on Michael Knighton's idea regarding merchandising and the thing we see today, is what has developed from that initial little red hut!
So the only reason anyone should be picked up on using the term Man U is "sloppy pheaseology"...and quite rightly. No one calls the Geordies Newcastle U or the Hammers West Ham U...but there is no disrespect or insult in it. It's just a silly old rumour that has gained credence and notoriety purely by virtue of being on the internet.

It certainly shouldn't be used as a knowledge badge of honour, like some sort of scout badge of redness, because it's anything but. In fact bringing up someone else on it, especially if you do it righteously, actually makes you look a little bit like a pillock, since it's most likely you who doesn't know what you're taking about.

Even if it was all true, and the phrase was created as a heinous insult, 99% of all the opposition fans that use it would have absolutely no idea why...hence removing the actual insult completely.

In short, if you take one lesson from this, it should be "don't believe the internet".... except this obviously.

Thankyou, and goodnight. Make sure you brush your teeth.