Wayne Barton Profile picture
May 22, 2020 โ€ข 4 tweets โ€ข 2 min read โ€ข Read on X
Canโ€™t believe heโ€™s been gone 7 years already.
๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘ ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘ Image
I last saw @hoffgreen a few weeks before he died. @Luzhniki2008 and I went to see him and I talked about co-authoring the book that went on to be 74/75 (that inspired Too Good To Go Down).

He was excited about talking to all of his old teammates for it. Sadly didnโ€™t happen.
Brian loved United. He absolutely loved the club. He was still buzzing, at 60, that theyโ€™d won the league over City. I was doing a regular podcast with him at the time.

I think what he loved most about the club was reconnecting with old pals he hadnโ€™t seen for a while.
Another story about Brian. He was a ball boy when his brother Jimmy played for Leeds v United in early 60s. Brian was a huge Utd fan even then. Got an autograph book signed by all the players, and Busby etc. He kept it and treasured it all of his life.

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More from @WayneSBarton

Aug 8
Jimmy Murphy is the one of the most important men in @ManUtd history.

โ€œTelling them what Jimmy didโ€ฆ itโ€™s the most important thing you can tell a young player who is representing Manchester United," Sir Alex Ferguson told me for my 2018 biography of Jimmy.

Learn the Jimmy Murphy story here ๐ŸงตImage
Jimmy was a half-back (central/defensive midfielder) of international class. He played 200+ times for West Brom, inc. an FA Cup Final. Nickname โ€˜Tapperโ€™, he finished his career with four games at Swindon in 1939 where he was reported to have tried scoring from the halfway line. Image
Jimmy served in WW2. As the war concluded he coached an army team using techniques heโ€™d learned from Jimmy Hogan.

Giving a team talk as though the army game was a World Cup Final, a watching Matt Busby was impressed and promised him a job in Manchester as his assistant. Image
Read 22 tweets
Nov 25, 2023
On this day 18 years ago we lost George Best, the greatest footballer of all time.

Why do I describe him as that?

Read on. Image
When George arrived in Manchester he was shy in character but fearless with the ball. His showmanship against Harry Gregg in training and exploits in youth games - running and scoring from kick off after telling John Fitzpatrick he would - gave birth to a legend before a debut. Image
He made his debut in 1963 and became a permanent first team player by January 1964.

His dribbling skills and imagination terrorized opposition teams. Pat Crerand reckoned that by the end of the year, Best was already the best player in the country. Image
Read 17 tweets
Oct 22, 2023
Bobby Charlton was born on October 11, 1937, in Ashington, Northumberland.

So started the greatest story in football history. Image
In 1953, legendary @ManUtd scout Joe Armstrong was in the north east looking for talent. It was a foggy day - but the ability of one young lad called Robert Charlton stood out. Armstrong convinced the Charlton family that Manchester should be his home. Image
Bobby quickly became close with the emerging team which would become known as โ€˜the Busby Babesโ€™. He fitted in seamlessly. A skillful, graceful inside-forward, Charlton won three Youth Cups. Image
Read 22 tweets
Jun 5, 2023
Manchester United won the treble in 1999.

It's very likely Manchester City will win it on Saturday.

It's the same achievement but it will be nowhere near as impressive, for two important reasons, which I'll explain in this thread.
* Disclaimer from the top, this is my opinion, I'm explaining it at length here. Many people will disagree (probably with both reasons), that's fine, I'm not entering into conversation about it, I won't change my opinion and I don't seek to change yours.
English football reached an arguable peak in the late 90s and early 00s (or from 96-2010) : a combination of post-Bosman foreign influx seeing top talent come to UK, the growing wealth in the PL and slight expansion of Champions League from 1 to 3 places.
Read 25 tweets
Jun 4, 2023
So the dust is settling on the seasonโ€ฆ a bit of an anti-climax in the cup final.

Plenty of think-pieces already being written along the lines of โ€œhow can United match this City team?โ€โ€ฆ well, they donโ€™t necessarily have to.

Mini-thread
Thereโ€™s no point trying to imitate whatโ€™s happening at City. It canโ€™t be done, not a club in the league has the financial clout to build, ride roughshod over bigger & similar size clubs to climb above them and stay there.
Not even Newcastle can do that now because teams are not as financially vulnerable as they were ten years ago to allow a rival to poach their best players to fatten up a squad. Theyโ€™ll have to do it a longer/slightly different way, but it will be their blueprint to follow.
Read 9 tweets
May 24, 2023
Itโ€™s Eric Cantonaโ€™s birthday.

You know him. He became arguably the most important player in @ManUtd history and unquestionably the most influential player in Premier League history.

A thread on how, and why, that's the case. Image
After winning the ECWC in Rotterdam, United's squad felt they were the best in the country. Yet the following season they stumbled at the finish line when on course to win the last D1 as injuries and an absurdly packed fixture list cost them dearly. Confidence was on the floor.
That was the story of the start of the first Premier League campaign. Goals were hard to come by. Efforts to sign Shearer and Hirst were unsuccessful. A chance phone call from Leeds enquiring about Irwin led to a rebuttal and a reverse query - would you let Cantona go?
Read 23 tweets

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