Virgin United

I hesitated to use today’s title because of the weird searches it will attract to my blog.  For all of five seconds.  Think of the weird searches it will attract to my blog!

Image by scaryredhair via Flickr

Some background information is necessary for many of you to comprehend today’s post.

1) Richard Branson must be a United fan.  He lives in London; that was my first clue.

2) I support Manchester City football club.  I was an Evertonian by birth but the Hub made me convert on marriage, and there’s no zealot like a convert: I am unashamed in my bias.

3) Our arch rivals are Manchester United, a team that resides in the City of Salford, not Manchester – hence the number of United fans who don’t come from Manchester (are you listening, Irish Tinman?). 

If you are American, think of the intense rivalry between the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago White Sox and you’ll get an idea of what I’m talking about – two teams playing in different leagues.  For years we have been the poor relations but that is changing: a very nice and supremely rich man, Sheikh Mansour, kindly made us the richest football team in the world; bought us a manager who has won silverware at every club he has ever managed (now including us; thank you, O The Great Mancini); and fabulous players who wouldn’t have considered us a few short seasons ago.  Money buys success: who’d have thunk it?

But I digress.

4) It was Derby Day last Sunday: City trounced United 6 – 1 at home.  Their home.  It’s like someone walked in, bashed the wife about, got the kids to lick his slippers and ate the man of the house’s chicken dinner.  Pretty nasty.  Tee hee.

I wasn’t going to mention it, despite Tinman’s masterful explanation of what went wrong, which deserves a big audience (I couldn’t give him this week’s CoWAbunger because that would have seemed like I was gloating about his miserable team’s pitiful performance and I would never do that, even though they were rubbish and we played them off the park):

BTW, tell the Hub that seven of your six goals were offside, you started the game with eighteen players, the goal was wider at the end we were defending and, thanks to a bizarre sponsorship deal, our players were forced to play wearing deep-sea diver’s boots.

But now I have to mention it because of something weird that happened last night: Richard Branson was clearly out for revenge.

5) City played Wolves.  The match was on the telly…only…it wasn’t…

• The game was due to start at 19:45. 
• At 19:40 we lost the signal. 
• As well as our telephone and internet.
• Virgin provide our tv, telephone and internet.
• We were cut off from civilisation.
• The Hub got on his Pay As You Go mobile to Virgin.
• He was put on a thirty minute hold, at least.  To compensate for the long wait, Virgin now give you an option to choose your irritating muzak: Press 1 for pop.  Press 2 for urban.  Press 5 for classical. 
• Seriously?
• He gave up before his money ran out and dug out the transistor radio instead.
• Thus it was that the Hub, Spud’s loaner Granddad and three teenage boys listened to City beat Wolves 5 – 2 huddled around an old radio.  It was like being back in Division 2. 
• The match finished.
• One minute later…the tv, internet and phone came back on.

Don’t tell me Richard Branson’s not a Red.

Image via Wikipedia

Related articles

• Sir Richard Branson (powerstudy.wordpress.com)
• http://pigletinportugal.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/crossed-lines-pt-or-sapo-2/