One of my best memories of my dad came with the 76 final between United and Southampton.
We sat down to watch Kick Off on Friday evening and you would have thought the trophy had already been given to United. Utterly dismissive of Southampton, Jack Smethurst saying “I‘ll give you 6-4 that Southampton won’t even turn up tomorrow!”.
We had little love for United, the last two years had been spent watching them climb out of Div 2, and then being assured by Granada that the young team Docherty had assembled were at the very least, the second coming.
So when Southampton were priced at 6-1 the following morning, Dad and I thought we would put a small bet on. We watched the game, laughed our heads off when Southampton won, and headed into St Annes to pick up our winnings. On the way, he saw a bunch of disconsolate teenage fans in United scarves walking along, He slowed down the car and shouted out “where’s your FA Cup now then!”. It was totally out of character, but there’s only so much Granada cheerleading for United a man can take....