Mission Impossible Achieved

There are some rivalries that are not just sporting rivalries, but are much deeper than that. They go to the very DNA of the supporters, the fabric of the competing clubs, cities or participants. Such is the rivalry between two of the football clubs in Liverpool and Manchester.

Some say that the rivalry started between the two cities when Manchester traders felt that goods passing through Liverpool docks were somewhat lighter by the time they left ..... and so they formed a company and built the Manchester ship canal between 1887 and 1894, at a cost of about £15 million (£1.27 billion as of 2011), so that ships were never unloaded in Liverpool again. The Liverpool dockers, deprived of what were colloquially known as 'dockers perks', never forgot this effrontery, and that this rivalry found form in the ethos of the football clubs. However this tale doesn't explain why Manchester City and Everton do not embody the struggle in anything like the manner that Manchester United FC and Liverpool FC do.

Until the 1970's the two clubs were very much on a par at seven titles a piece, and in fact the most successful championship team in 1970/71 were Arsenal FC with eight titles, with Aston Villa on six, Sunderland on Five and even Newcastle FC on four. So in reality, the league title was fairly even split between all the clubs. But the abolition of fixed salaries at football clubs, was slowly having a pernicious effect on this equality of power across the football landscape. The clubs that had the largest revenues (i.e. gate money in those pre-plc days), were slowly attracting the better players by offering higher wages.

The first to combine this fact with a manager, well a series of managers, who could bring title success were Liverpool. They went on a run of title wins from 1972/73 which took their grand total to a record eighteen by season 1989/90 .... none of the other teams could even remotely match this. Arsenal were only on ten titles, Everton had moved to nine, and Manchester United? Well they had not successfully replaced Sir Matt Busby, their manager of the 1950's and 1960's, and the titles had stopped with his retirement ... they were still on seven. 

In fact such was the pressure on every succeeding manager to reverse this apparently terminal stall, that some were broken by the job, others flattered to deceive, with good teams that just were not consistent enough to win that next elusive title (there were just two second places in all this period) .... then along came Alex Ferguson  in November 1986, when Manchester United were once again without a manager and (second from bottom) of the league. 

He was chosen because he had consistently broken the 'Old Firm' grip on Scottish football with Aberdeen FC and taken them to three Scottish Titles, four Cups and two European trophies. It was hoped that at the very least, he would win at least a couple of titles, but catch Liverpool's 'English record' of Eighteen? That seemed too tall an order.


Sir Alex Ferguson : The Dominant Manager Of His Era.

 When he arrived at Old Trafford, the myth is that announced that his mission was to "knock Liverpool from their perch" .... he didn't say that, but is probably happy that this legend has grown, because in an incredible run of title wins, that who knows, may never be surpassed by any one manager, he has won twelve titles, starting with the 1992/3 title and culminating (so far) with the 2010/11 season, and in the process moved Manchester United's number of titles to an new English record of Nineteen League Titles. 

In that same period Liverpool have remained on eighteen, Arsenal have moved to twelve, and the rest are either as they were, or like Chelsea on three, or Manchester City on two, and effectively nowhere. Only Arsenal and Chelsea have in anyway challenged this run of wins, and the fact that this latest EPL title is United's fourth in the last five seasons, shows how dominant he has made the club.

Mission impossible achieved.