I remember when I was getting into football as child in the late 60s and these lot winning the European cup in 68 only being impressed by the size of the actual cup thinking how massive it was ,didn’t give a shit about them .my dad said it was what Matt busby deserved after what he went through which was true .
But very quickly they started to fall and by the star of the 70s the rot had set in and they spent the early 70s just keeping above the relegation spots and of course by 74 down they went.
From European champions in 68 to relegation in 74 ,six years .
So as a child this was their normal to me ,they were shit.even when they came up the following season it was to make the numbers up and were just a mid table side .they even managed to get beat in the 76 cup final off second division Southampton who I think finished mid table in that division so weren’t really good either.this always get air brushed out of history but it was a huge humiliation at the time.
Rest of the 70s and 80s they were just crap ,a cup final here and there but their biggest achievements was game raising against us which they always seemed to get one over us ,great as we were .it was their cup final everytime we played them .
But ultimately that was their normal.years of mediocrity then eventually Ferguson got them sorted and off they went but even he was extremely lucky to survive those first 4 years as they were just as shit as ever .even after the 1990 cup run and win ,in the league that following season they were struggling and it looked like he would be sacked but suddenly the stars seemed to align and as I said they went upwards for twenty years .
Now they are back to what they were when I was growing up and beyond .mid table ,odd cup run and final here and there ,playing shit football in a dump of a ground ,getting turned over by mediocre teams ,and going through managers every 5 minutes.
Let’s hope they repeat the 73-74 seasons too .sorry to quote the owl but that would be utopia
