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Manchester United is an enigma in European football, and all over the world there are people who have travelled huge distances to see games featuring the mighty reds of Manchester. Consequently, Manchester United fans proudly hang United tickets in frames on the walls of their homes the world over.

The United story is a tale of small beginnings and grand finales. Born in the poverty of late 1870s northern England as Newton Heath, the team simply called “United” has grown into a glittering juggernaut which swept away all challengers to take unprecedented honours in the modern game. The pinnacle of this recent success was a historic European and domestic Treble in 1999. Winning the European prize wasn’t completely new to United; the team was the first English team to win the European Cup, back in 1968, as well as the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1991. United have a rich history as a magnet for football supporters the world over, as well as an organization which functions more like a family than an institution, and fans regularly flocked to United’s old training ground, The Cliff, to have players autograph their scarves, shirts, and even United tickets. Contact between fans and players has been historically intimate, and the club’s present manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, demands loyalty and commitment to Manchester United above all other clubs, and especially to money. To play for United is a privilege, not a job.

No story of Manchester United is complete without mention of the Munich Disaster of 1958. The air disaster that stopped the footballing world in its tracks happened during the Busby years, when manager Matt Busby introduced the idea of playing a team full of inexperienced but intensely gifted youngsters. The youngsters were known as the Busby Babes, and were well on their way to becoming one of the strongest sides in Europe when they played Red Star Belgrade in February 1958. On the flight back to Manchester, the plane stopped to refuel in Munich, and crashed upon take-off, killing 23 people, including 8 players. There are statues and plaques around Manchester United’s stadium, Old Trafford, commemorating this sad event.

In the early 1970s, United adopted the Red Devil as their logo, and this lead to a mass-marketing campaign which eclipsed all others. Manchester United football tickets doubled, and then tripled, in price, and popularity boomed. Soon, their stadium was out on its own as a world-class venue, and the merchandising of scarves, flags, replica kits, and posters exceeded all others. This marketing scoop, combined with the highest average crowds in British football, ensured United were recognized as the most powerful and wealthiest club in Britain, if not the world. United’s recent on-field success was accompanied by a move to a larger, more modern training ground, and a sudden wall was erected between the players and their adoring legions of fans. Manchester United fans are renowned for their passion, but recently there has been a diminished atmosphere, despite the expansion of Old Trafford. In recent times, sections of United’s fans have become rebellious, despite their unrivalled success, and a large group even broke away to form their own non-league club, called Football Club United of Manchester. This was in response to what many perceived as an over-mercenary business plan on the part of United’s officialdom. Today, the situation in England means that many teams have an “official” secondary ticketer, cynically referred to as an “official tout” by hardened football fans. FC United’s protest was initially against the American businessman Malcolm Glazer, who plunged the club into hundreds of millions of pounds of debt. United’s proud status as the world’s wealthiest football club was completely wiped out by the debt Glazer transferred to the club when he bought it, but the protest is really about deeper changes in the British game, which appears to be under the gavel in foreign auctions.

Full Name: Manchester United Football Club

Nicknames: The Red Devils, Man Utd, Man U

Founded: 1878

Ground: Old Trafford

Capacity: 76,212