Short Story: Manchester United But Man & Woman Divided

It was the same scene as usual, the beer was on the table, the pizza box lay open with the cheesy crust Pizza and the TV was showing Manchester United jerseys. What was missing was that he was not at his usual adda but at home. Another change was that instead of his bunch of raucous friends around him he had his very pretty and bored girlfriend!

This was a role reversal of every chick flick he had watched with her. But atleast he got the gooey eyes and cuddles during the movie; all she got her were his loud shouts and hi fives which she stopped to reciprocate mid way.

“That’s why I don’t ever call you for the matches!” He sipped on his beer with a sulk but a swift pass from the midfielder got an excited scream from him.

And then it was half time. They were winning and it wasn’t a very tough team so he was quite relaxed. He didn’t miss the banter with the boys too much.

“So, how do you like it? Enjoying it?” the ever hopeful football fan asked her. He had called her over because she always complained he spent too much time on football and never even met her on match days!

“Whatever!” She rolled her eyes. “What kind of a stupid game this is! All those men running around the ball and your team aren’t even good looking!”

Oh God, she is such a cliché! He was thinking in his mind. Just then she asked the dreaded question, “Yeh batao, what is this off side business? I mean I get the whole throw the ball in the opponent’s goal but this off side is stupid!”

Efforts to Explain Manchester United Begins

How do you explain off side? He was in a bit of quandary when he said, “Arre, but you don’t even know what the English Premier League is right? Let me tell you about that, then let me explain what off side is.”

“Okay, so let’s begin with my club, I hope you at least know that my clubs name is Manchester United and they wear red uniform so are called the reds?”

“Do you think I am like dumb or something? Of course I know, that Neeraj keeps talking about how awesome the Manchester City football team is! But if you support the same team why do you get into arguments with him so much?”

“Argggghh! No! No! You can’t be this dumb! Manchester has two teams, Manchester United and Manchester City. Man Utd wears the Red uniform and Man City wear the Blue uniform and we hate them!”

‘Why??”

ManU and ManC are not the same!

“It’s a very old rivalry, but they are not as awesome as us! They just play their players and are big show offs! The real fans are the Manchester United fans. By the way, we have won the most titles in the leagues history, 13 years we won the title!” She was a bit miffed because of how passionately he was speaking about his team. She wished he was this enthusiastic about things she did!

“Okay so now there is this league, called the English Premier League which is like as association of various football clubs. All the clubs in England are a part of this. You must have heard of names like Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton, Aston Villa etc they are all part of the club. Now the season starts in August and ends in May, so yes, it’s all year round! There are 20 teams like this and they each play 38 matches against every other team, one home and one away!”

He was still continuing with as much excitement as ever, “So that’s why I usually have a match to watch every weekend, these guys play on Saturdays and Sundays. But not all the matches are as interesting! Now they score 3 points for each win and 1 point for a draw and then they total the points up to see who won the title. However there is also something called the goal points difference and all. But, all that is up for another time, half time ends baby!”

And the TV volume went back up and she sat sulking and thinking that she should search for the Man Utd match calendar and plan all her weekends!