Whoever the new Louis van Gaal is, I really hope they make Giggsy their number two. The Moyes toll taken on the players was visibly lifted and, well, it’s obvious why. Keeping Scholesy and Bicky Nutt involved in some capacity would again serve the new Louis van Gaal very well – whoever the board choose to charge with Louis van Gaaling us.

It’s been nice to be able to watch press conferences again. To be looking forward to the end of the season with excitement, not trepidation. To not have to defend the indefensible. To think that David Moyes can leave with a shred of dignity intact. Giggs that.

The way David Moyes’ United career played out in the mainstream media, effectively fuelled by Twitter ‘banter’ was really uncomfortable towards the end. No doubt he’ll come back to Old Trafford with another team in the future. Would be fitting to see him exact a bit of revenge.

The game itself, I thought, bristled with the expectation of the imminent new era.

Tony and Carrick most notably looked different somehow: more like themselves. Perhaps Cleverley, in a positional sense at least, aided that. Just saying something. I know nothing. Am never right. Nor do I want or profess to be. Even though this sounds like I’m doing the thing where I’m saying I am right. I’m not.

Giggsy summed it all up perfectly after the match in saying – nice to be able to quote your Louis van Gaal – only Dave has had a decent season; and that goes for everyone at the club.

We are pregnant with the future.

p.s A case for the new Louis van Gaal:

I was in bits at the opening sequence. I managed to just about hold it together for the rest. I fell in love with Eric more (even more)(I didn’t think it was possible, either). And much goosebumps ensued.

Do you like being wrong? I like being wrong. Do you like being wrong? I like being wrong. Love being wrong. Love it. Yeah. It’s great being wrong, isn’t it? Yeah …  I like being wrong. Really like being wrong. Really, love being wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Love IT! Yeah, really, REALLY love, love, LOVE being wrong. Yeah … you know the best thing about being wrong? The best thing about being wrong? Yeah, the BEST thing about being wrong? The best thing about being wrong is when your friends remind you, you were wrong. Yeah, LOVE being reminded when I was wrong. BEST THING! LOVE BEING WRONG!!

When I first heard this documentary film was being released, I was expecting a Christmas cash cow, and was happy to tell anyone within ear shot how it would inevitably take the form of a thrashed-out slash straight-to-video slash regurgitated montage off all those familiar clips; a pre-prescribed emotional mugging. It unequivocally is not that. The production spec is proper; this has been taken very seriously, by proper film-makers. But that’s not even the half of it.

As the six players eloquently talk us through their story (joyfully abetted by the two Erics: Harrison and Eric), we’re reminded, not only of how special their story is, but of just how integral to it their relationships with each other were and are. It’s no surprise then that the moments when the film really excels are when the players are gathered together over their tea. It’s they themselves who tell this story best and the creators of the documentary provide them with the perfectly understated platform to pitch it from here.

A couple of little things: I understand there’s a formula to documentary film-making and key to this is providing a social and political context for the main narrative, but (just throwing it out there) perhaps one or two of the external talking heads accepted the invitation primarily to indulge in some professional self-serving – I’m definitely looking at you Tony Blair (Boo!). For my personal taste, the film could have done without these asides – not you Mani, you’re alright – as the television and media footage that was interspersed throughout did the job more than adequately. I also thought we might find out what happened to a few of the other graduates. I’ll shut up.

Though it’s really hard for me to watch this film any way but subjectively, I think there is enough in the relationships of the players, and in this new take on their real-life fairytale, for fans of other clubs, and non-football fans to get behind. For United fans it’s a no-brainer – you have to see this film.

To coincide with the release of the new Class of ’92 documentary film (@classof92film, Class of ’92 DVD) we’re taking six familiar faces, with six all too familiar names to Canvey Island: Giggsy, Scholesy, Butty, Phily, Gary-y and Becky. What?!

For this special trip, our Canvey Island family will be sharing the song that defined 1992 for them.

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As they were boarding the train, the conductor stopped them for a second to ask “if we’ll get to find out what happened to the other 86?! Hey?! Hey?! Lads?!” (Hey! That’s my joke.) and then helped them aboard, in silence, ‘cept for a distant death knell.

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There was only one train waiting to depart, there was only one destination …

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Canvey Island!

They stepped off the train and were ushered, like the others before them, towards the car park where they found the car-boot sale and the stall run this time by someone who looked suspiciously like ex-Manchester United player Eric Cantona. He always rotas himself in for the good ones.

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Eric had a message for them: “Bonjour mes petits amis spéciaux préférés … Hey! Je me demandais si nous pourrions obtenir pour savoir ce qui s’est passé à l’autre 86? Non! Attendez une minute … qu’est ce que c’est cloche pour? Quoi qu’il en soit, s’il vous plaît jeter un oeil à ce que la famille Canvey a choisi pour vous…”

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…And this is what the Canvey Island family members picked as the song that defined their own 1992, and why (in their own words)…

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Estranged by Guns ‘n’ Roses

Picked by Paul Ansorge

Harvest Moon by Neil Young

Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chilli Peppers

Picked by Paul Gunning

“I was only eleven years old in 1992. So, my first year in high school, a year of first, awkward, taking-an-age-to-build-up-the-courage-to-slip-my-arm-round-a-girl’s-shoulders dates at cinemas, first kisses with tongues, terrible clothes and ‘curtains’ haircuts.

It’s fitting that this song should be a love letter to a city, as 1992 was also the year that I truly fell in love with Manchester and began to feel the first flutters of melancholy and aloneness within my soul, perfectly encapsulated in this heart-rending track.

It’s such a powerful, evocative song that brings back flooding memories of important loved ones in my life, and a time of awakening and possibility as I embarked on the first, faltering steps of my teenage years.”

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Would I Lie To You by Charles & Eddie

Picked by Tom Pattison

“In my ninth year on planet earth it was ALL about Charles & Eddie Would I Lie To You and it basically still is.”

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Brothers In Arms by Dire Straits

Picked by our very own David

“When I was 11? Probably Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits!”

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End of the Road by Boyz II Men

Picked by our very own Brett

“One of the best things about this song – and there are lots of best things about this song (apart from perhaps the second half of the talky part, that goes on a bit) – is that it can be sung in a key that means anyone can proper belt it out, irrespective of singing ability. It also lends itself really well to the fist-clenching-grabbing-of-that-lingering-hope-and-anguish-and-pulling-it-in-close-to-your-chest move.

My only experience of music before my early teens (I was 13 in 1992), was via the medium of Atlantic 252 and the telly (Top of the Pops and The Chart Show). Naturally I was into some pretty dark stuff: Michael Jackson. Take That. Simply Red. NKOTB NKOB. MC Hammer. Jimmy Nail. And Boyz II Men. Though I do think End of the Road is one of the best pop songs of the past twenty-five years, it’s not the song in and of itself that marks it out as defining my 1992. It’s the memory attached to it (yes, there is more)…

It was the ‘Christmas Variety Show 1992′ at our school. The Christmas Variety Show at our school was really just a vehicle for the posh and confident and “talented” and popular kids to show off, as teachers and parents fawned over them. Meanwhile, the rest of us were supposed to watch on, gratefully. Paradoxically, we despised them all, yet (for no good reason) longed to be one of them. This year the headline act was to be a duet performed by the two school ‘hunks’ (I forget their names) and it seemed everyone was restless with anticipation – everyone, but me.  As the familiar slow drum roll from the backing track tumbled in and hunk #2 sloped towards the front of the stage and began to speak in a low voice whilst hunk #1 caressed himself, it soon became apparent that this was very much not cool. I’m not sure if I’d ever experienced the frisson of cringing on someone else’s behalf before that moment; certainly not to that degree; nor for that long; nor that intensely. 

I might have been achingly shy and tragically unpopular and a bit rough (themes that have stuck), but at least I wasn’t that. And I didn’t stroke my groin in front of the whole school, with the minimum of self-awareness. I went home from the Christmas Variety Show 1992 feeling comfortable in my own skin – happy I wasn’t one of them. Happy to be me.”

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And then we dropped them off back home, but not before asking if we’d be finding out what happened to the other 86… 

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To get your hands on a copy of the DVD > Class of ’92 DVD

To keep up-to-date with all the news about the film > @classof92film

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Remember, to see the original musical picks from any of the lovable members of the Canvey Island family simply click on their names.

If you want to become a member of the Canvey Island Family, then please refer to the train timetable at selected stations, or easier still, drop us an email.

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Also available in the series (see below)…

*Hero claxon*

If you were to x-ray the skulls of England’s finest during any major tournament (ignoring the fake turds and paper cuttings of themselves), I imagine all you’d find would be the black and white clips of Bobby Charlton crashing one in from 20 yards, or Bobby Moore perfectly timing a tackle, or Gary Linekar reeling away, or David Platt pulling off the most incredible of last minute volleys, or Nobby dancing, or Gordon Banks denying Pele – all on loop. The same tackles, saves and shots, over and over again, not lots of different tackles or shots, the same tackles and shots. The rest of the time (in the footage not endlessly repeated), the players they idolise are generally doing the simple things really well, cus that’s what the best players do and did. They’re not infinitely searching for their hero moment, theirs came about because of their ability to do all the other stuff really well a lot of the time … and sometimes, they just got extremely lucky.

The jingoism (and xenophobia) the tabloid press and (although I’m loathed to say it) “general media” impresses on the nation, and our players, in the build up to international matches reinforces those largely superficial, yet highly seductive notions of us needing heroes. Our players are, by no stretch, above falling for these romantic advances, if anything the nature of their existence within a wider cultural context sees them courting it.

The latter part of John Terry’s career has been one endless slow motion montage of him chucking himself in front of stuff. Shame there are no moving trains scheduled through Stamford Bridge on match days *Gasp – that means he’d be deaded* Maybe he could consider something  more meaningful, like holding position and defending? Fellow defender Ashley Cole, has foregone man-marking detail in favour of his last-man-back-death-defying-clearing-off-the-line routine. Glen Johnson – poor thing – thinks the general duties of the right back are spelled s-h-o-o-t-o-n-s-i-t-e-f-r-o-m-w-h-e-r-e-v-e-r–t-h-e-f-u-c-k-y-o-u-l-i-k-e. Martin Kelly looks a tiny bit like Clark Kent – if you squint – you’re not telling me that’s not intentional?

*Hero claxon*

Up the pitch: Steven Gerrard – does he have something against the football? Why does he have to kick it so damned hard? “Oh, and it’s fallen into the path of Steven Gerrard, 20 yards out” *ALMIGHTY THWACK* “Oh, and it’s dropped to Steven Gerrard 12 yards out” *ABSOLUTE SMASH* “Oh, and it’s Steven Gerrard two yards out” *EARTH SHATTERING BLAST* Scott Parker navigates the pitch with an air of someone who wants the audience to believe he’d detach his limbs and disperse them evenly throughout the pitch, in order to be everywhere at once, if only science would allow it.  Stewart Downing prefers to put all his efforts into that “one shot”, every other game, as opposed to anything as degrading as a consistent performance throughout those 180 minutes. Wayne Rooney couldn’t relinquish his super powers even if he wanted to (and he’s been trying his hardest for United this season), we simply wont allow it, and Ashley Young can fly.

In recent years, a reference point on the pin-board of sporting achievement for England’s perpetual under-achievers, that without doubt helped fortify their valiant pretensions, would have been David Beckham’s display against Greece to qualify for the World Cup 2002.  He was everywhere wasn’t he?! Tackling back in the opposite full-back position, in his own six-yard box, and eventually scoring a fairytale free-kick with virtually the last kick of the game. The imagined stuff of footballing folklore, playing out in front of our eyes, really happening. What they wouldn’t have noted was that Beckham’s performance that day was, at best, disruptive and at its worst, emphatically immature and detrimental to the overall output of the team. As I said in my post on penalties, what Beckham actually presented as captain was a wholly misguided idea of what taking responsibility is all about. Making the right decisions for the team and not decorating yourself in glory is a good starting point (as with the penalty post I’d like to add, again, that I love you David)

The only recent result of note in a major tournament, against a proper team, was the 1-0 win versus Argentina in the 2002 World Cup. The footnote to that victory was the happenstance inclusion of Nicky Butt in midfield. He wasn’t the preferred option, far from it. Injury after injury had nudged him, albeit reluctantly, up the pecking order. What Nicky Butt did that night was truly inspirational. He denied any instincts to play headline grabbing passes, or indulge any propensity for misadventure (he was a bit naughty on occasion) and instead he did exactly what was required tactically of him by his team. In putting the team first, the ultimate sacrifice in any players case, he received universal acclaim. He won England the game that night. Interestingly, in getting the basics right, he created a platform for himself, a position within the game to dictate from. Nicky Butt controlled the midfield, against Argentina, for more than his fair share of the contest and began to create openings. What the papers concentrated their reporting on, however, was Beckham’s (god-awful) penalty, which apparently was “what won us the game”.

*Nick Butt claxon*

With the opposition we invariably face during tournaments being both tactically and technically superior to ourselves, England needs more Nicky Butts versus Argentinas, and less David Beckhams versus Greeces.  What we all want, and wish for more than anything, is the opposite.

It’s possible that, with all these elements, we have created a warped incarnation of “hero syndrome”. The desires, fears and intentions of our collective ego (that of the F.A, players, fans and media) have conspired to create our own ever more desperate set of circumstances. We wallow in the fact that our problems run that much deeper than those of our “enemies”, so that if we were to emerge triumphant from them, we would appear that much more gallant, and the victory would be that much sweeter. Perversely, it’s those desperate circumstances, that we ourselves create, that actually conspire to ensure that we will consistently fall short of our heroic aspirations.