Old Trafford fans are really good

TZZero

http://www.4thegame.com/features ... arling_cup_eye.html

Carling Cup Eye
Thursday 27 Oct 2005

Football is a cruel game, we all know that. But even the hardest hearts must have softened last night at the sight of a young man whose Old Trafford dream had turned into a nightmare less than two minutes into it. Ross Flitney will have seen the likes of Manchester United in his time with Fulham, but with Barnet he might only get the one chance to actually play at the Theatre Of Dreams. And he blew it...

There can be no doubt that he handled the ball outside his area, but it was certainly a mistake in judgement rather than an attempt to seek to gain an advantage from it, so it does seem unfair that he could be sent off for something that is often not even deemed worthy of a yellow card. However, referee Richard Beeby wasn't in a charitable mood and despite a shrug of the shoulders, brandished a red card to the distraught keeper, who was left to trudge back down the pitch in tears.

Spare a thought too for Louis Soares, who never even touched the ball before he was sacrificed to make way for a sub keeper. And he hadn't even done anything to deserve being denied any more Old Trafford action, whereas you can at least say that Flitney should have been more aware of where his penalty area was. Flitney even got a standing ovation from the sympathetic home supporters, and the last opposition player to get that treatment was probably Ronaldo (the toothy fat one, not the scrawny one who falls over a lot) after his Champions League masterclass a few years ago...

Mind you, Flitney was far from the most inexperienced player on the pitch last night, as Sir Alex Ferguson rolled out the latest products of the Old Trafford youth system, fielding a team with an average age of 22 and with combined shirt number total of 322 (especially impressive as Tim Howard was wearing number 1). And the likes of Lee Martin, Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Richie Jones all impressed alongside Kieran Richardson, Liam Miller (yes, he's still there) and Guiseppe Rossi.

Unfortunately, Martin (no relation to his FA Cup-winning namesake) was another youngster whose big night ended badly as he slid off the pitch and crashed painfully into the advertising hoardings, resulting in needing to be stretchered off to the treatment room. And finally, we have Scott Tynan, who wouldn't have expected to get the chance to play at Old Trafford, but instead got almost 90 minutes and will have to remember it for conceding four goals...

......(skipped below paragraghes)