Thursday, May 01, 2008

The Case of Comrade Ferguson

I was momentarily taken with the idea of Fergie's alleged Trotskyist-Anarchism but, all in all, Louise Taylor's article in yesterday's Guardian - where she attempts to draw parallels between Alex Ferguson's ever changing line up and tactical formations at Man Utd these past nine years (since they last won the European Cup) and Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution - is a bit of a stretch.

*Man Utd, through to the Champions League final, will be playing Chelski in Moscow. Geddit? Not really. I always associated Trotsky more with St Petersburg/Petrograd.*

The article does however beg one question: which Trot group was Louise once a member of? (Who else would reach into their bag of journalistic tricks and comes up clutching Lev Bronstein and his Perm Rev?)

The conspiracy theorists over at the comments section of the Guardian footie blogs maintain that Louise is a partisan Sunderland fan. That doesn't help me when trying to second guess her former political affiliations. Sunderland has never fertile soil for the generals without armies down the years.

I'll hazard a guess that Louise is ex-SWP, but only if she is graduate of Durham University.

Hat tip to Normblog.

4 comments:

Imposs1904 said...

Somebody offlist mentioned that Socialist Organiser (the AWL by another name) had a presence at Durham Uni in the early to mid eighties.

He's right and I stand corrected.

Doesn't get us any closer to the truth though, does it?

Unknown said...

On a separate football note....on 1st may of all dates, the forces of darkness and anti-football have triumphed agaain tonight.

God help the good people of Manchester in 13 days time (I'm just glad I'll be on holiday far far far far away with no access to a TV)

hakmao said...

Doesn't seem to understand the theory of permanent revolution, so more likely just made up.

Imposs1904 said...

JC,

when if first read your comment, I was like 'what's he on about?' and then it sunk in. I'd totally forgotten about the R*ngers game as I'd been at the May Day demo all afternoon.

Hak,

fair point. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was stretching the analogy a bit far but nothing having that political background I was reluctant to pipe up.