Writing a book on the 50 greatest games of Manchester United (and Newton Heath as they were previously known) is a great task, due to the fact that there are so many great games to choose from. On the other hand though, it is also a difficult one, as the amount of hugely memorable games in the history of the club is so huge and picking just 50 is challenging to say the least. If you asked a cross section of United supporters of all ages , apart from some of the most obvious matches like our European final victories, you would get vastly differing answers from each supporter. As a result, no matter what 50 matches author Rob Clark put in the book, all of us reading his book would probably disagree with some of his choices in there. I include myself in this, having read the book, there are at least 2 matches missing from his list of 50 that I would put in. If I wrote my 50, no doubt people would disagree with me too. It is a good problem to have though and it provides a great discussion point for United fans.
The author of the book, Rob Clark, has been a United supporter for over 40 years and is also a former editor of the Manchester United magazine and also worked on the Manchester United Opus project. His knowledge of United’s history is clearly evident throughout this book. What also stands out is the vast amount of research that he has put in for this book, looking back on the 50 matches he has chosen. Clark not only researched a huge amount of books, he also consulted a large number of newspapers and also Manchester United fanzines. The result is a quality book covering those 50 United matches in there.
Of the 50 matches chosen by Rob Clark for his book, I consider myself extremely lucky to have actually been at 30 of those games. Reading through the accounts of those matches brought back a lot of memories for me and, in my opinion, accurate accounts of the matches. United supporters who were at or watched any of those 50 games would enjoy reading the book. For the other 20 matches I was not at, it was interesting to read up on them and there are some details in there that were new to me.
If you could choose what are Manchester United’s 50 greatest games, what would you choose?
Greatest Games Manchester United by Rob Clark, published by Pitch Publishing is now available to buy from all leading booksellers.
Hi Dan,
Thanks for your very kind review. You’re absolutely right, of course, I could probably have chosen a different 50 matches – we’re spoilt for choice, unlike some clubs as I mention in the Introduction! And the very nature of a book like this is to get all us fans chatting and discussing, and disagreeing… Would be very interested to know which games in particular you would have included.
Perhaps I should write a book on our 50 best wins over Liverpool next 🙂
Cheers,
Rob