View From The Armchair
Rewind: The Day Michael Knighton Juggled His Balls at Old Trafford before Manchester United vs Arsenal
This week's Premier League fixtures announcement that the Gunners season opener will see Mikel Arteta's side travel to Old Trafford for the first game of the 2025-26 has brought memories rushing back of the same fixture back in August 1989 that was made memorable for the actions of the maverick Michael Knighton.
Here's View From The Armchair recalling the day Michael Knighton had a kick-about in front of the Stretford End
A new season, fresh dreams and hopes are all bought sharply into focus on the day the first football fixtures are announced.
It’s United away on the opening day of the new campaign.
I love it, it can mean only one thing to those of us of a certain vintage.
Michael Knighton.
That’s right, the time this bengal lancer of a character confidently strode out onto the pitch at Old Trafford on Saturday, August 19, 1989.
I was there.
The official attendance was 47,245 - about 10,000 higher than the previous season's average - but Arsenal were the champions.
Packed into the Arsenal away end on the terraces that sunny August day 36 years ago (is it really that long?) watching puzzled at this unknown chancer bouncing a ball off his head, onto his shoulder, and back off his head, for the waiting press to take their pictures.
Knighton's exploits took place before rapturous scenes of delight on the terraces of the Stratford End, performing a quick half volley into the onion bag, before both arms were raised, and the air was being punched in delight by Manchester United’s new owner and chairman.
Having shaken Martin Edward’s hand for £10 a share, and an agreed fee of £10 million quid - a quite unbelievable sum when you consider it today, but here you are - Knighton was close to becoming the proud owner of Manchester United Ltd.
No due diligence, no background checks, just a handshake with the current owner and a firm one at that, and its time to lace up those boots, put on the shin pads and soak up some adulation from the fans who were deluded enough even then to think they were a bigger club than the real powerhouse of the north, Liverpool.
Different times
It's easy to forget Manchester United were only turning over £7m a year, and that the club hadn't made money for 20 years - they had just announced £1.3m loss before that 1989 season opener.
Knighton told all who would listen that he would turn the club into one that could afford to buy any player in the world as part of a £150m leisure vehicle.
Yet, no soon as chairman Edwards had announced the deal, the United owner was beginning to have second thoughts.
The whispering campaign had begun, and eventually, after a few months of claiming Knighton did not have the money, the offer of a seat on the board was enough to scrap the deal, consigning the failed offer to history.
You're An Embarrassment
It was an embarrassing situation for United to find themselves in.
Almost as embarrassing as selling out to the Glazers in an abomination of a deal that is still feeling being felt by United’s fanbase today,
(Sadly we never did get to see Malcolm Glazer confidently stride out in full kit for his moment to shine, the deal he secured was largely put in place through loans that would see United paying back £60 million quid a year in interest alone before a ball was even kicked.)
Somewhere along the way in my head I have romanticised the fixture where Micheal Knighton mugged off the United faithful with his false hopes and dreams - in the fixture recalled in my head both Bryan Robson and Neil Webb were both left in crumpled heaps on the floor as a rampant Rocky Rocastle barged his way through both before calmly dinking the ball over Peter Schmeicheal’s head from fully 35 yards out.
Yet Rocky's goal took place a year later, during the 1991-92 season.
Alas, the 'Knighton Fixture' ended with a 4-1 thumping for the Gunners as we were bought sharply to planet Earth after gloriously winning the league at Anfield just a few months prior.
The times were already changing.
When I consider that time, and then look at the landscape as it lays today, it seems to me to be such a harder task to achieve glory in today’s football than it was back then, the present packed as it is with vast petrochemical dollars from sovereign wealth funds competing amid a raft of billionaires.
Back in 1989, Arsenal and United were still yet to be duking it out most years in the decade and a half to follow. Liverpool were bizarrely on the wane, yet still capable of knocking anyone out as soon as European football got mentioned. With a slight interruption from a cheque book waving Jack Walker who spent a world record fee of £15 million quid to purchase Alan Shearer who would go on to shoot Blackburn of all clubs to a lone Premier League title.
The changing of the guard was already starting to taking place back in August 1989, as investors such as Knighton began to understand the unlimited potential of top flight clubs.
Financial forces were to unleash such a monumental time as the top flight in English ushered in a new era of glamour, money, and wall to wall football on TV.
That long-lost fixture back in August 1989 was the prelude to what the Premier League would go on to offer to the punter like myself from 1993 onwards - forcing a loyal former matchgoining fan to someone mostly consuming the beautiful (or not so beautiful) game from the comfort of his armchair for years to come.
Yet, the 'Knighton Fixture' in 89 still burns bright.
One where a titanic battle between two powerhouses, one from the north and the other from the south still remains in the memory, due to the actions of one man.
Thirty six years on a reverse of that 4-1 scoreline come this August would be nice - a 4-1 win at Old Trafford on the opening day would be most welcome here, maybe a hat-trick for Gyokeres, or Sesko.
Just like Knighton, we call all dream.
.....
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