Famous United fans...

Snow said:
He doesn't follow football much though United is his team since he's a Manc.
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"Famous fan: Karl Pilkington

From radio producer to radio star, Mancunian Karl Pilkington has become the cult comedy hero of the airwaves. Dubbed ‘the funniest man alive in Britain today’, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Karl began his career as a producer for radio station Xfm, where his weird and hilarious interjections on The Ricky Gervais Show brought him to the public’s attention.

He teamed up with the pair again on the Ricky Gervais Podcast Show, and has two best-selling books, The World of Karl Pilkington and Happy Slapped by a Jellyfish.

An avid Red, Karl is happy to chat in his inimitable style about his football passions, which might have worked out rather differently. “I’m from the Racecourse estate in Sale,” he explains. “Me mam bought me a City kit for Christmas, so I tried supporting them for a bit. But watching them put me off football for a few years.

"Me dad used to drive a black cab and I used to come with him and sit in the front on a crate. We'd get a few jobs at Old Trafford on matchnights and the atmosphere just felt special. I started to spend more time there when me mam got a job in Lou Macari’s chippy. That’s probably when I started supporting United.”

Karl’s first game was a home match with Everton. “I didn’t really watch the match,” he recalls. “I was more interested in an old fella singing all these funny abusive chants. He had his back to the game and just stood there singing his head off, as if he was a contestant on Stars in Their Eyes with Tourette’s."

Sadly, Karl seems to think of himself as something of a jinx. “United don’t seem to play well when I go. I watch or listen to every game, though. The last game I went to was Reading away, which ended 1-1. I enjoy watching on TV because I like to see Fergie celebrate when we score. It always cheers me up seeing him jump about.”

Karl was no doubt blaming himself as United were poised to lose the European Cup final in Barcelona in May 1999. “I’d moved to London by then, and watched it round at a mate’s flat. I’d almost come to terms with the fact that we’d lost. Then Ole and Teddy came on.”

As you might expect, a near meeting with a former United legend proved typically bewildering. “I was waiting at Piccadilly. It was around 1994, and I saw someone I recognised. I was convinced it was somebody I went to school with. Then my girlfriend came up and said: ‘There’s David Beckham’. People look different on telly don’t they? My head always looks rounder.’’

From Best to Beckham, Karl’s all-time United legend is another no.7 gifted by the Gods. “There was that Nike ad: ‘1966 was a great year for English football – Eric Cantona was born’. He was the first player I saw at United who came along and made a huge difference.”

Karl predicts a bright future for the current United team. “We’ve got a good team, who all work well together. I think Carrick is fitting in well and Anderson looks promising and Ronaldo gets enough praise. If I had to pick one player it would be Rooney. Proper grafter.” He’s not done so badly himself. Karl Pilkington is living proof that Mancunian comedy is not solely the province of Manchester City.

Famous fan: Karl Pilkington - Official Manchester United Website


"We were trying to work out what you enjoy doing and we got to Manchester United.. and moaning.” - Ricky Gervais 2001.
 
I only got this from himself on his radio show when I said he doesn't really watch football anymore. That was in like 2002 or 2003. He's an odd fella that Karl.
 
Kraftwerker said:
I'm just thinking that Karl Pilkington is probably Cold Boy or one of the joyless gimps on here who don't seem to derive any pleasure from supporting United.
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feck off!

You don't how much or what pleasure I derive.
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
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Saw him at the United and Barca open training night session when they were in the DC area.

I know that Sean Connery was scouted by Busby and offered a trial before he turned to acting. I'm sure he's a fan.
 
Well, Lord of the Rings was only released in the 60s, that was a long time ago.

And the movies, that was all of 7 years ago. You must be very young.

I hear Angry Birds is what all the hip kids are playing.
 
Simon Le Bon has been famously fronting Duran Duran since 1978 - but following United for longer, dating back to 1968. Here the singer discusses his hopes for the season and recalls being late for a meeting with Sir Alex…

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What’s your earliest United memory?
It was back in 1968 and I was at home with my dad. He shouted me into the back room and said ‘come and watch this.’ It was the European Cup final between United and Benfica. I just remember seeing Georgie Best go round the goalkeeper [for United’s second goal] and from then on United were my team for life.

What’s the best thing about being a Red?
There are a few things. I’ve made some great friends through football and I love to follow a team that has such great history and tradition. I absolutely love the colour red too so I had to support United!

How often do you get to Old Trafford?
Usually about two or three times a season, but I always make sure I find a way to see the games.

What’s your favourite OT moment?
One of the first matches I ever went to will always stand out. It was on New Year’s Day in 1977 against Aston Villa. I was stood in the Stretford End and we got given a penalty. As we were waiting for it to be taken this guy picked me up and lifted me above the whole crowd and started shouting and singing. We scored the penalty and won the game, but that moment really was an amazing one for me.

If you could swap places with one of the current players for a day who would it be and why?
[Pauses to think] I used to be a goalkeeper so I’d probably say one of the keepers. I’m a big fan of David De Gea – he’s a very talented player. I’d like to see how I went on stopping some shots in goal so I’ll say him.

Alternatively, if you could invite one of the players to be in the band for a day who would it be?
Definitely Ryan Giggs. He’s a great guy and I hear he’s a big music fan so he’d fit right in.

Tell us about your meeting with the boss and some of the players a few years ago…
Myself and John [Taylor] were invited to Carrington and Sir Alex’s first words when we arrived were ‘you’re late’ which we were...very! [Laughs]. We watched the team train and had a good chat with the manager and also Roy Keane who had been to our show the night before. John said to Roy ‘I bet it was your wife’s idea to come,’ and Roy was like, no it was me!

Finally, how do you see the second half of the season panning out?
I feel very relaxed about it and we’re in with a great chance of winning another title. There have been ups and downs this season – the derby defeat and Champions League exit were definitely big blows, but both acted as a bit of a wake-up call and I think there’s a real chance of us having a great rest of the season. We have a fantastic squad which is capable of great things. We just need everything to come together and I have faith that it will.

manutd.com
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http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/dictators-terrorists-xi-143023941.html

Thank feck we don't have any of these loopers as supporters. Amazing actually that a club like United hasn't made the list. Not one single mass murderer.

With Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe admitting this weekend that he is a Chelsea fan, we take a look at the despots who have - or had - a soft spot for a football team.

Mugabe's revelation came at the weekend when he told Benjani Mwaruwari that he was a Blues fan at the player's testimonial. " I watched you but I'm a Chelsea fan and always want them to score," Mugabe said.

Here's our pick of some other dictators and tyrants and the teams they supported:

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Adolf Hitler - Schalke: The Fuhrer was reputedly a fan of Schalke, who won the German title six times while Hitler was in charge of Germany. The club later disputed this claim after it was repeated in The Times a few years ago, with a brilliant statement puncturing once and for all the myth that Germans struggle to master humour: "We were very curious to find out what made the well respected Times claim this as a fact. So we checked and double-checked whether the club board between 1933 and 1945 had named a stand the 'Führer Stand', for example, and we watched every episode of 'Allo 'Allo in a bid to find a clue. Nothing."

Idi Amin - Hayes FC: The Ugandan dictator became a fan of Hayes as a result of his years spent in the British army (in which he served for 15 years) where he was deeply impressed by a colleague who constantly talked up the achievements of the non-league West London club.

Colonel Gaddafi - Liverpool: Among the artefacts found after the fall of the Libyan leader was a Liverpool mug, leading some to claim that Gaddafi was a fan of the Reds. The idea isn't actually all that far-fetched: One of Gaddafi's sons, Al-Saadi Gaddafi, spent years trying to make it as a professional footballer before investing so much in Juventus that he was given a place on the board of directors in 2002 (he resigned from the board a year later). Al-Saadi also considered buying a stake in Liverpool at the same time, though the move never came to fruition.

Radovan Karadzic - Inter Milan: The Bosnian Serb war criminal was a fan of the Serie A giants due to their signing of Serbian players Sinisa Mihajlović and Dejan Stanković. His nephew told an Italian paper recently that while Karadzic was still a fugitive he risked arrest by going to watch matches.

Osama Bin Laden - Arsenal: Rumours claim that the Al Qaeda chief and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks became a fan of the north London club after watching matches at Highbury several times while visiting Britain as a teenager in the 1970s. He is also said to have bought one of his sons an Ian Wright replica shirt at one point, and Gunners fans took his supposed fandom well by creating a special chant: "Osama, woah-oh / Osama, woah-woah-woah-woah / He's hiding in Kabul / He loves the Arsenal."

General Franco - Real Madrid: The Spanish fascist leader was renowned as a fan of the Madrid club, so much so that the club came to be regarded by many almost as the official side of the regime and were referred to openly as 'Franco's pet team'. Yet it didn't start out that way: Franco originally supported Real's arch-rivals Atletico Madrid, originally an army side, and in fact his later support of Real was as much a case of the dictator jumping on the bandwagon to bask in the club's glory in the early days of the European Cup, which they won the first five times it was played from 1956-1960.

Benito Mussolini - Bologna: The Italian fascist dictator was a staunch Bologna fan from the time they were formed in 1909; the side thrived after he came to power in 1922, winning the Italian title in 1925, 1929, 1936, 1937, 1939 and 1941. Indeed, the club's neo-medieval stadium was heralded by Il Duce as a symbol of his beliefs, calling it, "a shining example of what can be done with the will and tenacity of Fascism."

Josef Stalin - Dynamo Moscow: The club was set up by one of Stalin's most loyal (and feared) henchmen, KGB chief Lavrenty Beria, and was effectively KGB United for several decades. Football was a big deal to Uncle Joe: when the USSR lost an Olympic match to Yugoslavia in 1952, a furious Stalin ordered the army's CSKA Moscow team (which had supplied most of the players) to be disbanded.

Nicolae Ceausescu - Steaua Bucharest: The Romanian side was actually owned by the national army prior to the 1989 revolution, and Ceausescu supported and enabled the enforced transfer of players - among them Gheorghe Hagi and Gheorghe Popescu - to the club without the agreement of either the player or his original club. It was a policy that helped Steaua win the league for six consecutive seasons in the 1980s, collect the European Cup in 1986, and set a European record of 104 matches unbeaten in the league.
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Bruce Springsteen goes to Old Trafford sometimes as his son is a huge United fan.
 
Is Chris Boardman a United fan?

The other day on the Olympic highlights program after the GB ladies football he made two tongue-in-cheak references, one to one of the girls being a possible replacement for Paul Scholes & another that SAF should be thinking about signing one or two of them up.

Born on the Wirral though.
 
Raise your hands if you checked every one of the body paint videos on the SI site. :nervous:
 
Kobe's favorite English team is United.

I also heard that Usain Bolt fella liked United.
 
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