What's your darkest moment as a United fan?

Aguero doing what he did hurt me. Hadn't watched a full replay of that goal until a few years ago.

Closely followed by the 7-0 beating Liverpool gave us, we were helpless.
 
We were told to support the new manager so I tried not to think about it too much. But the end of that first transfer window, when we signed Fellaini, just brought home to me that we would be done for years to come. And even then, I didn't think it would take 2 decades to get back to the top: I guess Sir Alex and I both underestimated the importance of a good coach, and one that the best players want to play for. How did he convince Moyes that there was nothing more to it than being a shouty Scot?
 
There was a period during the LVG era I actually stopped watching our games.

Weird because in hindsight I hate Ole as a manager more than LVG.

As for the original question, I am living it right now. I am one of Peps biggest fans, it tears me apart that he manages City not us. I knew when they hired him he was going to be a game changer for the league.
 
The Cardiff 2-0 at Old Trafford under Ole. Final game of the 18/19 season, it was already clear that the new manager bounce had gone. But we’d appointed Ole permanently, finished 5th and it was clear we’d made our bed and had to lie in it. We were miles away from being any good, and about to attempt yet another rebuild without champions league football. It was all a bit hopeless.

The 7-0 against the scousers comes to mind, but the 7-0 was just a freak result, not really indicative of the wider context. Those can happen. That Cardiff game though? I just remember that breaking up for summer feeling, and just not being at all optimistic we’d be able to turn it around.
 
There's been a few, but recently...

Watching us fold in the F.A cup final vs City, allowing them to go on to secure the Treble. The players just were not up for it and it and showed. Minus the De Gea blunders we still rolled over and got a tummy rubbed. No sense of passion to try and protect our legacy. A genuinely disappointing day for me.
 
When there was a blackout when I was watching United vs Arsenal in my home Kazakhstan because my jealous neighbour who couldnt afford a TV destroyed a nearby utility pole with his tractor motor
You must be kidding.
 
Reading some of the comments from Manchester United fans in the MG thread is pretty high up to be honest.

Seeing people encouraging United to ditch one of their youth products was low, I agree.

Though not directly linked to the club, the Aguero goal.

Other than that, I think the 5-0 drubbing by Liverpool at Old Trafford was really tough to take.

How was that not directly linked to United?

Leicester 4-2 a few seasons back. Not so much that game in particular, but where it confirmed we'd sunk to. That felt pretty hopeless.

7-0 is the obvious worst result but I probably felt the most angry after that 2-1 second leg defeat v Sevilla in 17/18.

I think it was 5-2…

There have been a lot of low points recently, difficult to choose 1 so I’m going with an older one.

Celebrating like feck when Schmeichel scored an acrobatic volley against Wimbledon, only to later see the offside flag up and we were out of the cup.
 
Seeing people encouraging United to ditch one of their youth products was low, I agree.



How was that not directly linked to United?



I think it was 5-2…

There have been a lot of low points recently, difficult to choose 1 so I’m going with an older one.

Celebrating like feck when Schmeichel scored an acrobatic volley against Wimbledon, only to later see the offside flag up and we were out of the cup.

What I meant was ‘not a United game’.

Maybe poor wording on my part.
 
Right now. Just started a new season and players are injured to the point the team is worse than last season’s. Really squashes a lot of hope.
 
Recently it’s watching Liverpool come from a goal and a man down to beat Newcastle away. Absolutely disgusted by that.
 
Celebrating like feck when Schmeichel scored an acrobatic volley against Wimbledon, only to later see the offside flag up and we were out of the cup.

Oh god I remember that. I was in my mate's bedroom, a city fan, and I went fecking ballistic. Shouting my head off and jumping around the room like a deranged gibbon for a full thirty seconds. Then I saw it had been disallowed and felt a combination of absolute dismay and total embarrassment :lol:

After the game we went to the Hacienda and I got off with this girl. Turned out she was a Wimbledon fan :lol: I'd never met a Wimbledon fan before that in my entire life, and I've never met one since :confused:
 
SAF fighting for a horse….set up the slow downfall of United.
True. When SAF came back from the States, a new convert to the Glazer project. It was a bit like seeing a weaker side in a much-admired crush. I always felt my lows overshadowed though, by the experience of the previous generation… Munich must have been horrifying. Puts it all in context, like Hillsborough or suchlike for others. It’s a game, despite what Busby or Shankly may have thought. A modern low … the prospect of Quatari sportswash (pretend) owners of the glorious club of the Babes.
 
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Van Gaal's boring 0-0 first halves.

It was so mechanical and dire that I used to take a walk for the first 20 minutes of the game only to come back with no surprise whatsoever that it was still 0-0 and the ball was passed boringly around in midfield to death.

this was it for me.. there was one game in particular I just hit peak apathy
 
April 1974 when we were relegated to the Second Division. Our season was W10 D16 L20. Our defence wasn't that bad but our top scorers were Macari and McIlroy with 6 goals each all season. To make things worse, Leeds won the title and Liverpool were second. Although we were promoted back the next season (and came 3rd), there were a few dark years under Docherty and Sexton until Big Ron took over. It was about the time when football crowd violence has become a problem as well, to the point where I wouldn't take my young brother to matches any more.
 
Right now and with quiet resignation, that darkest moment for me is yet to come, namely the day the Glazers confirm the club is not for sale and this circle jerk of being an increasingly lost and directionless club continues. Other than that, it seems easier to pinpoint highlights rather than low points from the ever decreasing pool in both quantitative and qualitative terms over last 12 year or so.
 
Tough to choose. Too many moments but I guess you could do that with any club. Barcelona 3-1 at Wembley, Barcelona 2-0 in Rome, 7-0, Aguero on final day, Wiltord at OT in 2002, 4-0 at Goodison under Moyes, 4-4 Everton in 11/12, 6-1 City in 11/12, Chelsea 3-0 hammering to win the title in 2006, Chelsea 4-0 under Conte, Brighton 4-up in the first half, Brentford 4-0, Arsenal 3-up in 15 minutes, MK Dons, Costinha last minute dagger in 2004 to start the age of Mourinho, Robben in 2010. Real Madrid surviving by the skin of their teeth in 2013. There's been a few where I just took a brief break from the sport just to get myself back together.
 
Its been a succession of s-t since Sir Alex retired and at most of the worst moments Liverpool have been there with an exclamation point. I am not going to quote individual incidents. You lot all know what they are.
 
Its been a succession of s-t since Sir Alex retired and at most of the worst moments Liverpool have been there with an exclamation point. I am not going to quote individual incidents. You lot all know what they are.
7 used to be my favorite number too.

For me my most recent memory is the Nani red card against Real in the CL. I was fuming for an unhealthy amount of time. I still believe we could have taken that and won the CL that year with RvP making their players look like mugs at times.
 
Liverpool winning the title and City winning the treble feels pretty shite. It’s more what it symbolises than anything else along with where United are at as a club right now. It feels like we’re never going to win any major trophies again at the rate things are going. Just so far off.
 
SAF fighting for a horse….set up the slow downfall of United.

It really didn't.

Fergie settled out of court a full year before they flogged their shares to the by then rampant Glazers.

The 'Rock Of Gibraltar' angle is apocryphal. The Glazers would have owned us anyway.

Worst moment is easily the club's diabolical
handling of the Greenwood saga.
 
Thinking of SAF’s last few years (not exactly darkest moment as we still won a lot), but more than the declining quality of the squad since 2009/10 it was our newly caught bottling bug which really bothered me. Red card against Bayern and Madrid and we totally collapse.
Meanwhile Chelsea play Barca 2012 (a better team back then than Bayern 2010 or Madrid 2013) in Barcelona with 10 men for 55 minutes and still knock them out.
Then 2011/12 was the pinnacle of our bottling. At least we won the title back in 2012/13 with some glorious comebacks so happy ending.
 
I recent years, losing the title to City the moment Aguero scored in stoppage time. But the Glazer takeover was a shitfest that I didn't really appreciate at the time would be so disastrous.
 
The 4-0 loss to MK Dons with Nick Powell starting and Anderson completing the 90 mins. I knew at that point that we’d be here today still without another title. Everything since then hasn’t surprised me one bit.
 
7-0 is up there.
Fergie retering
The whole MG situation.
Only minor but I was gutted we missed out on Thiago & hazard at the time.
 
More than 7 years ago, I started a very dramatic thread called 'Manchester is Blue | The beginning of our Liverpool-esque decline' when City hired Pep Guardiola (I had to rename the thread due to obvious reactions). It was on that day that I realized that the post-SAF lull was not just a lull, but a Liverpool-esque slide into mediocrity. I realized that a football club being run by money men would never match City's success to come, and that we'd struggle to build squads like the ones SAF used to have or win any major honors for a long long time.

I think that is when I knew the game was broken and that we were fecked as a club, it was a dark, dark day.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/were-in-decline-losing-out-to-city-improving-under-mourinho.414172/
 
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Thinking of SAF’s last few years (not exactly darkest moment as we still won a lot), but more than the declining quality of the squad since 2009/10 it was our newly caught bottling bug which really bothered me. Red card against Bayern and Madrid and we totally collapse.
Meanwhile Chelsea play Barca 2012 (a better team back then than Bayern 2010 or Madrid 2013) in Barcelona with 10 men for 55 minutes and still knock them out.
Then 2011/12 was the pinnacle of our bottling. At least we won the title back in 2012/13 with some glorious comebacks so happy ending.

I mean I kind of get this.... as I don't really get how Chelsea won that game in the absolute slightest... but United have "bottled" far worse, in my opinion, should have been finalists in 2002 & 2004 - when going out to vastly inferior teams to the 2 you mentioned. All 4 still sting for me though, all 4 of them, and the injury crisis that allowed Kaka free reign in 2007. But these are first world problems!

But you know, Chelsea have their own baffling losses too, as do City. Chelsea just have countered theirs with 2 of the flukiest CL runs in the CL era, if not the actual 2 flukiest.
 
The darkest single moment was probably aguero. Another was the 3-0 Liverpool win at old Trafford under moyes
 
The back end of Ole's time in charge, and then the Ralf "era". Just the least I've probably enjoyed football in my lifetime. I didn't think it could get worse than the LVG borefests and the awful miserable experience of Jose hating his very existence of being our manager, but my god was it bleak with old Ralfy chops straight after us losing the plot even further under Ole. It all felt just so hopeless.
 
When Cantona retired was a hard one for me. He even missed out on 99' .. Didnt enjoy when the Glazers bought it either but i didnt think it would end up as badly as it did.
 
Sir Alex retiring.

It wasn't just an icon leaving the club, it was far greater than that.

SAF has his DNA woken into the Manchester United quilt. When he left, it tore the club apart.

Might seem dramatic, but the club is now a shadow of what it was, on and off the park.

I don't know if the club will recover.
I’d argue more that SAF going, David Gill quitting at the same time was a killer blow, and Moyes then sacking the back room staff to appoint his own was a killer blow. All that club knowledge, winning pedigree and high standards was wiped out in one summer. No wonder the club faltered. It was the blind leading the blind with our once successful squad trailing in their wake.
 
Just seeing the way we conduct ourselves as a club compared to City and the ever widening gulf between us. We are so far away from them in every way.

We are so rotten. I think that realisation is worse than any one single moment for me.
 
I think the final 1-2 weeks leading up to Mourinho's dismissal were the most painful I felt about United.
Don't know why. or maybe I do?

All the shit that's been accumulated since the Moyes and LVG days, leading up to us appointing the person I disliked the most in world football, ending up quite expectedly in him self-sabotaging, the entire club being toxic...

I'm still addicted and will never stop being a supporter, heck I spend so many hours writing and reading an internet forum about United...
But I put myself in a much more "remote" place emotionally after Jose.

Immediately after SAF left, most of us still believed we were just a manager and couple of signings away from glory. A decade later, most of us have come to terms with the fact that we're not going to be top dogs until we have new leadership and make better decisions as a club, irrespective of the manager or the players. I think this shift in belief happened for different fans at different moments - this thread in itself lists so many of those moments.

The Mourinho endgame was probably yours, when you realized we're fecked beyond the relief of bandages and short-term solutions.
 
At the time I thought the end of "the translator" was our darkest hour...brought into great relief by Ole coming in to stabilise the club. I remember he came to watch the women's team play at Leigh and it felt like we got our club back.

Sadly he presided over our real darkest hour....the way MG was not managed and indulged, leading to the horrific situation, and then we capped it off with one of the most shameful statements ever released by the club.

I fear we haven't hit rock bottom yet!
 
The way the club is right now I’ve never felt more pessimistic about the clubs future, like I can’t see us being a top European team for the foreseeable future.

But Ferguson retiring and appointing David Moyes was incredibly underwhelming, you could tell everyone was questioning it and had people clutching at straws looking for positives of him being manager.
 
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