There was a time when the period dramas television executives rushed to commission involved the writings of Jane Austen, not the musings of Phil Neville. Though that time was the 1990s, a decade that has led to a growth industry in Manchester United nostalgia. Which, as the last quarter of a century has taken them from “football, bloody hell” to “football, bloody mess”, may be unsurprising. The past is infinitely preferable to the present for them.
After Netflix’s David Beckham documentary comes Amazon’s ’99; made by the same production company, covering some of the same ground, with many of the same faces; most of the stories are familiar, the footage well-worn but still spine-tingling. United’s greatest season is ripe for revisiting, even if only to distract them from one of their worst campaigns anyone under 40 can remember. It has created various legacies. There was a story last week that the criticisms of the military-industrial complex of high-profile Old Trafford old boys may be deterring prospective candidates from wanting to manage the club.
