Søren Frank

On the Shoulders of Giants – If you say so.

Standing On the Shoulders of Giants written by Soren Frank is an interesting and short book looking at the history and cultural analysis of Manchester United. Not a book you would think a Mancunian and a City fan would be drawn too, but also as a social historian I always like to see others interpretations of “local” cultural history especially by “outsiders”. It would be easy to sit and point out some of the minor factual errors but that takes nothing away from the rest of the text. While this is yet another book in the Manchester United Canon of history books this one approaches the history from a different standpoint and is not a verbatim history it looks at various points in the Club’s history rather than go year by year.

As most people will be able to tell you even though Manchester United had won the league and FA Cup before the Second World War they really were not the biggest club in Manchester until a diminutive former Manchester City Player turned up to manage United after the war. Matt Busby rebuilt United from the bottom up and built the foundations for what we now see as one of the world’s biggest and commercially most successful football clubs. Like rats you are never more than a couple of metres away from a United fan around the world.

The book covers all the giant moments in United’s history from 1958 and the death at Munich to modern day Alex Ferguson 20 years of success. This book looks at managers and players alike and their influence upon United so you have Best shoulder to shoulder with Cantona, the great captains of the club such as Robson and Keane.

Frank also covers the fans that he meets on his travels as a United fan and those who just want to be pictured outside Old Trafford. He also acknowledges that with Manchester United we have seen the blurring its cultural and geographical roots in Manchester a world commercial behemoth. While like others we can go overboard how that is bad for the game you cannot have world class football without an increase in revenues.

Soren Frank has written an interesting analysis of Manchester United’s history that deals with some of the questions others tend to avoid – its cultural history. Before they were famous Manchester United were a working class team built from the Catholic railway workers of North Manchester who moved to an industrial estate in Stretford in 1910 where eventually they took on the world and won. Love United or hate them this really is an interesting look at United’s history, well researched and written from the heart.… (más)