Two stories coming out of Manchester today couldn’t be more opposite. The blue half will garner an incredible amount of respect and praise for its plans to spend an obscene amount of money to redevelop the area around the City of Manchester Stadium. The red half, meanwhile, is using some heavy-handed tactics to try to suppress the rising tide of interest and support for the green and gold brigade and their support of the Red Knights campaign to take over Manchester United.

Here are the two stories in more detail with links to the source articles from The Guardian:

  • Manchester United comes down hard on green and gold support. Several weeks ago we led with the story about Manchester United banning its players from using social media sites. Now it seems that the club has banned its players from from speaking about the anti-Glazer movement. To make matters worse, United has been heavy-handed with its tactics in ensuring that the green and gold brigade don’t get more publicity. According to The Guardian, the club removed an audience member from the MUTV studio because he was wearing a green and gold scarf. The club also sacked a steward because he returned a green and gold banner to supporters after it was confiscated, and the club has forbidden the in-house TV station, MUTV, from referring to the rebellion and edited questions about it from broadcasts of Ferguson’s press conferences.
  • Manchester City is building for the future. Manchester City and Manchester City Council have agreed a £1 billion development deal which will transform the area around the City of Manchester Stadium by building training facilities, a fan zone, practice pitches and more. Plus, City will consider increasing the capacity of the stadium from 48,000 to a larger number yet to be determined.

Manchester United, the club, is obviously fighting back to control the communications and to ensure that they limit the amount of damaging information that can be shared. But it’s the supporters who have the advantage in terms of being able to communicate their feelings about the Glazer ownership of United by wearing the green and gold scarves at home and away matches.

The question of the day is this: If you lived in England and had a chance to go to Old Trafford, would you wear a green and gold scarf or not?

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