Manchester United legend Gary Neville took on unwanted professional duties by interviewing diehard Manchester City fan Noel Gallagher on the red carpet before The Best FIFA Football Awards, held on the Southbank in London.
Many could have expected what was coming when the two personalities, with distinctly individual contrasting affiliations.
Asked by the Sky Sports pundit what he thought about Manchester City, Gallagher immediately responded:
‘Better than United’.
The Oasis singer-songwriter seemed to be in his element at the prestigious award show, particularly as he was handed the privilege of presenting the Puskas Award, in which he then demeaned the Merseyside Derby in which Mohamed Salah’s winner was scored.
Whilst it was an unusual choice to have him present an award, most could be forgiving, even though Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho seemed to be perplexed at who the proud Man was.
Up on stage, Noel Gallagher couldn’t simply put aside his stifling allegiance to Manchester City and revelled in taking a dig at their arch-rivals.
“It’s great to be in a room with some of the greatest footballers known to man, and of course a few Man United players too”,
to modest chuckles and a timely cut to a bemused shot of Manchester United Number 1 David De Gea - the best goalkeeper in the world today.
Goodness knows what Gallagher thought when not a single Manchester City player was selected for the FifPro World XI at the same ceremony - of which De Gea was included - but at least he’s doing well to epitomise the oft-levelled moniker assigned to the Cityzens of ‘bitter blue’.
Gallagher has been outspoken about his enjoyment at United perceived decline whilst City have enjoyed a resurgence to put them into the upper echelons of the continental elite, backed by Sheikh Mansour’s oil money billions.
Mere weeks ago, the Wonderwall hit-maker criticised United’s spending in an interview with talkSport, has previously said that Sir Alex Ferguson leaving Old Trafford was 'a great day for British football', and after the aforementioned Neville used lyrics from the Oasis track ‘Fade Away’ to comment on a United win, Gallagher commented:
“I feel violated.”
“If Mr Neville continues to use the holy scriptures of Oasis to communicate with the Cockney massive, I shall be forced to come up to Cheshire in the middle of the night and break into his house,”
he told The Sun.
“I will then tie him to a chair, make him listen to the Best Of Simply Red while I pull his tash out one grey hair at a time - with my teeth - liberate those Oasis CDs and s**t in his manbag. You have been warned!”
Perhaps the most hilarious case was when Gary Neville sent him a guitar to sign for him, with it being returned with ‘MCFC’ scribbled all over it and the message:
‘Dear Gary, how many caps have you got for England? How many do you think you deserved? I’ll tell you: f*ckin’ none! Lots of love, Noel Gallagher x! MCFC.'
Neville is England’s most-capped right-back with 85 appearances.
From this week’s moments of United loathing however, as Twitter users seem to universal decry, it was ultimately a case of:
Manchester City fan gets up on the microphone. Has barely ten seconds of talk-time. Immediately mentions Manchester United. Typical.
