By Chris Wright
What you see here is the latest front cover to adorn Manchester United fanzine Red Issue – an image not mocking Fabrice Muamba, his collapse or his plight, but instead chastising the ‘grief mongering’ that has surrounded it for the past week or so…
It’s near the knuckle, controversial, provocative and tasteless (that’s the kind of material Red Issue tend to trade in) but there is a valid point to be made about the ‘I care most’ simpering that can permeate this kind of thing – only Red Issue have set about eviscerating that point with a supreme lack of tact.
Safe to say, had a United player collapsed last week, their little speech bubbles may have not been quite so flippant.
It’s oh, so easy to be snide, crass and cynical when ‘football comes together’ like it has to show united support for Muamba – granted, I personally felt the shirts, flowers and scarves laid down reverentially outside the Reebok were and are a bit mawkish and premature – but the fact is that a young man nearly died and people are doing what they can to wish him well. There’s not much wrong with that, however glib it may appear to the enlightened sceptic.