How Manchester United ‘cracked’ America in 2003: Grumpy Ferguson, missiles in LA – and Bob Dylan
It wasn’t quite the reception Peter Draper had in mind when he tried to persuade a sceptical American audience — commercial partners, media, fans — that Manchester United were “like the New York Yankees, the Chicago Bulls and the Dallas Cowboys all wrapped into one”.
Two years earlier, United’s players had been mobbed on arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Bangkok. Draper, the club’s marketing director at the time, used to say that, with “Beckham-mania” at its height, it was “like The Beatles going on tour with Michael Jackson”.
Advertisement
Yet here they were, touching down for the start of their trail-blazing tour of the United States in July 2003, to an air of total indifference.
To the concern of those of us who had flown across the Atlantic to cover United’s bid to “crack” America, the welcome committee at Portland International Airport was maybe half a dozen, and maybe not even that.
Sir Alex Ferguson and his players were greeted by the gregarious figure of Charlie Stillitano, who had organised the tour as part of the ChampionsWorld Series — “and I remember we got this police escort into town, from the airport to the team’s hotel downtown, and there was absolutely nobody on the roads,” Stillitano says with a laugh.
“We walked in with zero security. There was a wedding at the hotel and there were more people for the wedding than for us. It was not like when I’d been with them in Asia, put it that way. No one in Portland noticed.”
These days a pre-season tour of the U.S. feels entirely normal — not just for United but for Arsenal, Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Juventus, Real Madrid and numerous other clubs who are heading Stateside this summer. Even Brentford are doing it. Even Wrexham. Well, why not?
But 20 years ago,
Read on theathletic.com
