It’s kind of weird but I’ve really been looking forward to today’s game for a while now. It feels special for a number of different reasons. COYR.

You don't half talk some bollocks TG

Yes it could have been different, but all credit to United for coming back so well from the Munich disaster, which could have so easily sunk them. As a comparison when the great Torino team was destroyed in the 1949 air crash, they had a similar domestic record of achievement as United, but they never came back as strong - just one Serie A title and three Italian Cups in the 70+ years that followed. United rebuilt, and hard as it may be to imagine now, in the late 50s into the 60s there was widespread respect for their recovery amongst rival fans. By the late 60s of course tribalism in English football became far more rampant than it had been, and as far as Arsenal and United were concerned reached its low point in the Premiership years. Difficult to like United over the past 30 years, but not so in the period we are talking about.

The other thing that has changed a lot since 1963 is player committment to a club. Certainly relegation would not have seen Bobby Charlton leave United, nor Denis Law I think, who came to love United.

Interesting story about Law - before he joined Manchester City in 1960 there was much expectation that he would join Arsenal. Law visited Highbury and was impressed but decided to join City instead. In his book The King, he explained why. ‘It looked for a while as though I was going to Arsenal, who were like the Real Madrid of English football at that time. I had been to London a couple of times with Scotland: it was a big city, and Arsenal were a huge club. I had travelled down with Tommy Docherty who took me round the ground and pointed out the underfloor heating in the dressing-room, and the marble floors and statues in the foyer, and when I saw all that, Arsenal was the club I was going to, no doubt at all! But – and I’m ashamed to admit it, because looking back now it was very childish of me – one of the main reasons I didn’t go to Highbury was that they sent their assistant manager to talk to me about the move instead of George Swindin himself. I took it as a slight, and that’s why I find my reaction embarrassing now, because one thing I’m certainly not is big-headed. And you know who the assistant manager was? Ron Greenwood, who went on to become the brilliant manager of West Ham United and England.’ Law subsequently went to Italy - Torino - and after that United.

I was reading about the US tennis final. Fernandez style was described as nearly all percentage shots, moving opponents around and then going for the occasional winner. It's years since I watched a tennis match, but that sounds exactly like the modern style of top-end football to me.

Emma Raducanu's is an amazing story but I believe she has not had to play any of the real top players on route to the final (not her fault as you can only play whoever is in the tournament and progresses through) and even her final opponent is a qualifier.

even her final opponent is a qualifier.

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