mY sUmMarY Of tHe mYth in cOntEmPorarY dEsiGn, FaShiOn, AnD mEdIa

History of Manchester United Soccer Club

Manchester United was formed as Newton Heath L&YR F.C. in 1878 as the works team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. The club's shirts were green and gold halves. They played on a small, dilapidated field on North Road, near the future site of the Manchester Piccadilly railway station for fifteen years, before moving to Bank Street in the nearby town of Clayton in 1893. The club had entered the Football League in the previous year and began to sever its links with the rail depot, becoming an independent company, appointing a club secretary and dropping the "L&YR" from their name to become simply Newton Heath F.C.. Not long afterwards, in 1902, the club neared bankruptcy, with debts of over £2500. At one point, their Bank Street ground was even closed by the bailiffs.

Just before having to be shut down for good, the club received a sizeable investment from J.H.Davies, the managing director of Manchester Breweries. Legend goes that Harry Stafford, the club captain, was showing off his prized St. Bernard dog at a club fund-raiser, when Davies approached him to buy the dog. Stafford declined, but was able to persuade Davies to invest in the club and become club chairman. It was decided at one of the early board meetings that the club required a change of name to reflect the fresh start they had been afforded. Manchester Central and Manchester Celtic were among the names suggested, before Louis Rocca, a young immigrant from Italy, said "Gentlemen, why don't we call ourselves Manchester United?" The name stuck, and Manchester United officially came into existence on 26 April 1902. Davies also decided it would be appropriate to change the club's colours, abandoning the green and gold halves of Newton Heath, and picking red and white to be the colours of Manchester United.

After that, Manchester United step forward to the success in the Busby year (1945-1969). Manchester United got his successful when they appointed Matt Busby as manager in 1945. He finished second in 1947, 48, 49 and won the FA Cup in 1948. He also is the first person to appoint an assistant manager in the club and also the first person to create the youth team called “Busby Babes”. With the youth team, he created another successful period in the club’s history esp. in 1956 with an average age of only 22, scoring 103 goals in the process. In this period, he won 5 First Division titles since 1951 and the first European Cup (UEFA Champion League) in 1968.

Before that, a tragedy, called Munich Air Disaster struck in the United team. The Munich air disaster took place on 6 February 1958, when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at the Munich-Riem airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes", along with a number of supporters and journalists. 23 of the 44 passengers on board the aircraft died in the disaster. In the this accident, United team lost half of the first team football players. However, it recovered very fast under Matt Busby and became the first English club to win the European Cup in 1968,

After Busby resigned from the team in 1969, United drop from the top when it relegated to the second division in 1974 (the first time was in 1935). However, United promoted again to the First Division after a year. Although United succeed to promote in the year after, United still struggled after the resignation of Busby. However at the last, the success came again for the Manchester United when Sir Alex Ferguson became the team manager in 1986.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_united

Myth in Contemporary Design, Fashion, and Media

“Manchester united is the top soccer club in England even in the world. It becomes the richest and valuable soccer club since the success in 1990s.”

• 16 English Premier League Champions and 2 UEFA Champion League Champions (major)
• title comparison with Liverpool in England, 18 EPL Champions and 5 UEFA CL Champions (major); still not the best in England at overall

Success in 1990s (1992-2000)

• the dominance of the titles in 1990s (6 EPL titles and 1 UEFA CL title since the changes of the English First Division in 1992)
• the strength of the marketing strategic and branding esp. in Asia and America
• success of the youth team in 1990s, for examples: David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, Gary and Philip Neville
• superstars effect etc. David Beckham and Ryan Giggs
• Treble in 1999
• the playing style under Sir Alex Ferguson as manager for 20 years
• Old Trafford Stadium, the top stadiums in England in 1990s

2000-2008

• Won only 4 titles of EPL since 2000; no EPL title between 2003-2006
• no UEFA Champion League title since 1999
• decrease to the 2^nd position in richest soccer club ranking report (Real Madrid is on the top since 2004)
• challenges from most of the European soccer club in the market
• limited potential players from the youth team (since the rules edited)
• modern stadium in England etc. Wembley stadium (replacement of Old Trafford stadium)
• takeover by Glazer (American)

Survey-2008

• top of the Best soccer club in the world ranking in the rankopedia.com (votes by the fans)
• top of the Best European soccer club ever in the rankopedia.com (votes by the fans)
• top of the Best English soccer club ever in the rankopedia.com (votes by the fans)
• top of the valuable soccer club ranking in forbes.com
• top of the Fox Soccer Channel Club Ranking (FSCCR) (votes by FSI writers and commentators from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina)

Superstar; David Beckham in 1990s

New Superstar; Cristiano Ronaldo