Fergie the Good Knight Refuses to Go Gently

Liverpool didn't win the title. Chelsea didn't win the Champions league. Arsenal's gorgeous flock of mini-pops didn't challenge at all. Instead Manchester United forced their way to glory with the ineluctable certainty of a rural vet's fist retrieving a calf.

We must now be resourceful in truffling out narratives – "Oooooh, Wenger might go to Madrid." He probably won't. "Tevez might go to Anfield." He probably won't. The only claim that can be made with any confidence is that Manchester United will win things. In all seriousness, what joy is to be had by following this ruthless footballing machine? There would surely be more tension and suspense in supporting the Terminator as he beat up ducklings in a garage – "Show no mercy, one of 'em's getting away. Stamp on it before it grows up into a swan – they can be vicious."

My mate and fellow Hammer Jack despairs of this homogenized theme park of athleticism where most players have been trained into bland perfection and craves a return to the days when top-flight football was an eclectic wonderland peopled with freaks and oddballs. Tubby footballers like Sammy Lee, toothless hag-men like Nobby Stiles and Steve Foster of Luton with his fuzz-perm and head-band. If these aberrations had the gall to turn up at a modern-day Premier League ground they'd be dragged into the car park and shot like Stratford tramps on the eve of the Olympic opening ceremony. Except Sammy Lee, he still works at Anfield as a Liverpool coach – and look what happened to them.

Now United have equaled Liverpool's record of 18 titles you'd be forgiven for thinking that Sir Alex Ferguson's incredible drive would be to some degree assuaged, but assuaged it ain't. Fergie now says he'll be happy only when United surpass the Scousers with 19 titles. From where is this elderly man summonsing this relentless drive? One might imagine that in the autumn of one's life the mind might turn to higher things – redemption, God, the hereafter – but Sir Alex is scorching into physical decline as if Dylan Thomas is bellowing into his lug-hole "Rage, rage against the dying of the light ..."

From beyond the grave Fergie will be kicking open his coffin and demanding that Madrid "shut their 'effin gobs and keep their swarthy palms off of Ronaldo". He manages the best team there's ever been, what does he require? A tournament on the moon so he can win some inter-lunar trophy? I named it very carefully so as to not use the phrase "moon cup" which I believe is a vaginal dish designed to be worn within as a fearsome tampon replacement – I'm sure they're great, it's more the name that troubles me. Moon cup. It just sounds like a future Geldof progeny.

Will Tevez remain at Old Trafford for further, yet to him insufficient, acclaim? I wonder. More troubling to me is the fact that he still appears to be the property of a sporting agency and that is now somehow acceptable. Apparently it's OK for United to get all mixed up in the millionaire slave trade but when West Ham do it the chairmen of the north queue up to sue and whinge.

Tevez has said publicly that he will leave "no matter what", which is as close to an unequivocal statement as we're ever likely to get from a footballer and one that he may regret as it forgoes the possibility of a single circumstance under which he will remain. "What if you're made king of Manchester and Rooney is forced to chauffeur you?" "What if the Falkland Islands are returned?" "How about we free you from this peculiar contract you seem to have wound up with which commits you to a life of wandering the Earth like the Hulk?"

"No, no and no!"

United's final game is against Hull and the relegation threatened managers of the north-east are preparing their laments should Hull somehow escape the championship by thrashing United's reserves. We must accept that football has changed; big clubs have squads, big players have owners and clubs that consistently lose get relegated – the latter at least is as old as the game and will remain even when United are the best team in the galaxy and Ferguson slurps triumphantly from a moon cup. And surely that is an image to cherish.