Shout out to Man United's (London) army 59

WE’LL race you back to London! We’ll race you back to London!” It’s a refrain Manchester United fans have been rolling their eyes at for decades, sung by rival fans playing on the age-old gag that a fair share of the club’s fanbase are about as Mancunian as jellied eels.

- Malik Ouzia

It is a cliche not entirely without foundation. In 2016, YouGov found that only 29 per cent of United’s support came from the local area, the lowest of any Premier League team at the time, while a survey two years ago claimed that almost a fifth live in the capital.

Among the most committed are the club’s official London Fan Club. Their routine for midweek matches like this week’s against German giants Bayern Munich begins with a lunchtime beer at the Doric Arch pub at Euston station, and, on this occasion, without much optimism, on the back of a 3-0 home defeat to lowly Bournemouth four days before.

“But Bayern got hammered at the weekend,” I say, trying to rouse a little belief. “Yeah,” replies one of the regulars, Gerry. “But we did as well.”

Each of the men around the table has their own story of how United came into their lives. Len went to his first match in 1974 and then got a job on the railways, which made tracking United an affordable pastime.

Kev, originally from Waltham Forest, was taken to White Hart Lane by his Tottenham-supporting grandfather in 1967 and found himself falling instead for the visiting team. He remembers a time when being a United fan in these parts was a hairier pursuit. “You’d get the odd bit of aggro,” he says. “I was chased down the Underground a couple of times in the Seventies. Now, no one takes any notice of you.”