21 November 2002 - Wimbledon striker Paul Robinson signs on a 3 month loan deal. Craig Farrell agrees a 3 year deal estimated to be worth £50,000, depending on appearances, and expects it to be completed very soon. Richie Foran admits that his injury will not keep him for fighting for his place in a resurgent Utd front line. Other News - Football League chairmen vote overwhelmingly in favour of a 60% cap on players' wages. Leeds will offer Alan Smith a lucrative new deal to fend off interest from Man Utd. England are looking for a score in excess of 400 following Michael Vaughan's first-day century in Adelaide. The national governing bodies of the 35 Olympic sports give the BOA their backing to try to win the 2012 Games for London. The Deputy Prime Minister urges firefighters to cancel an eight-day walk-out due to start on Friday and continue pay talks. Princess Anne is fined £500 and ordered to pay £500 compensation after admitting that one of her dogs attacked two children. At least 10 people are killed in a northern Nigerian city after thousands of Muslim youths go on the rampage, protesting at the Miss World contest.
22 November 2002 - Collins admits that the selection problem posed by the quality he now has in his squad is a problem he is more than happy to have to live with. Utd players are now in a position where they have to fight for the right to appear. Paul Robinson tells the local paper that it was Des Byrne who persuaded him that CUFC was the right place to be, as he looks to secure a long term contract in the coming three months. Other News - Spurs boss Glenn Hoddle snubs Wolves' move for striker Les Ferdinand. Senegal World Cup star Pape Bouba Diop claims Man Utd want to sign him. Shane Warne reckons Australia did everything right on Friday with England cut down to size in Adelaide. A bitter political row erupts on the first day of an eight-day firefighters' strike, as the armed forces get to grips with providing emergency cover. Youths rampage through the streets of Abuja, in Nigeria, after 100 people were killed in a northern city in protest at the Miss World beauty contest. A British UN relief agency official is killed in the West Bank during an Israeli military operation, but it is not clear who shot him. Tolls have again been recommended by a government report into ways of tackling congestion on London's orbital route.
23 November 2002 - Craig Farrell completes his move to United by signing a 3 year deal for an undisclosed fee. Other News - Barcelona join the race to sign Chelsea striker Eidur Gudjohnsen. Ellen MacArthur wins the Route du Rhum single-handed transatlantic race in a record-breaking time. The TUC's general secretary attacks the government's handling of the firefighters' pay dispute and urges unions to support the strikers. Between three million and 3.5 million adults in the EU have probably tried ecstasy at least once, says a European drug monitoring body. Prince Philip denies reports he called Princess Diana "a trollop" and "harlot" in letters to her, at the time of her separation from his son.
Utd 1 - 2 Bury Scorer - Murphy, 61 mins. League Position, 20th. Att: 4678.
Glennon - 6, Shelley - 7, Kelly - 6, Murphy - 7, Maddison - 6 (Birch - 6), Baldacchino - 6, Summerbell - 6, Osman - 6, McGill - 6, Robinson - 6, Farrell - 6 (Wake - 6). Subs not used: Taylor, Andrews, Sutton.
3 Games Man of the Match - Peter Murphy scored a wonder goal and was the player most involved as his team mates found it difficult to come to terms with a very well organised Bury side.
3 Games Comment - The midfield never really got to grips with this one and United found it difficult to keep things flowing because of it. The effort and commitment was there but, unfortunately, it was to be a bad day at the office. Bury looked to spoil our passing and movement style of play and achieved their aim well, stifling our play makers often before they even got a touch of the ball. New boy Robinson showed some good touches and movement and should really come in to his own once full match fitness is regained. The plus side of this scrappy performance is that the teams around Carlisle in the table also dropped points, so no ground was lost. Having said that, we need to be winning our home games to keep the 'floating' fans interested - they have already demonstrated their willingness to find other things to do on a Saturday. Still can't shake the feeling that we are right on the edge of something pretty big though.
25 November 2002 - Paul Kee is appointed as head of youth at Brunton Park. A highly respected coach, Paul's playing career in England included spells at Mansfield Town, Forest, Southampton and Charlton Athletic, moving back to Ireland he played for Linfield, Colraine and Crusaders. A car crash ended his playing career and at the age of 26 he became manager of Omagh Town. In 1985 he moved on to Institute fc and guided them from the bottom of the Northern Ireland Intermediate league to the Irish league premier div in 5 years. In 1998 he formed Maiden City Soccer Academy for Ireland's youth employing 9 coaches. He is a EUFA grade A coach and also has the English FA coaching badge. United's Youth team notch up an exciting 3-4 win away at Rochdale. Season ticket holders are warned that the voucher they have for each game MUST be still attached to the season ticket book when presented at the turnstile. United fans feel aggrieved when video evidence clearly shows that Andy Preece was not fouled in the Bury game. Preece scored from the resulting free kick. Other news - Barnsley are handed a lifeline after Peter Doyle, the towns mayor, agrees a deal with the administrators. England paceman Matthew Hoggard voices his support for England captain Nasser Hussain in light of calls for his resignation. Tony Blair intervenes in the firefighters' dispute by insisting that any pay deal above 4% must be linked to modernisation. A team of UN weapons inspectors return to Baghdad to resume the hunt for banned weapons, four years after it was abandoned.
26 November 2002 - Jon McCarthy is in talks with a view to joining United. The 32 year old winger has made over 400 league appearances, starting his career with Hartlepool . Other clubs include Port Vale, Birmingham City and Sheffield Wednesday. Other news - In the Champions league Manchester United beat Basle 1-3. Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale denies he wants to become FA chief executive. Niki Lauda is dismissed as team principal with the Jaguar Formula One team. Bruce Grobbelaar is ordered to pay more than £1m in legal costs for his ill-fated libel action against The Sun. John Prescott has pointed to job losses being a likely part of any deal to solve the fire strike, saying that with one in five firefighters due to retire within two years, now is a good time to discuss creating a leaner service. A UNAids report warns that over 40 million people worldwide are now infected with the HIV virus.
27 November 2002 - Darren Kelly will miss this Saturday's game against York. He serves his one match ban from the red card he received in the Lincoln F.A. Cup game. Will Mcdonagh is also unavailable as he sits out the second of his three game suspension. Other news - In the Champions league, Newcastle lose 1-4 to Inter Milan with Bellamy sent off after 6 minutes. Arsenal beat Roma 3-1 at the Stadio Olimpico with a hat trick from Thierry Henry. York City goes into a Creditors Voluntary Agreement. Chairman John Batchelor has pledged to hand over his majority shareholding in the club to the City Supporters Trust but things look bleak for the minstermen where players have been informed the will not be receiving their wages for November. Chancellor Gordon Brown increases government borrowing to £20bn this year blaming a sharp slowdown in the world economy. The Fire Brigades Union announces that further talks aimed at ending the firefighters' dispute will be held on Friday. An Italian plane is hijacked by a mentally ill man claiming to be a member of the al-Qaeda network, it later emerges that the hijacker, a former policeman, had attempted unsuccessfully to hijack a Moroccan airliner flying from Marseille to Paris three years ago. On another occasion he tried to hijack a high-speed train in Italy, breaking into the driver's compartment.
28 November 2002 - Jon McCarthy signs a one month contract and may be in the starting line up against his old club York on Saturday. Other news - Uefa has charged Alan Shearer for allegedly elbowing Fabio Cannavaro during last nights Newcastle's Champions League match against Inter Milan. Shearer is likely to face a ban of between two to four matches if he is found guilty. Bolton's Dean Holdsworth goes to Coventry on a month's loan. At least 15 people die in a suicide bombing at an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa just as two missiles were fired at an Israeli holiday jet that had taken off from the city's airport. The missiles narrowly miss the Boeing 757 which later lands safely in Tel Aviv escorted home for the last section of the journey by Israeli F-16 jets. Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is in a coma in a hospital in Los Angeles following a car accident.
29 November 2002 - Mark Hudson has signed on a months loan deal. Mark, who was born in Bishop Auckland, signed as a trainee at Middlesbrough on the 1st of August 1999. This season the central midfielder has been on loan at Chesterfield where he has scored once, in their 4-0 win over Northampton. John Courtenay and Richie Foran have been charged with public order offences relating to incidents at the game against Lincoln at Sincil Bank. They must appear in court at Lincoln to answer the charges two days after Lincoln are the visitors at Brunton Park in January. Other news - Alan Shearer has been banned for two matches after being found guilty of violent conduct by Uefa's disciplinary committee. The ban comes after the committee viewed television footage showing him swinging an elbow at Inter Milan defender Fabio Cannavaro during his side's Champions League loss on Wednesday. Bradford City's financial crisis deepens after a major creditor rejects refinancing proposals. The players have told they will not receive this month's wages on time. Twelve people are being held for questioning by Kenyan police investigating Thursday's twin attacks on Israeli targets in Mombasa. They were detained before the attacks, because of questions about how they had entered Kenya. Briton Louise Saunders, who was lost for four days on an Australian mountain, turns up safe and well after finding her own way out of the dense rainforest which covers Mount Tyson in Queensland. Another eight-day UK fire strike, due to start on Wednesday, seems set to go ahead as talks on the dispute end without a deal.
30 November 2002 - Over 1000 United fans make the trek to Bootham Crescent to see a frustrating 2-1 loss in the pouring rain. Other news - Arsenal go four points clear at the top of the Premiership with a 3-1 win over Aston Villa. Former Tottenham and Crystal Palace defender Dean Austin has signed for Conference side Woking. In Rugby Union, Leicester's five-year unbeaten home record comes to an end as Northampton win 25-12 at Welford Road. A campaign to promote safe sex among young people is launched, as figures reveal a sharp rise in the number of new HIV cases in the UK. A five-year-old boy who went missing and sparked a major search in Glasgow is found safe and well.
York City 2 -1 Utd. Scorer Robinson. League position 21st. Att: 4335.
Team: Glennon -6, Shelly -7, Taylor -6, Murphy -7, Maddison -6 (Robinson -7), McCarthy -7, Osman -6, Summerbell -7, McGill -7, Foran -7, Farrell -7. Subs not used: Birch, Andrews, Jack, Baldacchino.
3 games man of the match. Brian Shelley showed his physical strength and balance bringing the ball forward, he looked the most likely to carve out an opening.
3 games comment. A very disappointing game and one where we should have got at least a point, York were not that good and we had far more possession and far more chances, we have got to learn to take them.
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