Manchester United: Blog: The Treble was top

Like his idols, our guest blogger Mark Webster became a world champion in 2008, when he won the BDO (British Darts Organisation) title. Fanzone wonders if he practices by putting a rival team's poster on his dartboard...

My older brother and my dad are probably the reason why I support United – you get it drummed into you, don’t you?

They took me to my first game in 1990, the Charity Shield when we played Liverpool and drew with them. We shared the trophy, there was no penalty shootout in those days.

My first United memory would be the FA Cup final that same year, when we beat Crystal Palace. I would have been six years old, and I remember both games – drawing three each at Wembley, then Lee Martin scoring in the replay. When you’re a young boy you don’t tend to pay attention to things for that long… but that’s the first time I can remember really sitting down concentrating on a whole game. I was hooked from then on really.

Liverpool were the opposition for my favourite-ever game, the FA Cup tie in ’99, when we were 1-0 down and turned it round and won it in the last minutes thanks to Yorkie and then Solskjaer.

When you look back at it now, you realise just how important those goals were in keeping the Treble alive – though I suppose people weren’t even talking in those terms at that point. But United just didn’t know when they were beaten that season, and that game epitomised it.

Beating Liverpool made that game in '99 all the more special. I’m not too fond of City either, but there’s no contest really in terms of the team I dislike the most.

When I was younger I didn’t dislike Liverpool that much – their era of success was pretty much over by the time I got into football (1990). But when you become friends with Liverpool fans it becomes a lot easier to hate them!

I know so many tunnel-vision Liverpool fans it’s unreal. Some of them are my best mates, but when it comes to talking football with them, especially about United and Liverpool, you just can’t get any sense out of them.

Unfortunately, there seem to be more Liverpool fans than United fans on the darts circuit, although Martin Phillips who plays for Wales is a fellow Red.

There are also a lot of Stoke-based players in the game, and they support Stoke or Port Vale. I'm from North Wales but they always call me a Scouser to wind me up!

The views expressed in this blog are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Manchester United FC.

Edwin van der Sar