Author: Stretford_End

www.stretford-end.com have teamed up with the UK’s leading Movies & TV provider blinkbox.com, where you can watch films and TV shows straight to your computer or Internet connected TV. We are pleased to announce that we are giving away a £25 voucher for you to use on blinkbox.com to watch a few movies or TV shows of your choice. All we need you to do is participate in the following.

The following should take you only a few minutes to complete:

Step 1 – Click on the following link and select blinkbox.com (you must access blinkbox.com through this link):

I want to watch movies on blinkbox

Step 2 – Select your favourite Movie from the extensive blinkbox catalogue:

Step 3 – Once you’ve found your favourite movie, login to Twitter or Facebook (your preference).

If you’re using Twitter write the following (including hash tag and @blinkbox):

If you’re using Facebook – you simply ‘like’ the page and write the following on the wall:

And that is it! The winner will be picked at random in one week’s time and unfortunately, this isn’t open to Stretty Rant writers or guest writers! Sorry guys.

Closing Date: Wednesday 24th August 2011
UK based Entrants only

Author: Stretford_End

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We are very proud to launch our brand new website design on www.stretford-end.com. Its taken most of the summer, but I hope you will agree that it is a vast improvement on the aging design of the past two seasons. We’re not going to spend too long on this, but we just wanted to welcome you, the reader, to provide feedback on what you like and what you dislike.

We’ve updated the Manchester United statistics section so that it is possible to drill down on each competition (honestly, it will look better once United have played in additional competitions). This section also includes detailed information on the number of goals, assists and appearances United players have made over the course of the season. There may also be a few additional statistics thrown in, which will at the end of the season be very useful for a full review.

The forum and chants section remain, whilst we still need to update the history section. A youth and reserves section has also been included, which will hold all of the results and statistics of the Manchester United youth and reserve teams.

Anyways, that is enough rambling. The original ethos of the website was to create a United community and resource that Reds would find useful and entertaining. I hope that has been achieved and www.stretford-end.com can continue to provide interesting debate, useful statistics and above all – a useful resource for Reds.

As you may have read in our review of 2010, we are continuing our embrace with technology by becoming the first Manchester United blog to announce a free to download “Webzine” with the first issue due for release in January. The webzine will include interviews, unique content from the website, as well as all of our best blogs from the previous month too.

We will be publishing contributions from our readers, too  - in our first issue, we’re asking for your stories about how you managed to convince your other half to support United. For a chance to get your own tale included, just post it in the comments, or alternatively, post it on our forum and discuss with our growing community.

Also, feel free to make suggestions for topics you’d like to hear the Stretty Rant teams opinions on.

Manchester United have drawn French side Olympique Marseilles in the second round of the Champions League. United will play the first leg in France.

United and Marseilles have played each other twice, both times in the 1999/2000 season. The Red Devils won 2-1 while Marseilles won the return 1-0, with a certain serial tantrum artist scoring the goal.

Full reaction to follow.

Stretford-End.com is delighted to run a competition alongside United Nights to give away this one off piece of memorabilia – a Sir Matt Busby way replica road sign signed by Busby Babe and former United manager Wilf McGuinness, and title winning players David May and Quinton Fortune.

The competition to win this one of a kind is being run on Twitter by Yolkie and UnitedNights so be sure to follow them.

To be in with a chance of winning this (in time for Christmas!) you just need to use the hashtag #unitednights and tell Yolkie or UnitedNights twitter accounts which Manchester United goal this season you think has been is David May’s favourite.

The winner will be picked at random at 6pm today. Happy playing, and good luck!

Stretford-End.com wishes to support Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s comments regarding the sick chants aimed at Arsene Wenger.

We acknowledge that our supporters are not the only ones to sing the chants but we have a responsibility as the best supporters in Britain to not sink to this level, and more importantly, show respect. There is a concern that singing the chants are becoming accepted and we as supporters have to make a stand against that and kick it out.

Ferguson is right, anyone singing the chant is letting themselves and the club down – this isn’t offensive to one person, it’s offensive to any right minded member of the public. To anyone attending tonight, concentrate on watching two of the best footballing teams in the country. You can read our full preview of the match here.

Honestly, we don’t enjoy rival supporters singing about Munich, it’s disgusting. It may be impossible to compare the chants but it doesn’t matter, it’s unnecessary. The bottom line is it is unacceptable. Unacceptable in any civilised form of society, and unacceptable in any kind of football supporter culture. In no way, shape or form can the chants be justified by comparison.

Our concern as a website is that the publicity surrounding the chants means it is inevitable they will be sung, even by a minority, thinking it’s cool to do it. But think twice and think of the ramifications. These aren’t amusing jibes based on someone’s misdemeanours in the public eye. It isn’t a stolen toilet seat, it’s a malicious, unpleasant disgusting song that should not be allowed to embed itself into desensitisation.

Let’s be dignified. Let’s create an atmosphere to be proud of, and get behind our team instead of this mindless abuse.

United’s game against Blackpool tomorrow has been called off due to a frozen pitch at Bloomfield Road. There’s little doubt that this can be spun in both a positive and a negative way. I’ll assess the impacts of this postponement on United.

To begin with, the facts. The Premier League, the Match Officials – lead by Peter Walton, Manchester United and Blackpool all agreed today to postpone the game. The referee expressed his concerns that patches of the pitch would not thaw in time for the match tomorrow with another cold night ahead. There has been no date yet assigned for the fixture to take place.

Why couldn’t Blackpool get it ready in time? Firstly for our readers outside of the UK, there has been unseasonably cold weather and the majority of the country is covered with snow. Evening temperatures of -8C or colder have frozen the ground solid. Blackpool do not have undersoil heating installed at Bloomfield Road. They have hired in huge generators to blow hot air onto the pitch but clearly they have not worked well enough. To me, it seems unacceptable that a Premier League match should fall foul to the weather. There should be minimum standards for competing in the league. I saw a few people on Twitter site the fact that Birmingham had undersoil heating installed for only £300k last year – given how much promotion to the league is worth, it seems as though this is not a huge outlay in the long run. Blackpool have actually been training abroad this week – they have no indoor training facilities and their training ground was frozen. It had even been suggested by Ian Holloway that they would consider training on the beach if need be.

The positives. Well this might be clutching at straws but I feel there are a few positives. Firstly playing in cold conditions and on hard pitches is the perfect combination for injuries. What United have now is a chance to rest further. Key players will get an extra break and players like Scholes who was a doubt for tomorrow but might have been involved, need not be risked. Additionally the next game United play is on Tuesday evening at home to Valencia. The match is a dead rubber – United can afford to play a weakened team with qualification assured and first place nearly tied up – hence first team players may end up having a nice two week rest from beating Blackburn last weekend until the huge games against Arsenal and Chelsea. The squad should be fresh and ready – although some might argue that in two weeks players can get a bit rusty and lose rhythm.

The negatives. The obvious negative is that both Chelsea and Arsenal can go above United. United can end the weekend in third. As Sir Alex Ferguson would testify, it’s always better to lead the race than be chasing – the psychological disadvantage of being third is massive, even with a game in hand. One need only to look at the Blackburn away game last year – the team didn’t perform but knew they had to as they were chasing. If Chelsea win this weekend and next weekend, they could be four points ahead of United before the Arsenal game on the Monday. The flip side to the players getting a rest is that there will now come a time where a fixture will have to be squeezed in and United will have to play an additional league fixture that week with their rivals more than likely to have one less and therefore a less tired squad.

The final argument is of course that it makes no difference. United are a professional football team and should Ferguson wish to put a spin of positivity or negativity on the situation he’ll know the best one to do – until then it probably makes little difference to the team who have been called in to train anyway – as Rio confirmed to me on Twitter, “@rioferdy5 @DoronSalomon training 2mo, running and a gym session. Good stuff!”

I’m not sure if it’ll make much difference myself. Personally my thoughts are more with the fans who had made travel or accommodation arrangements – hopefully these can all be refunded. United have confirmed that away tickets issued for the game will be valid for whenever the match is rescheduled. Take care in the snow folks and enjoy watching some football over the weekend from inside and in the warmth.

Please feel free to discuss the topic using the comments section – however do try to be polite and rather than criticise the author (myself), stick to the topic and it can be debated in a sensible manner. We do have a topic running on the forum about the game so you can share further thoughts there too, click here for that.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter

After months of speculation linking Anders Lindegaard with a move to Manchester United, a deal has finally been agreed to bring the 26-year-old goalkeeper to Old Trafford in January. Lindegaard was rumoured to have flown into Manchester on Thursday to undergo a medical and agree to terms today. The deal is reportedly worth £3.5 million. Lindegaard spoke of his excitement after putting pen to paper on a three-and-a-half year deal:

“Joining Manchester United is a dream come true for me.  The club is such an institution in Denmark, it’s an honour to come here.  I’m looking forward to playing and training alongside some of the great players in football today.  I can’t wait to be part of this team and to make my contribution to keeping the team at the top of the game.”

The club has confirmed Lindegaard will train with the squad in December, but will not be able to be officially registered as a player until the transfer window opens in January. Sir Alex was full of praise United’s newest signing:

“Anders is one of the brightest young keepers in the game.  The challenge at Manchester United is always to look to the future and in Anders, we have signed a goalkeeper of great presence and even more promise.  Having the time to train with him before he is registered will be an important period for him – almost like a pre season to get him integrated with the other players.”

Lindegaard was an unknown until a few months ago when reports began surfacing that United goalkeeping coach Eric Steele had been scouting the Danish goalkeeper. He made his international debut on 7 September 2010 in a Euro 2012 qualifier against Iceland, and has gone on to make three more appearances since. Not bad for a player who was below former United keeper Roy Carroll in the pecking order at Odense BK last year.

A loan move to Norwegian club Aalesund offered Lindegaard the opportunity to get his career back on track, and after some promising performances he was rewarded with a permanent deal. After 56 appearances for Aalesund, Lindegaard now joins United as the club prepares for life without Edwin van der Sar.

While Lindegaard’s rapid rise from Odense BK backup to Denmark international and Manchester United player is certainly impressive, there are those who believe he is not yet ready for this step in his career. United great Peter Schmeichel has publicly stated his compatriot is not good enough for United. It’s definitely concerning to hear such criticism from arguably the best goalkeeper in the club’s history, but perhaps Lindegaard will prove him wrong and become the club’s next Great Dane. Only time will tell.

When he arrives in January, Lindegaard will assume the role of Van der Sar’s understudy. It may be disappointing for him to find himself on the bench again, but the experience he’ll gain from learning under Van der Sar may prove invaluable. After all, it’s not every day an up-and-coming goalkeeper gets to train with one of the greats.

There are plenty of uncertainties surrounding the goalkeeper situation at Old Trafford right now. It is still unknown whether Van der Sar will carry on past the season or if he’ll choose to hang up his gloves. It is also likely that Tomasz Kuszczak may depart to seek first team opportunities elsewhere. There are also rumours linking United with a move for Atletico Madrid goalkeeper David De Gea. With so many questions between the posts, one thing is certain – Anders Lindegaard will be part of the future at United.

Discuss this story and more in the forum

Follow Kyle on Twitter at KDill_MUFC

Days after CNN and BBC publicised Stretford-End.com’s letter to Wayne Rooney, we are delighted to announce that another high profile campaign started by the website has ended with the right result after Manchester United bought Nobby Stile’s medals at auction today.

Scores of our Twitter followers bombarded Rio Ferdinand and other media sources with our blog on the subject, and it seems the club listened to the outrage of supporters by purchasing his World Cup and European Cup winners medals at Convery Auctions in Edinburgh.

It is expected that the club will display the medals at the Old Trafford museum.

Stretford-End.com expresses its delight at the news.

This video was record and sent to us by SimplyReds. Be sure to check out his website and Twitter.

Yolkie (Wayne Barton) discussed Rooney’s contract extension on CNN International’s “World Sport” today. Check out his interview by watching the above video. On behalf of the Stretford-End.com team I’d like to congratulate Yolkie for his appearance on CNN. You’ve made us all proud.

Follow Yolkie on Twitter at Yolkie_