"IT'S DISASTROUS. ALL THOSE EMBARRASSING DEFEATS. IT'S NO GOOD KNOCKING THE BALL AROUND MIDFIELD ALL DAY IF WE CAN'T SCORE. WHY DIDN'T HE BUY A STRIKER BEFORE THE TRANSFER WINDOW CLOSED?"
 
As Anthony Gardner's shot deflected from Gary Breen's legs and spun past the clawing reach of David James, I smiled. I couldn't help it. When you are down, you are well and truly nose down in the mud and it takes a bit of character to drag yourself up by the bootlaces and get on with things.

That's not just the players either, the same goes for the fans. We all love a moan and a whinge now and again, but if you have spent the most part of your waking life straining at the shirt seams to encourage, defend and support your team, why turn on them when they need you most? Which is why the majority of true fans can take the bad days on the chin and think on to the next game, the next chance to put things right. 

As I was driving home after the 3-2 defeat by Tottenham last Sunday, hearing some of the rants on Radio 5's 606 phone-in did nothing to wipe the wry smile off my face. Because the comments I have quoted above didn't come from West Ham supporters, but from a cross-section of Manchester United fans, each voice having a suspiciously southern twang. Apparently Sir Alex Ferguson has lot the plot, has wasted United's money, has been putting up with mediocre performances from the likes of Ryan Giggs for far too long and has already cost United the championship with their two league defeats in six matches.  

It's entirely possible that many of those 'outraged' Southern Reds developed their love of all things Mancunian around May 1999 after that particularly dramatic 2-1 win on a balmy Spanish evening, but what I enjoyed far more was the reaction from a couple of callers actually based in Manchester. One labelled his 'fellow' United fans ''post Euro 96 Muppets'', while another warbled on about how he'd stood on the terraces the day that Denis Law, in City's sky blue, had backheeled United towards relegation and that if there were to be two or three trophyless seasons, "so what, at least it should get rid of all those part-time southern supporters who come up here and stop me getting a ticket at Old Trafford every week." Priceless.

What Mr Angry from Stretford was trying to say though was that as a true lifelong football fan you don't get to choose your team, it simply exists as part of your growing up, it's there, like Auntie Ethel or your Mum's burnt rice pudding. If you are teamless in later life, you can't buy back into that emotion or read up on experiences and make them your own, you have to live and breathe every grim kick of it. 

Everybody has their moment of realisation, that fatal time when you know whatever else comes and goes over the next seventy or so years, there's one thing you'll be stuck with. Mine came after the family moved from London in 1970. Seven years old, new school, lunchtime, the lads splitting into two large groups either side of  the playground, half ready to chant Chelsea, the other half Leeds, ahead of the FA Cup final that Saturday. Munro is sat watching, totally confused, too young to realise that with no local team the schoolkids could happily change their team allegiances to suit whoever was next up on telly.  

"Why aren't you joining in?" said one of the girls. "Don't you like football?" 

"No, I'm a West Ham fan"

I thought about that long after the bell had gone. It was probably my first ever wry smile too.