When Wayne wanted away: the breakdown between Rooney and Ferguson, in their own words

Sunshine_Bag · 4時間前

Link at the top of this post is to my site!

What I mean is that Fergies are only told by his point of view, and other books and news reports have told a different story than what he has. The article I did on him and Roy Keane shows a lot of this.

Sunshine_Bag · 5時間前

Honestly? From this era I would have to go with Neville's. The man bleeds United, and it was such an engrossing read as he goes into so much detail on the little things. He gives his philosophies not just on playing the game, but on life in general - and he was part of just about every success.

After that I would go with Sir Alex's second, and then both of Rio's books (his first more so than his second).

Sunshine_Bag · 5時間前

My Autobiography (the updated edition) and Leading (if you want to get them, I have links to them on my site!). Just know going into them that Fergie is a heavily unreliable narrator.

Sunshine_Bag · 15時間前

I don't know why I didn't update the bottom to include the press conference reports as I always link to them when not pulled out of the books. I'll update that now!

Sunshine_Bag · 18時間前

It depends. For example this one from start to finish it was probably...three hours from start to finish. That includes isolating the quotes I want to use, making sure I get the timeline correct (that was the biggest challenge in this article as at times Ferguson does not put things in chronological order), and getting the background information correct.

The one on Cantona on the other hand actually was a couple days in the making though as when I was about halfway through it one of the sources I was using I started to doubt the authenticity of it so I had to restart it. The one I did on Totti and Balotelli took around the same amount of time, but that's simply because I didn't trust the English translations so I did them myself.

Sunshine_Bag · 19時間前

It's something to do in between semesters, and with all these books laying around I may as well do something useful...

Sunshine_Bag · 20時間前

I have it posted in the article on the website, but here's a direct link.

Sunshine_Bag · 20時間前

Nothing!

Sunshine_Bag · 1日前

I never really stop. My commuting playlist has roughly...all of their songs on it.

Sunshine_Bag · 1日前

You can give overarching definitions of Fascism, and fascism, but its contentious nature (in my opinion) make it hard to nail down. The 1934 conference you mentioned was pointedly not attended by Italy, and the Comitati d'Azione per l'Universalita di Roma (which organized the conference) was not endorsed by the PNF, and had failed to adopt a definition of what 'universal fascism' was as it is.

We are able to make in general observations about what is fascism, but even that is contentious. Generally speaking, fascism is in favor of national syndicalism under a totalitarian one-party state, in favor of armed conflict to solve both foreign and domestic problems, and in favor of a mixed economy. Even this is a contentious way of looking at it, as not every nation that became recognized as "fascist" operated under all of these systems.

I do have to say that Julius Evola actually labeled himself as an anti-fascist who never joined the party, though as someone that sympathized. He generally gets grouped in with the Fascists because most of his criticism of the movement came from the angle of improving fascism, instead of tearing it down.

Sunshine_Bag · 2日前

George Orwell contributes an apt quote on the differing and contradicting definitions of Fascism:

...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

For fascism itself, especially of the Partito Nazionale Fascista, yes, there were some level of quarrel towards what Fascism was supposed to represent. A lot of this comes from the people that were recruited into the movement, and the background that they came from. The economic approach of Fascism as a amalgamation of leftist and rightest policies brought plenty of conflict initially among the Squadrismo who had joined up with the intention of literally beating the old order away. You can view the evolving 'goals' of Fascism as Mussolini and the party leaders bargained and schemed in order to improve their power base. For many, fascism was meant to be "anticapitalist, antimonarchical, anticlerical, antisocialist, antiparliamentary, and, most especially, antibourgeois," (Tannenbaum) but this immediately put them at odds with the founders of the Fascist movement, who were almost all former revolutionary socialists and syndicalists. The base of the party in 1919 may have seen the movement as a way to beat people with their santo manganello, perform daredevil acts of courage, and overthrow existing order, but by 1921 as chaos and striking had been working its way through Italy alienated students and younger veterans started to join the Fascists as a call to order instead of against it.

It's impossible to look at Mussolini for guidance on what the goals of Fascism were, as until he was secure as il Duce he considered the PNF as nothing more than an instrument towards his own rise to power, and viewed those underneath him with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. Instead we can turn towards the various leaders of the Fascist movement themselves where we see the quarrel that you asked about. Edmondo Rossoni, president of the National Confederation of Fascist Unions during the 1920's wanted the movement to be a champion of Italian labor against employers. Roberto Farinacci, former party secretary, saw the party as the violent Squadrismo and thought Mussolini was too liberal. Giuseppe Bottai saw Fascism as the rise of new cultural elites to lead society, while Alfredo Rocco saw Fascism as a constitutional corporatist state. The only tie that led them to all stick together was the syndicalist nature that they all started in.

Sunshine_Bag · 2日前

It's what happens when one only lives on the internet to get their news. It's going to take a monumental screw up by Hillary to get Trump elected.

Sunshine_Bag · 3日前

You mean like how we were supposed to lose to Spain?

Sunshine_Bag · 3日前

I actually used that quote, along with others, in this piece I wrote on Ronaldo at United.

Sunshine_Bag · 4日前

Great post mate!

I think a lot of the issue is that Pogba wouldn't come back if Fergie was the coach - but that's not to say he would never come back. I do see it as unlikely as Pogba wants glory now and doesn't seem to want to be part of a 'rebuilding' effort.

Sunshine_Bag · 4日前

Italy did...kind of.

I can't give you an interesting story about the battles themselves, but I can tell you a tale of blind incompetence that cost the lives of too many Italians. To understand, Mussolini only declared war against France because he wanted a seat at the negotiating table upon their defeat. In fact, the army was only given two weeks notice because Mussolini needed bodies dead, and he needed them now.¹ In his own words on 5 June he is said to have stated, "I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought." It is safe to say that Italy only entered into the war for purely political reasons, as the thinking was that if Italy could be perceived as doing something that it would cast doubt onto Hitler to in turn invade them.²

Predictably little of note happened as the French were dug into defensive positions, and the Italians did as well - under Mussolini's instructions. The Army was ill equipped, undertrained, unprepared, and being led by a man that had assumed supreme command of the military under dubious grounds (Mussolini)^1. Mussolini himself knew how unprepared his military was, as the entire point of the Pact of Steel had been to forestall Italy being dragged into a war until at least 1943^3, and that most military commanders advised that Italy's military capabilities at best suited itself into an offensive with a minor power such as Greece or Albania, but against a larger power should be purely defensive.² The boots that the Army went to war with were legendarily bad (the infamous "cardboard boots") and in this 'attack' on France, Italy actually ended up losing more soldiers to frostbite than then French lost in total. (The French suffered 229 total casualties, versus 2,151 lost to frostbite for the Italians^4). It is also to note that Mussolini actively interfered with the invasion as he would go around Army commanders and give detailed instructions directly to their subordinates.²

As for the fighting itself? It went poorly. Italy declared war on France (and Britain) on 10 June with Army Group West, composed of the First and the Fourth Armies, attacking France on June 21. The day after the French requested an armistice with Italy.² By the time of the armistice taking effect four days later (in a move that Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano had said was quite fortunate for Italy⁵⁾ none of the objectives set out had been met. Mussolini had launched the offensive hoping to secure for Italy Nice, Savoy, Corsica, and French Tunisian ports - and received none of these because Hitler needed the friendship of the now-defeated France instead of Italy^1. Instead Mussolini could only meekly ask for a rough 832 km² occupational zone (almost precisely at where the Italian soldiers were by the time of the armistice) with a 50km wide demilitarized zone - in which Nice fell, outside of Italian control.

Smith, Denis Mack. Modern Italy: A Political History.
Paoletti, Ciro. A Military History of Italy.
Sadkovich, James J. "Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II." Journal of Contemporary History
Giorgio Rochat , "La campagne italienne de juin 1940 dans les Alpes occidentales", Revue historique des armées
Ciano, Galeazzo, Ciano's Diary, 1939-1943

Sunshine_Bag · 4日前

This is the one that I want to read.

Sunshine_Bag · 4日前

I thought that part of the situation with the wellness policy is that they wrote into it that they can wrap up any hanging storylines with the talent, but the talent would not be paid for that time period, and it wouldn't count towards their suspension?

Sunshine_Bag · 4日前

maybe he gets a Vince style humbling for a while.

Honestly, Roman needed this for the past two years. Hilariously, the best thing that could have happened for him was that Vince sends him to ~~fight his seven evil exes~~ learn to "eat shit and love it" as Triple H did.

One of things that struck me about Roman is that he didn't really know how to handle not being loved really well. He's always been in a position since he came up where he knew that win/lose/draw/apathy the boss liked. Put him in a position where he has to put his nose to the grindstone and he should come out ten times better for it.

Sunshine_Bag · 6日前

Hello esteemed ~~historian overlords~~ moderators and panelists! After a small bout of consideration, and finding out that a few of my answers have been in the weekly roundup or on the twitter I would like to put forth my application for a piece of flair!

I have mainly been a lurker until now, but finally decided to plunge into the deep end as I noticed an uptick of questions that were applicable to my area of knowledge: Italian Fascism and Football.

I offer these answers up as tribute:

In response to Did citizens in Mussolini's Italy realize they were living under a "Fascist regime"? Or was this something that was only defined in historical hindsight? I offer a response on how football was used by the Fascists quite overtly.
Here I explore the origins of the Italian ultrás in response to a question on the origins of football hooliganism.
A look into the way in which the Fascists attempted to control the memory of their rise to power in response to a question on Kissinger.
Here I speak on the memories of the Italian resistance to Fascism/civil war, along with going over the seeds of Mussolini's fall from grace.

I graciously await your verdict, and hope I have not wasted too much of your time!

Sunshine_Bag · 6日前

There were Italians that had resisted from the beginning, but Mussolini and the PNF did a superb job in not only suppressing, but in marginalizing them.

For example, one of the major areas in which a root of dissent could have grown in the beginning were with the anarchists, and the Catholics. For the Catholics, they were deathly afraid of what a man who in his youth had been known as il mangiaprete(the priest eater)¹ would do to them, as Mussolini came from a heavily anti-clerical area. Mussolini shocked mostly everybody by almost immediately making overtures to the Catholics and bringing them into the fold as part of his propaganda machine, effectively silencing any opposition that may have sprung up from this corner.

Another avenue of potential discontent were from the socialists and the anarchists - but once again Mussolini and the PNF did brilliantly in working either with them to begin, or in effectively marginalizing them. Mussolini of course came from anarchist backgrounds, and in the beginning the PNF actually worked with the anarchists and socialists in order to prop up support (this would later actually lead to the PNF in purging many of it's original members who had "collaborated" with these groups)^3. The PNF itself at it's beginnings - as it had derived in heavy aspects from thoughts on the left - prided itself on being the true party of the workers, and worked heavily with the youth to beat away (at times literally, and usually accompanied with castor oil) the older generations in other political parties.⁴

Two turning points worked to keep the PNF and Mussolini on top, and control the dialogue that discouraged dissent. First, the murder of Socialist Giacomo Matteotti. 11 days after speaking in Parliament about the dangers of Fascism and saying the PNF had committed fraud in the previous election he was seen kidnapped into a car by known squadristi and then found murdered later. Mussolini himself would later admit that the party very easily could have come crumbling down is the King had asked, or if someone pushed hard enough. However, Mussolini gave a famous speech in Parliament in which he admitted that yes, the Fascists had been involved in this murder and that if you held the PNF responsible, you must also hold him personally responsible.¹ The roar of support this gave Mussolini and the PNF effectively led to their oppossing voices being silenced, as they now knew that the Fascists could get away with murder, and is cited by historians such as Smith as being when the dictatorship effectively started.⁵

The other I have talked about before when a 15 year old Anarchist attempted to assassinate Mussolini, which directly led to all other political parties but the PNF being banned. Here, Mussolini and the PNF had been using the anarchists in their rise to power, and would effectively eat them in order to strengthen their own position.

So yes while there was resistance to the Fascists early on, they had effectively used these groups in order to consolidate their own base of support.

Kertzer, David I. The Pope and Mussolini
Cannistraro, Philip V. "Mussolini, Sacco-Vanzetti, and the Anarchists: The Transatlantic Context." The Journal of Modern History
Martin, Simon. Football and Fascism
Edward R. Tannenbaum. "The Goals of Italian Fascism." The American Historical Review
Smith, Denis Mack. Mussolini.

Sunshine_Bag · 6日前

Much like the relationship between the head cheerleader and the starting quarterback in High School it's complicated and simple all at the same time.

One of the first things to keep in mind is the unreliability of first hand accounts, along with the efforts that a people will make after the fact to focus on a memory that plays themselves in a better light. Simon Kuper describes the difficulty this plays into the memory of history when he stated he found at the Dutch Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam that there were six and a half shelves of books on the Dutch Resistance, and just half a shelf on Dutch Collaboration. The conclusion he had presented to him rings well for Italy and the view that they want to have on the war, "All countries have myths about having been good, and they always turn out to be lies."¹

The story of resistance of the Italian people is not one that began heavily under the thrall of Fascism as they were a heavy minority that had been pushed significantly underground in the face of a nominally popular Fascist government⁶ . Instead, the story of resistance is the story against the German occupation, which is when Italy did in fact enter into a full blown civil war.² To get to when the switch was flipped, we need to go back through what got us there.

A good of starting point as any is when Italy and Germany signed the Pact of Steel in May 1939 which effectively gave Hitler an blank check for Italian support if a war broke out. Mussolini did not want to be dragged into Germany's wars as even he knew how woefully unprepared his military would be in such a case^2, and in fact was trying to present himself as a grand mediator between Poland and Germany³ so as to save face in the face of all the blustering he had done up to this point. Between September 1939 and May 1940 il Duce would constantly change his mind between appearing to be the grand "nonbelligerent" ("neutral" was an unfascist word and not manly), to stating that his and the Italian people's honor demanded they march with Germany, to warning Holland and Belgium of German attack, to demanding mobilization of the Italian army, to writing to Hitler personally that peace was the sensible option, to finally declaring war so that he wouldn't be late enough to share in the spoils and glory.² Plus, there was the fear that Hitler would punish Italy for the way that Mussolini had attempted to stand in the way of the Austrian Anschluss.⁴

Italy's misadventures in the war are well documented and were completely hamstrung by Mussolini's inability to ever make up his damn mind about what to do.⁴ Italians - regardless of pro- or anti- fascist sensibilities - fought loyally for their country but the war was quickly unpopular, with the public not in support of the cause.¹ Mussolini himself had begun telling his ministers that he foresaw that the future held a potential conflict between Italy and Germany which is why he held 15 divisions in reserve on the Italian border. As Smith says, "this was crazy talk." By this point Italy found itself as more or less an occupied power under Germany's nominal control with many of it's workers have to be shipped to Germany to replace those sent to Germany's front lines. They were not treated well. At all.² Reports in July 1941 had already started to filter in to Mussolini that antifascism was starting to root in, and strikes at factories soon started spreading, and the Party itself began to devour itself as discontentment suffered the nation.² This is where you first start seeing signs of a 'civil war' brewing in Italy as the lower classes began actively resisting. With news reaching of death, imprisonment, and defeat abroad - and especially of the fact that the Allies had bombed Rome² - the King eventually stepped in with the Fascist Grand Council to arrest Mussolini, and dissolve the Fascist party.⁵

It is important for what comes next to understand that Mussolini losing power and being arrested by the Carabinieri was heavily popular, and there literally was rejoicing in the streets when his arrest was announced over the radio.⁶ It’s also important to note that very quickly the new government and King fled south to Brindisi, leaving without giving orders to the Army. The Germans quickly swept in, occupying all the way down to Naples - where an insurrection of the people were the only thing that allowed the Allies to gain a toehold.² It is here you see the curiosity of memory take hold, as when the new Italian government signed an armistice with the Allies they essentially were admitting defeat.

It would be very strange if France celebrated the defeat at Sedan in 1870 or if in the USA they did the same for Pearl Harbour. Yet this is what happens in Italy with the 8 September. —Giovanni Belardelli,

Indeed, more than one monument rejoices that this is when “THE PEOPLE AND THE ARMY JOINED TOGETHER TO BEGIN THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE.” This is where the Italian memory of brave resistance in the face of Fascism takes hold, as the people were raped, priceless artifacts obliterated⁵ in Naples and Rome, and the Italian army more or less disarmed and evacuated to Germany for forced labor^2. The Germans deliberately started a Malaria epidemic in the Lazio region⁵ as Partisan Brigades began to fight alongside the Allies for their country^2. The resistance against fascism was strong, but it was open resistance against the German brand, and not of the Italian one.

We are once again brought to the quote I brought at the beginning. Italy after the war concentrated heavily on it’s resistance from the years of 1943-1945 in which scores of civilians, and military died resisting the German occupation as the Allies fought their way North.⁵ In many communities the names of the resistance fighters were added to the monuments from the first World War as a way of countering the memory of the Fascist martyrs that had been created after the end of the First World War - to show that this conflict between the left and the Fascists was on a continuum.⁵ What none of this does, however, is explain the years in-between in which Italy provided Germany with roughly 11% of its arms^4, or actively resisted until the situation with Mussolini had become untenable.

The truth, unfortunately, is complicated.

Kuper, Simon. Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe during the Second World War.
Smith, Denis Mack. Modern Italy: A Political History.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - May 6, 1939
Sadkovich, James J. "Understanding Defeat: Reappraising Italy's Role in World War II." Journal of Contemporary History
Foot, John. Italy's Divided Memory.
Whittam, John. Fascist Italy.

Sunshine_Bag · 7日前

To that I can't say, as I have not really studied or interacted much with anything by Kissinger. He could have been referring to the macro idea that I stated, as nations can be a sum total of all these events regardless of their interpretations.

Sunshine_Bag · 7日前

(Sorry for the late reply to this, I was ~~enjoying~~ watching Italy ~~lose to~~ help Ireland)

I will still have to disagree with Mr. Kissinger once we are removed from the macro level of history. Once again we will look at Italy.

On a macro level Italian will agree that the lose of Carporetto happened, but as I identified before once we zoom in, the "consciousness of a common history" starts to fall apart. What that lose meant to varying groups was wildly different. To the socialists and marxists Carporetto represented the epitome of the proletariats struggle, while for the nationalists it represents everything wrong with the socialist identity of Italy.

In looking at what the "consciousness of a common history" is, we can not disregard what the common memory of that history is, which is where as I said Kissinger's argument fails. I will quote Foot at length here when dealing with how Italy lacks a common consciousness of history removed from the macro level:

As the work of Baldassari has shown, more- over, there was rarely consensus over which anniversaries were to be used to remember the war...By collapsing the March on Rome anniversaries with those of the war, fascism looked to equate itself with the victory of the nation. November 4 was silenced. There had been “just one victory,” according to the fascist state. But this imposition was not always accepted at a local level, where there was a “geography of dissent.” In Lucca, for example, there was a “plu- rality of identities and memories” and a citywide monument was not cre- ated before 1930.¹

Look at this through your definition:

I believe the word "common history" refers to our common interpretation of history shared amongst people, rather than a perfectly remembered chain of historical events.

We see that there is not a common interpretation of events, or their outcomes. Further into the interpretation of World War I in the so-called monument war fought in Italy in it's outcome we saw differing groups using the same monument for differing purposes. It was not uncommon for members of the Proletarian League to try to remove "their" names from patriotic monuments, while the Nationalists themselves would often find that socialist administrations would refuse to recognize "their dead."²

I used the example of the Bologna-Genoa game to illustrate this on a slightly silly level as some tend to look at sports, but it provides as example where one can agree on a history at a macro level (a sporting event happened on which Bologna defeated Genoa), the interpretation of that event does not share a common interpretation outside of political ideology.

Foot, John. Italy's Divided Memory.
Colombara, Filippo. Vesti la giubba di battaglia. Miti, riti e simboli della guerra partigiana.

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