At TalkOfTheDevils we always strive to bring something unique to your experience as a consumer of information about Manchester United.
Whether it’s exclusive regular opinion and columns from former players independent of the club party line, our weekly podcast with former United defender Paul Parker, or, for instance, the podcast series running at the moment and available on all major podcast providers – Barclay and Barton on Manchester United, where legendary football writer Paddy Barclay and author Wayne Barton look at the history of the club – we try to do something different and hopefully worthwhile to cut through the, at times, angry and reactionary noises and opinions aired across new media.
Today that takes a new turn, with the launch of our reserve statistics database, available only online at TalkOfTheDevils.
With the assistance of historian Eifion Evans we will be bringing you, over the summer, every post-War reserve game ever played by Manchester United, including every available team-sheet, every scorer, and even more statistics.
At Manchester United the pathway to the first team is probably analysed more than at any other club. There has been a fascination with the youth and reserve sides going back to the 1940s, and this was popularised by the emergence of the Busby Babes in the 1950s.
Now for the first time ever United fans will be able to access a complete library of every game played at reserve team level, to study the club’s history in a way they never have before, to : see how the Babes like Bobby Charlton and Duncan Edwards were introduced gently before they even kicked a ball in the first team; observe how Munich necessitated the faster development of other youngsters; see how the next great youth team under Jimmy Murphy including George Best was developed; pick the bones out of the wilderness years before United were finally able to repeat their Youth Cup success; see just how the class of 92 destroyed teams on a weekly basis; and then run the rule over the scores of names who perhaps didn’t establish themselves at Old Trafford but went on to have fine careers elsewhere.
Today the database launches with two of the most popular decades available for perusing immediately : the 1950s and 1990s.
Every week new decades will be added to the database to complete the most comprehensive record of its kind online.