It was June 2005 and the much-vilified Glazer family had just completed their hostile takeover of my beloved Manchester United Football Club. Despite organised protests and share buy-ups, the man on the street ultimately had nothing on the borrowed millions mustered up by the US tycoons and the unpopular deal was allowed to go through. We felt helpless and resigned to defeat.
I was living near Old Trafford at the time in a small flat above a bakery. Towards the end of a remarkably sunny week I received a text message which simply read: "Flashmob. Mary D's, Beswick. Tomorrow. 11am."
Now as blues reading this will know, Mary D’s is the closest pub to the Etihad Stadium and on a match day is probably the busiest in the area. So what on earth was a close-season Saturday morning flashmob of United fans going to be getting up to? I was intrigued.
I arrived at the pub for half ten and there must have been 40 smartly dressed lads in there already throwing back pints of strong lager as if it were a match day. No one had a clue what we were there for.
At 11am a lad who would eventually go onto be an FC United board member arrived and told us what he had planned. UEFA were holding a meeting in an office on the second floor of City's main stand and the goal was to interrupt it to voice our concern about the debt-laden takeover and it's implications. A tall order I thought.
Nevertheless we set off in a loose trail and walked through the double glass doors of City's main entrance like it was the most natural thing on Earth. The security guard behind the desk looked puzzled. "Are you lads here for the stewards jobs?" he asked. "Yes mate," came the reply. "You want the third floor." He was completely clueless.
As we arrived on the second floor you could already feel the glare from the TV lighting from out in the corridor. It was now or never and in we went.
The startled UEFA party were assembled around a long table with expensive looking bottles of water, laptops and A4 sheets of paper littering its surface.
A representative from the influential United fanzine Red Issue announced who we were and what we wanted to achieve as the rest of us stood almost theatrically in a long line against a wall. Two spooked delegates made for the door. They were stopped in their tracks.
After a tense five minutes in which we assured UEFA’s big wigs that we weren’t terrorists and merely just concerned football fans, a rep from the Independent Manchester United Supporters Association and a rep from Shareholders United were granted a private audience in one of the smaller meeting rooms.
When they left to begin talks the atmosphere in the room suddenly became a lot more relaxed. First over was a portly southern Sky Sports News camera man in shorts and T-shirt. "How the fack did you lot get in here?!" he asked in astonishment. Next up was the German delegate, an elegant middle age woman. "I think all this is brilliant," she said with a smile.
When the talks had finished we retreated to Mary D's beer garden to celebrate a job well done. After about 20 minutes my phone rang. It was my dad. "I know where you are," he said. "You're in a pub in the vicinity of City's ground. Your mate Paddy has just been on Sky Sports News talking about the Glazers."
It may have amounted to a wasp sting on the backside of an elephant in the long run but at the time we felt a hundred feet tall.
Some weeks later I received another text asking whether I fancied crashing another UEFA meeting, this time in Geneva with all flights paid for. It was tempting for a second but leaving my job to start a career as a continental flashmobber was possibly that bit too flash for me.
