The deeper the affection, the greater the pain. It’s a pretty standard equation for football supporters when their hero ups and leaves.
Sometimes it isn’t the end of the love affair itself that causes the heartbreak though. It’s the new partner.
This weekend Robin van Persie heads back to Arsenal with Manchester United, and we can safely assume it won’t be a romantic reunion.
Gunners fans would probably have given him a decent reception had he come back in a Barcelona, Bayern Munich or maybe even Manchester City shirt, but taking the direct route from North London to Old Trafford is a career path that isn’t deemed acceptable.
The fact that it’s widely agreed that the RVP move was the biggest single reason for United winning the title this week, and Arsenal failing to contend for it, has increased the antipathy (towards Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal board as much as the player himself, it must be said).
Were it the United players who had to form a guard of honour for the champions at the Emirates the Arsenal fans would be goading and teasing van Persie rather than berating him.
It isn’t always the players who get the blame when hearts are broken on the terraces, but here’s 10 transfers that have made grown men weep, or at the very least get a bit agitated…
10 Andy Cole. Newcastle have cashed in on a few idols in their time, usually when the player’s ambitions have outgrown St James’s Park. But when Kevin Keegan accepted a bid from Manchester United for Cole, Newcastle were one of the top clubs in the land and were fighting it out with Fergie’s men for the title. Who can forget Keegan addressing a despondent battalion of the Toon Army on the stadium steps? Unsurprisingly, the prospect of Keith Gillespie arriving didn’t do much to appease them.
9 Eric Cantona/Alan Smith. Don’t sell to United would be a safe rule of thumb if you’re an English club of size and ambition, especially if you’re Leeds United. Cantona is probably a bit of a cheat in this category, because a lot of Leeds fans weren’t actually that worked up at the time when Howard Wilkinson let him cross the Penines. They got angrier and angrier with each passing season though after the penny dropped. It didn’t take the Elland Road patrons as long to get themselves in a lather about Smith’s departure to Old Trafford. The archetypal local lad who kissed the badge became the archetypal Judas. For those older than 40 swap Cantona and Smith for Jordan and McQueen.
8 Cristiano Ronaldo. With all the pain United have caused by plundering the best talent in the land from everybody except Liverpool, it’s only fair that we throw in one that cut deep in Manchester. Yes, Real Madrid paid £80m, but £80m can’t buy you what Ronaldo gave them, and the transfer fee now looks cheap. He was irreplaceable and the United support knew it. City wouldn’t have pipped a team with Ronaldo in it to the title last season, and you could well have seen them win another Champions League by now as well.
7 Duncan Ferguson. Selling to United down south is comparable to selling to Rangers in Scotland. Jim McLean was determined Richard Gough moved to anywhere but Ibrox, and he got his wish when Gough had to get to Govan via Tottenham. He couldn’t stop Ferguson though. Dundee United fans disliking Rangers is not a new phenomenon and the Shed was every bit as disappointed as their manager.
6 David Robertson/Stephen Wright. Aberdeen punters take Rangers loathing to another level that only Celtic can match. Even Mo Johnston wouldn’t be daft enough to move straight from Parkhead to Ibrox, so Aberdeen to Rangers is probably the domestic transfer with the greatest potential to upset. It would still be a hot one these days, but both these full-backs did it at a time when the two clubs were regularly fighting it out for silverware.
5 Billy Dodds. Dundee have lost players to United but when Billy Dodds was transferred to St Johnstone midway through the 1994/95 season it arguably created a bigger storm than Lee Wilkie, Scott Robertson or Paul Dixon walking down Tannadice Street for their next job. Saints and Dundee were both in relegation trouble and Dodds’ departure was seen as an acceptance that the Dark Blues were going down (they did, and so did Saints). The embarrassment of losing your best player to a club perceived to be smaller didn’t help. Grant McMartin went in the same deal. Dark Blues’ fans got over his passing a bit quicker.
4 Lee Clark. We got a reminder a couple of weeks ago about the tension between Newcastle and Sunderland fans. This is a complicated one because Clark has managed to enrage both sets, as well as endear himself to them. First the Magpies took exception to one of their own pulling on the red and white, then it was the Mackems, when a player they’d reluctantly grown to love showed his true colours with the “SMB” (Google it) T-shirt he wore at a Newcastle FA Cup final. Clark went from traitor to double-agent in the click of a camera in his home city, and a pariah in Sunderland again.
3 Sol Campbell. With RVP Arsenal fans are getting a taste of what their bitter rivals had to swallow. Campbell was Spurs’ best player by a country mile in 2001 and England’s best centre-back. So he wasn’t short of options when his contract ran out. Highbury made sense for a lot of reasons but they didn’t see it that way at White Hart Lane. Apart from Mo Johnston, no British player has gone from being so revered to so reviled in one city.
2 Luis Figo. You’ve got to be rather good and rather thick-skinned to go from Barcelona to Real. Figo was both. To my knowledge he’s still the only player to have a pig’s head thrown at him in the Nou Camp.
1 Roberto Baggio. None of the above have caused rioting in the streets. Baggio’s transfer from Fiorentina to Juventus did. There was no significant previous to speak of between the clubs until 1982 when Florentians felt Juve denied them the Scudetto courtesy of some controversial refereeing decisions. And they may well have a point, with all that we now know about “controversial refereeing decisions” and Juventus over the years. Ironically, he’s now more revered in Florence than Turin as he kissed a Fiorentina scarf when it was thrown on the pitch in a game between the two, and refused to take a penalty kick for Juve. Van Persie is unlikely to do either on Sunday, I suspect.