While multiple batches of European Football and an increasingly intense Premier League title race are all unfolding simultaneously, the Football World’s attention remains on the Carabao Cup final which is right on the horizon.
In a proper Super Sunday fixture, two of England’s biggest football clubs Manchester United and Newcastle United will lock horns at Wembley in their chase for cup glory.
Despite their status as English royalty, the two sides have been starved of success for a considerable amount of time.
The Red Devils’ most recent hoorah came back in 2017 when they lifted the Europa League title, as for the Magpies, they last lifted silverware all the way back in 1955 when they won the FA Cup.
It’s been an anxiously long wait for both clubs, perhaps more so for Newcastle United.
The Toon has been absolutely buzzing in anticipation for the final, an excitement which has continued to build since their semi-final win over Southampton.
The Man United faithful have been similarly enthused, they’re also quietly confident about their chances in the final.
Nevertheless, the cup tie is a top-billed fixture in every sense of the word, and basically, every major broadcaster has been busy hyping it up even further.
In the UK, broadcasting rights belong to Sky Sports, who usually provide some pretty solid programming.
However, Newcastle United fans have taken issue with their promotional graphics for the upcoming final, the reason for which has all to do with the omission of one particularly important word.
As seen below, Sky Sports’ graphic for the game is pretty standard at first glance: pictures of opposing players, date, time and of course the team names.
Upon closer inspection, an interesting bit of detail can be observed, while the name ‘Manchester United’ is laid out in full, Newcastle United is simply stated as ‘Newcastle’.
This unnecessary exclusion left many Newcastle fans displeased, and they took to Twitter to voice their complaints.
To further their objections, fans also pointed to the fact that Newcastle have had ‘United’ in their name since 1892, while the name Manchester United actually came into existence 10 years later in 1902.
There were also suggestions that the ‘United’ omission was all part of Sky Sports’ partiality towards the Red Devils, who are a part of English Football’s Top 6 clubs.
Fortunately, the real reason behind it all is not so flagrant.
Sky Sports’ use of ‘Manchester United’ is simply to differentiate them from their equally well-known neighbours ‘Manchester City’.
Newcastle, on the other hand, are Tyneside’s most dominant outfit, they’re effectively a one-club city.
The network applies this method to various other clubs as well, for instance, their graphics solely use ‘Leeds’ and not ‘Leeds United’, while ‘Sheffield United’ is mentioned in full, owing to their rivals Sheffield Wednesday.
The entire situation comes off as a standard misunderstanding, there really isn’t anything to dig into here.
