Rupert Murdoch's eyes have been on Manchester United for some time, via three huge billboards for MUtv - "Lives and breathes United seven days a week" - which stare across the car park at Old Trafford.
Their slogan for the Sky-linked service - `Get Closer' - read ironically to local fans who called by the famous ground yesterday to register assorted protests at the feet of Sir Matt Busby's statue.
"Dodgy deal," said Pete Maney, a bricklayer who lives close by the rival City ground at Maine Road. "Looks like we'll get even less of a say than we have done under Martin Edwards. Unless Fergie's used his muscle to impose conditions, Man U's going to be governed from a long way away if this goes through."
Two junior fans, 12-year-old Sophie and her brother Patrick, five, made the same point with a cynical `For Sale' sign, which they persuaded their Dad to load into the family car and ferry down the M602.
"They've done it because they're the lifeblood of the club and it is being sold from underneath them," he said, as Patrick eyed the £13 red-shirted Teddies and £2 Manchester United Supporter's Bedroom door plaques on offer in the club's booming shop.
Lilliput versions of the Murdoch deal were under way all afternoon at the Red Store's tills, with the great stadium changing hands several times for £4 - which buys you a 350-piece Old Trafford jigsaw puzzle. Puzzling out the bid's implications became part of the chat on the non-stop succession of guided tours, which keep the ground buzzing even on a no-fixture Sunday.
"I'm not going to say it's bad, without finding out more," said Streatham postman Joseph Howe, one of scores of `Cockney Reds' - London supporters, who were up for a day-trip to the ground, museum, shop and Red Cafe. "It could be in the interests of the club - they've been pretty clever so far. The only worry is that linking them to the name of Murdoch may do damage."
A knowledgable father and son from Birmingham, finishing a picnic in the car park ("the Red Cafe's a bit dear") also thought an extra half-billion could come in handy. Manchester United was rich, said the dad, but he'd heard they couldn't expand Old Trafford because of the railway. Maybe they could buy that now, too.
`Foreign' fans like these easily outnumbered Mancunians, proving one of the points spotted by Murdoch - that this is a club whose borders don't end at the M60 Manchester ring road. A stag party of lads from Walthamstow and Leyton said cheerily: "We've more Man United fans down there than you have up here" - though they too had doubts about getting into bed with Murdoch.
The planned Rupechester outfit would be money, not game-based, said one, a sales manager himself, echoing the angry comment of Andy Walsh, official spokesman for the club's fans association. Martin Edwards, said Walsh, knew "the value of nothing and the price of everything" and was selling the club and its supporters down the ship canal.
Ticket-holder Peter Wilson, a car worker from Denton, Manchester, put himself in the category of loyalists who were being floated away. Going back to the Busby Babes, whose slaughter at Munich on February 6th 1958 is marked by Old Trafford's clock, he predicted the club's withdrawal from the Premier League - and from the reach of ordinary pockets.
"I think it would inevitably mean a faster move to a European Super League and pay-per-view games on TV," he said. "A lot of families can't afford to come to the games already and now they may not be able to watch the match on the telly without paying as well."
