Introduction

What?
This blog is a record of everyone to play for Manchester United FC since the beginning of the 1988/89 season up to the current day, whenever that may be. At the moment, up to the end of 2011/12 seems a reasonable target, which means (unless someone else makes their debut in the next few weeks) Will Keane will be the last entry. Quite how long it'll take is unknown at the moment, but I'm aiming to put up a new entry at least every couple of days.

Why?
One of my favourite books is The United A-Z by Garth Dykes. A complete record, up to the summer of 1994, of everyone who played for Manchester United, even in their previous guise as Newton Heath. As a young neer-do-well, I read the book compulsively and always wanted to write an updated version when I was older. This, then, is my attempt at doing so.

I must also swipe a whole load of inspiration from the magnificent Clarke Chroniclers Footballers project, in which the blogger goes through every Rochdale player from his first game in 1982 to their long awaited promotion from the bottom rung of pro football in 2010. This, then, is kind of my own version of that. Mike MCSG, I salute thou.

Who?
I'm a frustrated football journalist at heart, and the history of my club is often more fascinating then the present. This is my take on what's happened to the team in my living memory. Comments are welcome, especially correcting factual errors, as is the odd jibe from fans of other clubs, though I'd hope for a bit of respect beyond the cliched taunting of "scum" and "Munichs".

How?
Put simply, the first entry will be whoever was wearing the #1 shirt on the first day of 1988/89 season. I'll work through that team and further entries will be players who appeared in subsequent games. Therefore, a certain player who may have been with the club since 1980 but missed all most of the season I start at will not appear until they showed up that footballing year.

Naturally, the history of individual players will cross over, but I'll try to avoid repeating the same facts as much as possible. I'll list where we signed each player from and who we sold them off to, if anyone, with the details of their debut and their final league total. I'll just include the league games record, as it saves a lot of bother, to be honest. However, I'll also include, for the sake of completion, players who made appearances in other competitive games but never in the Football League/Premiership.

Basic facts and figures are taken from the wonderful Stretford End website, on which I have spent far more time than is probably healthy. The aforementioned United A-Z is also vital for finding out details on when players signed/departed that may not be on Wikipedia or suchlike.

I'll also tag each entry with a very basic rating system: "Players I liked", "Players I didn't like", "Ambivalent" and "Not a clue". The latter is for players who I simply don't remember so can barely comment on, mainly those that made a brief cameo as sub in a League Cup tie.