Not everyone in Manchester supports United, as Owen Hargreaves
discovers when he offers a cup of coffee to a man in a waiting room
at the Christie Hospital.
"No thank you," he mutters. "I'm a City fan." Others are more
excited. Mary Eileen Swift shuffles across the ward in her dressing
gown to grab an autograph and then disappears down the corridor
with a spring in her step.
For a moment she forgets her gruelling battle against breast
cancer; forgets that she has lost her hair to the traumatic effects
of chemotherapy.
Much of the community work footballers do goes unnoticed in this
modern era of the millionaire superstar. Take Roy Keane.
It was only on this visit to Europe's leading cancer hospital that
United's director of communications revealed how the Irishman would
take academy players to a young offenders' institution.
"He did it off his own bat and he saw it as something he could do
as club captain," says Phil Townsend. "He'd borrow a minibus and
drive them all down there."
Hargreaves is at The Christie as part of a joint venture between
United and the Premier League.
The hospital has become one of United's official charity partners,
while the Premier League have just launched their "Creating
Chances" initiative.
In Hargreaves, they have the perfect ambassador. An intelligent,
articulate, sensitive young man who is as natural with the patients
as he is in that midfield holding role for club and country.
He brings a brief smile to grief-stricken faces. To the faces of a
family who are watching a loved one die.