The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff was packed, but the atmosphere bore little resemblance to an FA Cup final.
The stands were full, the noise was constant, yet almost everyone had come dressed in black.
New Manchester United supporters wore black suits, black shirts, black jackets and black jumpers. Manchester United supporters did the same. Many had black armbands tied around their sleeves.
Faces in the crowd showed every shade of grief.
Some were solemn. Some were angry. Some were tearful. Others simply looked exhausted, as though they had already spent months mourning something they had not yet been willing to admit was gone.
Anyone entering the stadium without context might have mistaken the occasion for a memorial service rather than one of English football's great showpieces.
The banners explained everything.
This was a funeral.
A funeral for Manchester United.
The moment the Glazer family completed their takeover, removed the club from the stock market and converted it into a privately controlled company, a large section of Manchester United's traditional support had declared that the club they knew was dead.
Supporter groups called for boycotts.
They urged fans to stop buying tickets.
Stop purchasing merchandise.
Stop giving the new owners money.
And when Manchester United reached the FA Cup final, they decided to turn the Millennium Stadium into one enormous act of protest.
For many of them, the logic was brutally simple.
They still loved Manchester United.
They simply no longer believed the club under Glazer ownership represented the Manchester United they had spent their lives supporting.
The tension had been building for years.
Even before the takeover was completed, Old Trafford's attendance figures had remained impressive, but supporters increasingly complained about the changing matchday atmosphere.
Roy Keane had famously criticised sections of the crowd as the "prawn sandwich brigade", supporters who came for the occasion rather than the football, more interested in hospitality than in singing themselves hoarse for ninety minutes.
The criticism was crude, but many traditional supporters understood exactly what he meant.
New Manchester United's stadium had developed in the opposite direction.
Its 55,000 seats were filled almost every match.
The club's commercial department had already concluded that demand was significantly higher than supply, and Ethan had approved plans to expand the stadium after the season.
The entire third tier would be constructed in one phase.
Once completed, capacity would rise to approximately 80,000.
The project was expected to take around a year, and because the first two tiers would remain operational, New Manchester United could continue playing home matches throughout construction.
Nobody inside the club had expected to expand so soon after opening the stadium.
But demand had grown faster than anticipated.
Part of that growth came from New Manchester United's success.
Part came from lower ticket prices.
Part came from the atmosphere.
Part came from the club's extraordinary home record.
And part came from supporters who had drifted away from Manchester United as anger over the takeover intensified.
Manchester City's temporary departure from Manchester had also altered the city's football landscape.
The result was a stadium already too small for the club's support.
Ethan and Mark Davey had discussed going beyond 80,000, but both agreed that would be unnecessary for the foreseeable future.
Once the third tier was finished, the club would focus on improving matchday services, transport, hospitality and supporter facilities rather than simply adding more seats.
An 80,000-capacity football ground would already make New Manchester United's stadium one of the largest club venues in England, behind only the new Wembley once it was completed.
Manchester United had announced expansion plans of their own.
The Glazers intended to redevelop the north-east and north-west quadrants at Old Trafford, adding a second tier in the corners and increasing capacity by roughly 8,000.
When finished, Old Trafford was expected to hold around 76,000.
The reaction to the two projects could hardly have been more different.
New Manchester United supporters welcomed the expansion.
Manchester United supporters treated theirs with suspicion and sarcasm.
To them, the Glazers were not improving Old Trafford for the supporters.
They were increasing the number of seats because more seats meant more revenue, and more revenue meant more money available to service the debts associated with the takeover.
That anger travelled to Cardiff.
South Wales Police had prepared for serious disorder.
Additional officers had been deployed around the stadium, transport hubs and supporter routes.
Yet the confrontation never came.
The supporters chose symbolism instead.
One banner read:
THE RED DEVILS ARE DEAD.
Another simply said:
REST IN PEACE.
A third carried the dates:
1878-2005.
REST IN PEACE, MANCHESTER UNITED.
As the television cameras swept across the Millennium Stadium, the scale of the protest became impossible to ignore.
Thousands of people dressed in black.
Thousands of black armbands.
Thousands of expressions that looked less like pre-match excitement than collective mourning.
The irony was almost unbearable.
Manchester United's opponent in this supposed funeral was New Manchester United.
Seven years earlier, when Rupert Murdoch had tried to buy Manchester United, the backlash had helped create the circumstances in which Ethan built New Manchester United.
At the time, he had argued that sooner or later, Manchester United would be bought outright by someone with enough money.
He had also believed New Manchester United could eventually become powerful enough to stand beside them.
Now the first prediction had come true.
The second was already happening.
Manchester United had been acquired by the Glazers.
New Manchester United had become Premier League champions, repeated UEFA Cup winners and Champions League finalists.
For many supporters, the contrast carried a symbolism no one could have scripted.
The streets outside the Millennium Stadium had turned black as well.
Vendors quickly realised what was happening and sold out of black shirts, scarves and armbands.
Some began selling American flags with Malcolm Glazer's face crossed out in red.
They cost five pounds each.
They sold extremely well.
Ethan looked down at the crowd from the VIP area and sighed.
"This could have been avoided."
Prince Michael of Kent stood beside him.
He was attending as the royal representative for the FA Cup final and would greet the players before kick-off, then present the trophy afterwards.
Some newspapers had already tried to turn his presence into another New Manchester United story.
In 2002-03, when New Manchester United reached the FA Cup final, Prince Charles had attended the match and presented the trophy.
The following season, when New Manchester United were not involved, the royal family sent no representative and the FA invited Bobby Robson instead.
Now New Manchester United had reached another final, and another member of the royal family was attending.
Certain newspapers jokingly suggested Buckingham Palace only cared about the FA Cup when the Red Rebels were involved.
The theory collapsed rather quickly.
Prince Michael's appearance had been arranged two months earlier, before anyone knew who would reach the final.
Ethan already knew him anyway.
His relationship with Prince Charles and the royal household had continued since their earlier meetings, so sharing the VIP box was hardly unusual.
For Ethan, the symbolism of the occasion mattered almost as much as the result.
That did not mean he wanted to lose.
But he understood that years from now, people might forget the exact score.
They would remember the black clothes.
They would remember the banners.
They would remember the day Manchester United supporters held a funeral for their own club while New Manchester United stood on the opposite side of the pitch.
Football results faded.
Moments like this did not.
Mourinho, unsurprisingly, had no intention of treating the match as ceremonial.
Manchester United arrived in poor form and with low morale.
New Manchester United, despite losing the league title, had just eliminated Juventus and Real Madrid on the way to the Champions League final.
Confidence inside Mourinho's squad could hardly have been higher.
Ferguson also had selection problems.
Gary Neville and Gabriel Heinze were injured.
John O'Shea and Wes Brown replaced them at full-back.
Mourinho immediately identified the obvious weakness.
Attack the flanks.
New Manchester United started with Villa through the middle, Ronaldo on the left, Messi on the right and Kaká behind them.
The combination had already become one of the most feared attacking units in Europe.
From the opening minutes, they targeted Manchester United's makeshift full-backs.
Messi repeatedly isolated Brown on the right.
Ronaldo attacked O'Shea from the opposite side.
Behind them, Maicon and Evra pushed forward whenever the opportunity appeared.
Manchester United were forced backwards almost immediately.
Ferguson had changed shape in an attempt to control midfield.
Scholes, Keane and Fletcher formed a three-man central unit, with Robinho, Rooney and Ruud van Nistelrooy ahead of them.
Diego began on the bench.
On paper, the shape offered greater midfield security.
In practice, Manchester United struggled to progress the ball cleanly.
Van Nistelrooy remained an outstanding penalty-box striker, but injuries had disrupted his season and reduced his mobility.
With New Manchester United pressing aggressively, his inability to contribute much outside the box made it harder for Ferguson's side to escape.
Rooney and Robinho tried to compensate by dropping deeper and moving wider.
The balance never really settled.
At the other end, New Manchester United's combinations looked increasingly fluid.
Maicon and Messi repeatedly overloaded the right.
Evra and Ronaldo did the same on the left.
Manchester United's reserve full-backs simply could not contain them.
The breakthrough came before ten minutes had passed.
Ronaldo received on the left and drove inside.
Villa moved towards him.
A quick one-two took Ronaldo beyond the first defender.
He then drilled a low ball across the face of goal.
Kaká arrived late from midfield.
One touch.
Goal.
1-0.
The black-clad New Manchester United end erupted.
Manchester United tried to respond, but Mourinho's midfield had taken control.
Beckham and De Rossi were happy to compete physically and tactically with Keane, Scholes and Fletcher.
More importantly, New Manchester United's attacking threat forced Manchester United's midfielders to spend too much time protecting the defence.
Keane could not step forward freely.
Fletcher was repeatedly dragged wide.
Scholes found himself defending far deeper than Ferguson wanted.
The pressure continued.
Just before half-time, New Manchester United struck again.
Manchester United lost possession while pushing forward.
Kaká collected the ball during the transition and immediately looked ahead.
Villa was already running.
The pass split the defence.
Silvestre tried to recover.
Villa was too quick.
One against one with Carroll, the Spaniard stayed composed and finished cleanly.
2-0.
The half-time whistle arrived with New Manchester United firmly in control.
Ferguson responded.
Manchester United emerged for the second half with Scholes operating further forward, closer to the attackers.
The adjustment worked almost immediately.
Scholes found space and clipped a precise pass into the penalty area.
Van Nistelrooy leaned into Vidić, created half a yard and finished from a tight angle.
2-1.
For the first time, Manchester United's supporters had something to celebrate.
The response lasted only a few minutes.
Beckham won a free-kick within shooting range.
He struck it with pace and dip.
Carroll got both hands to the ball but failed to hold it.
The rebound dropped into the six-yard box.
Ronaldo reacted first.
3-1.
New Manchester United's two-goal cushion was restored.
Ferguson responded by withdrawing Fletcher and introducing Ryan Giggs, sacrificing midfield security for another attacking player.
Mourinho adjusted in turn.
He tightened the midfield, altered the pressing triggers and instructed his full-backs to become more selective.
Manchester United continued pushing forward, but the spaces they had found at the start of the half disappeared.
Both teams created further chances.
Neither scored.
When the final whistle came, the scoreboard read:
New Manchester United 3-1 Manchester United.
The Red Rebels had won the FA Cup for the second time in their history.
Manchester United's season ended without a trophy.
The symbolism was impossible to miss.
The match had already been framed by the media as one final chance for Manchester United to salvage something from a miserable campaign.
Instead, they had lost to the club born from a rebellion against the very kind of ownership model their supporters now feared.
Around the Millennium Stadium, thousands of black-clad supporters remained in their seats.
Some applauded.
Some cried.
Some simply stared at the pitch.
For Manchester United supporters, the protests had reached their emotional conclusion.
They had marched.
They had demonstrated.
They had boycotted.
They had tried to stop the takeover.
None of it had been enough.
The Glazer family owned Manchester United.
That reality would not disappear because of banners or black armbands.
Whatever came next would be something different.
The club would still be called Manchester United.
The badge would remain.
Old Trafford would remain.
The players would still wear red.
But for many supporters, something had ended.
On a day when New Manchester United lifted the FA Cup, Manchester United's own supporters had gathered to mourn the club they believed they had lost.
Rest in peace, Manchester United.
(To be continued.)