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I'm loathe to post this but I'm really concerned about the amount of giddiness concerning the Derby. Tickertape receptions, card displays (of the famous 'Welcome to Manchester' poster I believe?) and the like are all well and good but the misery guts inside me just keeps thinking 'it's all going to go wrong'.

I hate him and I do try my best to suppress the miserable git but sometimes he comes bubbling to the surface and once he's planted the seed of doubt my usually sunny disposition jumps out of the window and I'm left alone with thoughts of Fowler's penalty, Hamburg, LC semi-final, Liverpool keepy-uppy's, Wolves 1974 and many, many other occasions when City have quite frankly........let me down.

You see, it's United! The prospect of losing to them next Saturday genuinely makes me feel ill. The thought of seeing Ferguson at his patronising worst, that horrible beyond smug smirk, the rictus grin on his cadaverous clock; even worse, imagine the look on Gary Neville's loose arrangement of eyes, nose and mouth (calling it a face really does it a justice that it doesn't deserve), imagine that twisted and contorted into some animal pose of ecstasy at our expense? Ryan Giggs with his shirt off, looking like a roll of dull Axminster and Rio Ferdinand, a man so vacuous that he makes the irredeemably dim Paul Scholes sound like Bertrand Russell.

And let's not forget the Brachycephalic Rooney, the uber Scouser, Mr Potato Head without the brains or the personality.

Then imagine their fans, a whole Summer of 'back in your box' remarks and condescending 'lickle City' comments, gurning twaddle from red shirted window lickers with all the charm of a lump of chewing gum under your chair; knuckle dragging mouth breathers with the intelligence of a flip-flop drooling on about 'money can't buy success' and 'istory'.

Come on now, let's crush the heathen horde, topple Babylon and wash the City clean with a tidal wave of Blue. Don't do it for me City, do it for the miserable bastard that lives inside of me, he needs help and you can set him free.

Ian Guildford