My connection to Manchester United predates that. When I began taking a keen interest in Football, matches weren't televised, seasons were short, and the quality of domestic football was frankly poor. So I looked overseas for my football fix. Back then, we didn't even get football highlights of foreign leagues in sports news, and internet streaming was not yet in existence, so aside from the World Cups and Olympics, televised Football was scarce. Japan hadn't been qualifying to the World Cup, so public interest in the sport was near non existent. Back then, there were no casual fans, only those who loved the sport, followed it at all. So I made a few penpals in the UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France etc. What I would do was trade VHS tapes, Japanese Anime footage for foreign football tapes. Through that, I followed mainly the Serie A and Premier League, and became a nominal supporter of Manchester United.

I started following Borussia Dortmund, in the Bert Van Marwijk era, after watching the UEFA Cup. The first thing that drew me to BVB was the Westfalenstadion. The sheer size and atmosphere of it was magnetic. Then the UEFA Cup final sealed it for me. Though Van Marwijk's Feyenoord won, BVB clawed back from 2-0 down to end it 3-2. Jan Koller scored an amazing goal. I thought if Van Marwijk who was managing the champions, was going to manage this amazing yellow team, it should be interesting. Footage of BVB was hard to come by, however, as BVB struggled through the following decade. Japanese interest in the Bundesliga had waned after the retirement of Okudera in the late 80's. I then lived in South Africa and Zambia for a few years, during which my main football fix was Manchester United.