The front pages of 6 November, 1986 carried graphic news of the Chinook helicopter crash into the North Sea that claimed the lives of 43 oil rig workers. Understandably, the back pages, dominated by the installation of Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager, paled into insignificance.

Football still has its place as a wonderful irrelevance. But the dynasty that began that dark day endures. It will get quite crowded in the Tardis this week, as football travels back in time to salute arguably the most influential club manager in history. Man Utd will pay their own 25th anniversary tribute on Thursday, when the great and the good convene to sift through the scrapbook.

Even those who glory in his, and Man Utd’s, discomfort, after THAT defeat by City, would struggle to make a case against him. In an age cheapened by celebrity, and scarred by superficiality, Sir Alex stands for something. Resolution, loyalty, discipline and respect for the individual, whatever their status.

They’re qualities seen in the way he has treated Fred O’Donoghue, Kevin Nugent, and John Boreland. Never heard of them? An understandable oversight.

O’Donoghue scouted for Liverpool, Arsenal, Rochdale, Blackburn, Preston and Blackpool over 50 years. He was one of football’s backroom boys who decided to publish his memoirs. Fergie heard of his initiative and, unbidden, wrote the sort of testimony for which PR men would sell their grannies.

Nugent was Swansea’s assistant manager, when they were in League Two. He was shocked when Sir Alex called him personally, confirming that they could train at the Cliff, United’s old training ground, before an away game “provided you give the groundsman a drink”.

Boreland led the Boys Brigade when Sir Alex was a member. The United manager cites him as an inspirational leader, and still keeps in contact with him. He cancelled a UEFA managers’ seminar to attend the Brigade’s 125th anniversary celebrations.

Remember those three football men, and what their stories tell us about the game’s most contentious knight of the realm, when the praise and the red wine flows this week.

Just as movie audiences fell in love with King Kong, long before the giant ape fell to its doom, football fans are developing a soft spot for Manchester City. Ogres aren’t necessarily as bad as they are painted.

The moment resistance became futile for me was not Man City’s 6-1 win at Old Trafford last Sunday, even if that result retains a surreal, dream-like quality. It was on a wet Wednesday in Wolverhampton that I realised we might as well lie back, and think of Barcelona.

The Carling Cup is a mere bauble, an afterthought. Yet as Man City reached the quarter-finals, they played with a verve, fluidity and intelligence more suited to the Camp Nou than Molineux. Their five goals were works of art.

This was not a team containing behemoths, like Yaya Touré, or expensively hired hitmen, like Sergio Aguero. This was a reserve side, featuring unheralded youngsters who have the world at their feet. Their potential is terrifying.

Has anyone, for example, seen David Silva and Denis Suarez in the same room? At the very least, Silva, an early candidate for Footballer of the Year, has a 17-year-old body double. Suarez looks, moves, and thinks like him. The only definable difference is that the kid is right-footed.

Suarez gave an uncanny cameo performance, finding space and fashioning opportunities in Silva’s style. Little wonder Barcelona were hovering, when City signed him from Celta Vigo in the summer. His £850,000 fee looks like larceny, on a grand scale.

Abdul Razak was spirited away from Crystal Palace’s academy. He’s 18, going on 29, a prototypical athlete of African descent. Born in the Ivory Coast, he has the physical characteristics of a young Patrick Vieira. Handy that, given that the former Arsenal star is his mentor.

The world’s richest club may be used to defending eye-watering sums, paid for football’s finest eye candy. Yet they also have an eye for a bargain if Luca Scapuzzi, only 20, is anything to go by. He was a free agent, who hadn’t scored in two seasons in the Italian third division, when he signed a three-year City contract. He dovetailed perfectly with Edin Dzeko, and deserved a goal on his first start.

Scapuzzi, like Suarez and Razak, will be back in the shadows tomorrow, when City play Wolves again, this time in the Premier League. The mood at the Etihad Stadium will be euphoric. They have seen the future, and it works.

Do we want a successful England team? Assuming the answer is yes, when do we want one? Now, of course. We’ve got flags to wave, stars to salute, and no inclination to wait. Little wonder we’re trapped in a cycle of over-expectation and under-performance.

Whisper it quietly, but things could be changing. At last, thirty years after the concept was first debated, the National Football Centre is taking shape, on a 330 acre site in Burton upon Trent. St George’s Park is due to open in late summer, 2012. Today’s announcement of a partnership with BT means another building block is in place.

In short, it will be a University of Football, home to England’s 24 teams. The facilities – eleven full size pitches, a full size indoor pitch, multi-purpose indoor sports hall, and a science and medicine centre – will be impressive evidence of a quantum leap in thinking. St George’s Park is not so much about bricks and mortar. It is about hearts and minds.

Producing elite athletes is a long term process, with fine margins. I have some experience of the field, having helped set up the English Institute of Sport, which provides scientific, medical and educational support to Olympic sports. Football has to develop a similar performance culture, which cannot happen overnight.

For England to produce technically adept, broad-minded players, we must first develop a new generation of coaches of appropriate ambition and ability. That requires a quiet revolution, and the institution of a proper career structure. World Cups are not won by half measures, or short cuts.

That’s why St George’s Park is such an important status symbol. It will offer a platform for the best to train with the best, whether they are players, coaches, referees, or performance scientists. It will be a place for self-advancement, where principle is put into practice, and ideas are shared.

Without it, football’s years of hurt would have stretched, towards infinity. St George’s Park may be a building site at the moment, but it represents the chance the English game simply must take.

The last time Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley had something to celebrate he starred in an impromptu karaoke session in a Chinese restaurant in Mansfield. The ensuing photographs of him, gyrating bare-chested, are best not viewed on a full stomach.

The boy’s game for a laugh. I’ll give him that. He might even laugh last, and loudest. For someone dismissed as a rebel without a clue – guilty m’lud – he’s in rude health. His company, Sports Direct, has seen sales surge in the recession. His football club, Newcastle United, is thriving, as the surprise of the Premier League season.

Saturday’s home win over Wigan maintained an unlikely unbeaten record, and the Geordie Feelgood Factor. St James’ Park, so often a melting pot of anger and frustration in recent seasons, hummed with optimism, bordering on euphoria. The Toon are back in town. The masses are starting to believe.

Some sensitive souls are even starting to talk in terms of Newcastle manager Alan Pardew being a potential successor to Fabio Capello as England manager. That’s a huge leap of faith in a man prematurely dismissed as the Pinocchio to Ashley’s Geppetto.

Pardew has always been an underrated coach. He’s acutely aware of his image as someone who is a little too fond of himself, and takes pains to stress his coaching credentials. This season could be the making of him.

It’s a measure of his impact that Newcastle fans have been prepared to forgive, if not entirely forget, the brutal way in which Chris Hughton was dispatched, to make way for him. He has elicited sympathy, and no little admiration, for the way in which he has worked with a strategically trimmed budget.

Newcastle’s next step is to balance ambition with prudence. The biggest clubs are casting covetous glances at Yohan Cabaye, this summer’s bargain capture from Lille. His goal on Saturday was a cameo of sheer class. Cheik Tiote may be a booking waiting to happen, but plenty of top teams would benefit from his industry and intelligence.

Any sales will make the bottom line look healthy, which is the name of Ashley’s game. But, until the accountants pounce, Newcastle’s progress is worth making a song and dance about.

My Mirror column:

Roberto Mancini is an unlikely freedom fighter.

He has a hint of smugness, the aura of an aftershave model. The fashion ­statement of his City scarf screams ­superficiality.

The jury is out on him as a football man, even on the biggest day of his ­managerial career.

Yet suspicions that he will revert to type, and smother the most ­compelling ­Manchester derby for ­generations, are the least of his problems.

Mancini might insist that he is accustomed to the ­absurdities of his job, but his credibility is at stake.

His professional principles are being quietly ­questioned. His strength of character is being portrayed as a ­fundamental weakness. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he could be the fall guy in the Carlos Tevez case.

I’ve been one of Mancini’s biggest critics. I doubted whether he had the tactical sophistication and emotional intelligence to be the figurehead of the City project.

The abuse from cyber ­warriors was instant, virulent, and entirely predictable. But if Mancini is forced to climb down, and admit it is impractical for a manager to manage, everyone hurts.

He is engaged in a fight for a fundamental right that he must win. Tevez must never pull on a City shirt again.

Before m’learned friends become too excited, a point of order:

I am making no judgements about the validity or otherwise of allegations that Tevez refused to play on that ­infamous night in the ­Allianz Arena.

That is a matter for the ­player, his advisers, the City board, and – most probably – a Premier League tribunal.

Only three people at the club have seen the evidence ­gathered in the internal ­disciplinary inquiry. They’re keeping their counsel.

Meanwhile, the fog of a propaganda war has ­descended. It is becoming increasingly impossible to ­differentiate between truth and fiction.

Football resembles Formula One, a fusion of sport and ­business that encourages ­individuals with the instincts of a Somali pirate.

Of course, a decent proportion of the world’s ­population will tune into Old Trafford and Mancini’s 100th game as City manager this lunchtime.

A Kalahari bushman could probably produce the killer stat that the Italian is the ­17th incumbent of his post since Sir Alex Ferguson took up residence on November 6, 1986.

It will be a grand occasion, even grander if Gary Neville spontaneously combusts in the commentary booth.

Yet it will be an illusion ­because it will give the ­impression that English ­football is in rude health.

Its jewels might sparkle. Its cloth might be woven with gold, but the best ­perfume ­cannot hide the sweet smell of decay.

The Premier League is ­rotten to the core.

It is an Orwellian world in which greed masquerades as progress, bullies are hailed as visionaries, and jailers are regarded as liberators.

He will become someone else’s problem sometime ­during the January transfer window. The one thing the world’s richest club cannot afford until this mess is cleared up is candour.

City can, ­however, make simple statements of ­intent.

They can offer clarity in a world of smoke and ­mirrors.

They can stand by their man. Mancini in presidential mode has been asking for four more years. He should be given a new contract as soon as is practically possible.

This is no longer about his football ­philosophy.

II don’t care if he burns ­incense at a secret shrine to Helenio Herrera, godfather of catenaccio.

City have a responsibility to the game as a whole.

Make a stand against ­anarchy and alienation.

Just do it.

It’s a standard pub quiz question, with a topical edge. How many managers have Manchester City had since Sir Alex Ferguson took charge at Old Trafford, on 6 November, 1986?

The answer, as any schoolboy with a knowledge of Man City knows, is 17. Jimmy Frizzell, Mel Machin, Tony Book, Howard Kendall, Peter Reid, Brian Horton, Alan Ball, Asa Hartford, Steve Coppell, Phil Neal, Frank Clark, Joe Royle, Kevin Keegan, Stuart Pearce, Sven-Goran Eriksson and Mark Hughes preceded Roberto Mancini. Fergie has counted them in, and counted them out.

Mancini, Bobby Manc of terrace legend, has reason to savour the backhanded compliment of the United manager’s full attention, because Sunday’s Manchester derby will be Mancini’s 100th match as City boss.

Will he fare any better in the sort of job where you deserve an open-top bus tour for surviving more than a season? At the risk of tempting fate, inciting City fans with long memories, and attracting the ire of a certain Glaswegian, I think he can.

It’s true confession time. I called for Mancini to be sacked last season, when he showed little sign of having the tactical flexibility and personal qualities required at the highest level. Now, his star is in the ascendency, because he has learned to handle stars. The strength of character, required to impose a degree of order on City’s collection of high-earning high achievers, is impressive.

Credit where it is due. Mancini learns from his mistakes, even if the nuances of European football still seem to elude him. He picked the wrong team against Bayern Munich, but proved, by his brutal substitution of Adam Johnson against Villarreal, that he won’t get fooled again.

City lack natural width yet, in full flow, match athleticism with artistry. David Silva will be Footballer of the Year, but only if Sergio Aguero doesn’t beat him to it. Yaya Toure, he of the big bones and bigger budget, has developed into a Hummer of a footballer.

The tipping point, for me, was Mancini’s treatment of Carlos Tevez. City’s HR department might blanche at the thought, but contempt was exactly what the Argentine athlete-cum-commodity deserved. Mancini secured his replacement, Aguero, and was unconcerned when nature took its course.

The City project is supposed to be based upon a long-term strategy, which can provide enduring stability. If that is the case, we’re going to have to get used to the Ballad of Bobby Manc.

The Champions League is the only game in town, and Liverpool are not in it. It’s only natural that their fans feel like schoolboys, with their noses pressed against a sweet-shop window. Life doesn’t seem fulfilling, or fair.

Man up, people. At the risk of sounding like a self-help counsellor, it is time to accentuate the positive. Lack of European football gives Liverpool’s season clarity, and consistency. Absence will make the heart grow fonder, even if it makes the budget tighter.

Kenny Dalglish’s team will be well rested when the Premier League resumes at Anfield, with the visit of Norwich at teatime on Saturday. Steven Gerrard will have another week’s training under his belt, instead of having to deal with the usual midweek grind of airport queues and anonymous hotel rooms.

The Liverpool captain was in buoyant mood last weekend. His goal, against Manchester United, helped. But once the adrenaline rush had ebbed away, his satisfaction endured. He spoke urgently, engagingly, about the little things he had missed during his six-month absence.

They were simple pleasures, which reminded him of what he had taken for granted. That feeling of being physically shattered, but mentally replete, after a game that seemed to last 90 seconds, rather than 90 minutes. That final glance around the dressing room, at team-mates who shared his commitment. That tribal howl, when Liverpool won a corner.

In a sense, Gerrard felt like he was starting again. That hunger will sustain him through the season, and beyond. Fabio Capello was quick to stress his importance to his England squad, but Gerrard can afford to narrow his focus. A top-four place is the be all and end all.

As a Scouser, weaned on legendary Anfield nights in the European Cup, he understands that Liverpool’s isolation is an offence against the natural order. He has been reminded of his greatest privilege: being in the position to do something about it.

This time next year, normal service will have been resumed.

Chelsea are not short of a bob or two. Manchester City do not really need the money. But both have a vested interest in the development of Danny Sturridge into an England international before the Euro 2012 finals.

Sturridge, who will seek to extend a run of four goals in as many games in Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Genk tonight, is likely to win his first senior cap in next month’s Wembley friendlies against Spain and Sweden.

His debut will cost Chelsea £1million, as part of the deal which involves them also paying City an additional £2million, when he completes 40 appearances at club level. Cheap at double the price, in football’s hyper-inflated market place.

Momentum is everything in sport, and Sturridge’s career has been accelerated by the misfortune of others. He stands to be one of the principal beneficiaries of Wayne Rooney’s self-imposed problems with England, and offers a solution to the Fernando Torres conundrum at Chelsea.

We are beginning to appreciate André Villas-Boas, as a manager whose patronage must be earned. The Portugeezer is measured in his praise, cautious in his outlook. So when he compared Sturridge to Hulk, the striker he nurtured at Porto, everyone’s ears pricked up.

Hulk may have a cartoon name, but he is for real. The Brazil striker comes with a buy-out clause of €100million and a goal highlight DVD that deserves to be played on a loop. Villas-Boas believes Sturridge has the potential to be a similar gamebreaker, because of the reliability of his technique at pace.

Torres, who has claimed the central striker’s role, clearly sees him as more of a provider. Sturridge has been used on the right of the front three, using his speed and vision to cut inside. That creates space, and mutual opportunities.

Chelsea’s dressing room has a well defined hierarchy, so when Frank Lampard entered the debate, people listened. He concluded: “Danny has skill, unbelievable speed and can finish.” What more can you ask? At the Bridge, that is the equivalent of a Papal blessing.

The extent of the opportunity is as obvious as the challenge to Sturridge’s maturity. Having trained with City’s first-team squad from the age of 15 he acquired a reputation for arrogance. Last season’s successful loan spell at Bolton, under the shrewd tutelage of Owen Coyle, seems to have been pivotal in his development, both as a player and a person.

Danny Boy has become a man.

Oops, forgot to post this yesterday:

We are all Liverpool fans today. Not in the sense that we want them to win, or even excel. It’s a deeper affinity than that. It’s a basic human instinct, a recognition that football is, occasionally, a matter of life and death.

Like many, I suspect, I spent four hours last night watching the Hillsborough debate in the House of Commons. As justice for the 96 Liverpool-supporting victims edged closer, and MPs were on the verge of tears as they gave speeches which radiated disgust and disbelief, it was impossible to remain unmoved.

I thought of Steven Kelly, whose elder brother Michael was the last victim to be identified. He found Michael’s body in a cold church hall in Sheffield following the fateful 1989 FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest, and now works, ­unpaid, in the Hillsborough Justice Campaign shop, opposite the Kop. He counsels survivors, some of whom have suicidal tendencies.

Here’s what he told me: “I will fight to my dying day for our Mike’s ­justice. I’m the last remaining ­family member. My mum and my sister passed away, not knowing the truth. I’m 58. I’ve had heart ­problems. I might not see it myself the way the government is going.

“I want to go to my mum’s grave and tell her, ‘We won. Mike was not a ­hooligan. He wasn’t drunk. He didn’t fight with the ­police or steal from the dead. He was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.’

“That’s all I have to live for.”

I missed Hillsborough. My son was born on that fateful day. He’s a young coach, delivering sports science programmes at pro clubs, including Liverpool. The irony of him, building his life through football, is not lost on me. Whenever I meet the Hillsborough families, I feel conflicted. On 15 April each year, they mourn. I celebrate.

Their campaign against a scandalous miscarriage of justice has been inspiring. Police lies have already been exposed. A picture has emerged of what happens when a group of people, in this case football supporters, is demonised.

In the immediate aftermath of an earlier disaster, at Heysel, I was one of a small group of sportswriters summoned to Downing Street by Margaret Thatcher. She asked each of us, in turn, what we would do to solve hooliganism. Her aura of authority, and unblinking stare, made it a uniquely intimidating experience.

It felt like an exercise in futility. Her mind seemed to have been made up before our arrival. Football fans were a stain on society. I don’t know whether that attitude prevailed, in the hours after Hillsborough, but I have my suspicions.

At least, now, we will discover the truth.

Appropriately enough for someone built like a cruiserweight boxer, Micah Richards has learned to roll with the punches. A prodigy at 17, when Manchester City were a football club rather than the setting for a global soap opera, he must fight the perception that he has peaked at 23.

Physically, he has the lot. Pace, power, athleticism. But mentally, the man child who made his England debut at 18 after only 26 City appearances has questions to answer. Is he a victim of too much, too soon? Has the Man City defender the discipline to fully exploit his natural gifts? Will he be an “if only” player?

Richards has recently begun to talk a good game, and has delivered the right answers in advance of tomorrow’s Champions League tie against Villarreal by promising to work long and hard. He is a popular figure at Man City, valued for the link he provides to the academy, and the rather more humble regime of Stuart Pearce. But he has hard taskmasters to convince.

Roberto Mancini and Fabio Capello share an Italian reverence for defenders. They see them as serious, studious figures. City manager Mancini makes Richards share duties with Pablo Zabaleta. At England level, Capello makes eyes at other candidates.

Richards should be a shoo-in for the Euro 2012 squad. I’d pick him, without hesitation. Right-back is England’s problem position, one that no one has made their own.

Glen Johnson is increasingly injury prone, brilliant going forward but lacks discipline and concentration. He’s under pressure from Martin Kelly, for both club and country. Tottenham’s Kyle Walker, the new kid on the block, is a similarly vibrant attacking force, but needs to work on the ugly side of his game.

Richards must hope he gets his chance during the five friendlies which will precede next summer’s tournament. It’s time for him to seize the day, and back up his suggestion that he’s now twice the player he was when he made his England debut against Holland in November 2006.

He has survived a temporary loss of confidence, and is fortunate to have Patrick Vieira as a mentor. He may eventually move to centre-half, and knows he should have more than 12 senior caps. It’s down to him to convince the doubters that he cares.

Carpe diem, Micah.