ANYBODY know where I might be able to find a cauldron of intensity? They need one at Old Trafford, apparently. Along with a frying pan of fervour and a bain-marie of passion. They once had all of this assorted kitchenware but somehow, over the years, it has disappeared. You’d think, with all their money, Manchester United would be able to buy several cauldrons of considerable intensity, but it seems that there are some things which money can’t buy.

Sir Alex Ferguson, speaking after United’s game against Birmingham, which they were fortunate to win one-nil, expressed his desire for such a cauldron having been dismayed by the apparent indifference of the Old Trafford fans. “The crowd were dead. It was like a funeral out there,” he commented. I don’t suppose he meant literally dead. Only at the Emirates are they literally dead.

Ferguson effectively blamed the fans for Manchester United’s laboured performance against a typically obdurate but journeyman Birmingham City, insisting that the players had needed their help. One answer, I suppose, would be to pay the supporters a similar amount of money to that doled out to Ronaldo, Rooney et al. It seems to me a bit much to expect fans to shell out half of their weekly wage for a day at Old Trafford and then devolve to them the task of beating the opposition, this being beyond the abilities of the millionaire players.

“The crowd have come to be entertained,” said Sir Alex, disparagingly. Have they? Well, what selfish bastards they all are. One United supporter, fuming after Sir Alex’s attack, suggested that the manager should pay the players less and reduce ticket prices, so that fans could have more money to spend on alcohol before the game and thus feel less inhibited when inside the ground. It’s a nice conceit – but the problem is, as a consequence, Manchester United would be reduced to buying the sorts of players who turned out for Birmingham City and the crowd would dwindle very rapidly indeed.

That’s the other side of the problem: a fairly large proportion of those people who support Manchester United (and Chelsea and Arsenal) do so not because they have any great communal or familial loyalty for the clubs, but out of an infantile desire to acquire vicarious success, to bask in reflected glory. Even the intimation of failure will therefore send them fleeing. Do you remember that midweek Champions League game between Chelsea and Rosenborg, right at the end of The Special One’s tenure? The silent, deserted, stands and a gate which you might expect to see when Middlesbrough play Reading. And this for a Champions League fixture. The Chelsea fans had been disincentivised, it seemed, not by decades of failure and heartache, but by one rather dour home draw with Blackburn Rovers.

Watching Chelsea draw is not what they pay money for. Watching Manchester United struggle to overcome Birmingham City is not what a lot of those Old Trafford supporters paid their money for, either. They pay for guaranteed, preordained success in every game. Not all of them, obviously – I know plenty of old-school Chelsea fans who yearn for these arriviste supporters to clear off and if that means Chelsea finishing 15th for a couple of years, so be it. Then the old atmosphere would return. But the extraordinary wealth of our three or four top clubs is not built on the money of the loyal, lifelong, week-in, week-out supporters. It’s built on the new lot, in their replica shirts, who travel up from Barnstaple or down from Alnwick twice a season and for the rest of the time watch their team on Sky+.

But there are other mitigating factors. It is difficult to stoke up the fires beneath that old cauldron of intensity if there’s a bunch of uniformed stewards prowling the aisles telling you to shut up and sit down every time you feel moved to urge your side forward. Sitting down is itself an inhibiting factor, of course. So is sitting down next to someone called Giles or Cosmo who spends half his time on a mobile phone and rings ahead to order his drinks during the interval.

Football has traded in quite a lot for its vast sacks of moolah; it’s soul, for example, some might argue. In order to make football attractive to these new supporters – who, if we’re honest, don’t really like football very much – everything which militates in favour of pride and passion has been squeezed from the game. Next to be squeezed from the game will be a bunch of lower league clubs.

There are plenty of places where the cauldron of intensity still exists. We still have a sort of cauldron of intensity down at The Den; in fairness, I suppose it’s more an egg poacher of intensity, or a George Foreman Grill of intensity. Quite intense, though, especially when there’s a reliable hate figure in the opposition lineup, such as Lee Hughes. We suffer overzealous stewards and all-seat stadiums too – but we have not yet been poisoned by the arrival of hordes of people who wish to acquire vicarious success (because vicarious success is not really on offer).

If those Manchester United fans are still seething at the broadside from Sir Alex Ferguson, they could have done worse than boycott yesterday’s fixture and wander up the road to see the local derby between Accrington Stanley and Chester City – both decent, honest clubs where the players earn about the same amount of money as the fans and the ticket prices would have allowed them to get as drunk as they liked. Just a thought.