Surely we’re all Team Man Utd v West Ham to end the haircut grift… | OneFootball

It’s been the greatest grift in football content history; yer man Frank Ilett has made a small fortune from not doing a thing. In this case, not cutting his hair for as long as Manchester United do not win five consecutive games.

We have received a grand total of four e-mails this morning announcing that ‘after a 493-day wait, viral football fan Frank Ilett (@TheUnitedStrand) has signed Argos as his “Official Delivery Partner” to Fast Track all the tools required for what is set to be the footballing event of the year’.

F*** the World Cup, this truly is the footballing event of the year.

‘Any questions, just let me know,’ is the sign-off to all those four identical e-mails. We have many questions but we’re not sure we should e-mail three different PR professionals with ‘what the actual f***?’

We then learned that Ilett was available for interview for a five-figure sum and wondered who would possibly pay that kind of money for an interview with a man whose schtick is entirely that he has not cut his hair in a very long time.

Then we opened The Sun football page to an EXCLUSIVE:

So somebody in publishing still has that kind of money. And so it begins…

It’s hard to count to seven, right?

Arithmetic pedantry aside, we do not blame Ilett for earning money in these straitened times, but we do wonder why the mainstream media is falling over itself to give the man both credit and cash.

‘United super fan Frank Ilett is now just ONE win away from finally being able to cut his hair for the first time in 16 months,’ write The Sun, wilfully ignoring the fact that clearly the best thing that can happen for this hairy man’s brand is that Manchester United fail to win five games in a row.

Despite his Sky Sports pledge to go for a “buzz cut and start again” if United do win, surely he can’t pull off this grift for a second time? Can he? Tell us he can’t. The real juice is surely in United repeatedly winning four games in a row and then failing. This hairy turkey will surely not vote for Christmas.

Alternative bird-based headline: ‘United superfan will be desperate to kill his goose that sh*ts out 15k golden eggs.’

We go back to The Sun…

No, the real currency of his ‘journey’ (little bit of sick in the mouth) has been pounds sterling.

The Sun even have a Frank Ilett explainer: ‘Who is Man Utd fan The United Strand, Frank Ilett, and when can he get his hair cut?’

Any time he wants, fellas.

You are so very close to getting this.

And yet we have to pretend that Ilett has been watching Manchester United with ‘growing hair and despair’. Yes, I imagine he has been absolutely gutted to be signing big deals with Argos, Paddy Power and The Sun. When oh when will all this money-making for not having a haircut end?

Over to the Daily Mail for more…

Yep. Bet he’s gutted.

So gutted in fact that his really quite extraordinary grift has left us with a rash of This Kind Of Thing: