'The longer the better': The United Strand reacts as Man Utd draw denies viral star haircut | OneFootball

Long overdue haircut looked in sight before United’s trip to east London

The Manchester United fan that has been growing his hair out until the Red Devils win five games in a row will see his wait wear on after United’s 1-1 draw with West Ham on Tuesday.

Frank Ilett - AKA ‘The United Strand’ - has been without a haircut for 493 days, making a pledge back in November 2024 that he would continue to let his hair grow should his team not piece together a five-game winning streak.

It looked as though he might be able to book a long-anticipated trip to the barbershop after Michael Carrick arrived at the helm to replace the sacked Ruben Amorim.

Ilett has gone viral for his hair reaching preposterous proportions throughout the period of time, and the United fan set up a live stream on streaming platform Kick to watch the match unfold, waiting nervously to see if he would be able to book that haircut.

He would end up disappointed, however, with United only managing to salvage a late point at West Ham thanks to Benjamin Sesko’s last-minute equaliser to cancel out Tomas Soucek’s second-half opener.

“The longer the better for charity,” Ilett said on his live stream after the full-time whistle.

“I don’t want this to be about me at all and I’m sure that it probably will be, but it is still unbeaten and good form,” he continued.

As such, United’s failure to win a fifth straight match means that Ilett’s counter resets to zero, and he will hope for a run to restart against Everton next week.