{"id":291498,"date":"2026-02-11T01:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T01:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291498\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T01:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T01:28:07","slug":"frank-ilett-the-united-strand-the-haircut-that-went-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/291498\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Ilett: The United Strand & the haircut that went viral"},"content":{"rendered":"

One man and a much-anticipated trim.<\/p>\n

But it has started to feel, for Manchester United, that Ilett’s long wait for the club to win five games in a row has become an unwanted irritation.<\/p>\n

There was a time when it seemed as though United were prepared to play along with the gag. They did, after all, include a barbers’ room in their \u00a350m training ground upgrade at Carrington. What better way to have a bit of fun?<\/p>\n

Now though, in public and private, they are having nothing to do with it.<\/p>\n

Skipper Bruno Fernandes and manager Michael Carrick were dismissive<\/a> when asked about it after victory number four, against Tottenham – although Carrick’s admission he had been told of the saga by his kids hints at the wider attraction.<\/p>\n

Ilett’s daily social media updates and the before and now pictures scattered across the digital sphere were initially quite amusing – but serve as a reminder of how bad the team’s form has been.<\/p>\n

Ilett plans to donate his hair to the Little Princess Trust and set up a JustGiving page for the children’s cancer charity, for those who wanted to offer financial support.<\/p>\n

His initial fundraising target of \u00a3500 for the the Little Princess Trust has been exceeded significantly and by Tuesday afternoon stood at \u00a36,132.<\/p>\n

As attention-grabbing initiatives go, his pledge didn’t seem especially outrageous when he made it.<\/p>\n

United had completed five-in-a-row eight months earlier, the 11th time it had happened – including the end of the 2015-16 season and start of 2016-17 – in just under 11 years following Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.<\/p>\n

The longest gap was from 25 January 2019, when United won the last of their eight successive wins following Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s arrival and the end of five victories in a row under the Norwegian in April 2021.<\/p>\n

It says a lot for United’s chronic form since Ilett made his vow that they had only won three in a row twice until Carrick arrived, changed the formation and turned his old club into winners once more.<\/p>\n

To put that into context, United’s fellow ‘big six’ clubs have all won five times on the bounce in recent memory. Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool have done it this season – Chelsea have done it already this year. <\/p>\n

Even Tottenham, whose form has been atrocious for 18 months now, managed it early last season, when United were one of the teams they beat.<\/p>\n

Yet some fans have come to the conclusion they do not appreciate Ilett’s humour.<\/p>\n

One supporter was given an indefinite ban from Old Trafford by United for attacking Ilett on a concourse at the home game with Chelsea in September 2025.<\/p>\n

Others have taken exception to him taking part in an advert for a major gambling company and monetising what was meant to be a charitable gesture. Ilett has denied making the kinds of sums being mentioned.<\/p>\n

However, many have defended Ilett and most responses to his appearance on the leading Stretford Paddock podcast were positive.<\/p>\n

The vast majority though, for and against, just want to see an end to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One man and a much-anticipated trim. But it has started to feel, for Manchester United, that Ilett’s long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-291498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}