![\"Frank](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Frank_Ilett.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIlett, known as the United Strand, has vowed to not cut his hair until United win five games in a row. He began his challenge in October 2024, with the team missing the chance to record their fifth successive win as they were held by West Ham on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
His challenge relates to the men\u2019s team, who have been managed by Erik ten Hag, Ruben Amorim, and now Michael Carrick since Ilett started the stunt almost 500 days ago.<\/p>\n
But United\u2019s women\u2019s team are now on a run of six consecutive victories in all competitions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Frank Ilett <\/p>\n
They seized control of their Champions League play-off tie against Atletico, with goals from Terland, Melvine Malard and Julia Zigiotti Olme completing a clinical victory for Marc Skinner\u2019s team ahead of the return leg next week.<\/p>\n
After Terland\u2019s third-minute opener, the striker and captain Le Tissier held up their ponytails before pretending to cut them off. England international Le Tissier also posted a scissors emoji on her Instagram.<\/p>\n
Since a 0-0 draw at Arsenal in the Women\u2019s Super League, United have beaten Burnley in the FA Cup, Arsenal in the League Cup, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Leicester, all in the league, and now Atletico in the Champions League. They host the London City Lionesses on Sunday.<\/p>\n
llett, 29, vowed in October 2024 that he would not cut his hair until the club won five games in a row but United\u2019s struggles last season led to a longer wait than he anticipated, and resulted in a comically overgrown barnet.<\/p>\n
His daily video updates on \u2018The United Strand\u2019 have accumulated millions of views – while Ilett planned to donate his hair to The Princess Trust, a charity that provides wigs to young cancer patients dealing with hair loss as a result of their treatment.<\/p>\n
After Amorim\u2019s departure, Carrick led United to four consecutive wins against Manchester City, Arsenal, Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur, setting up the chance of a fifth in Tuesday\u2019s trip to West Ham.<\/p>\n
But against an in-form Hammers side, United could only manage a 1-1 draw at the London Stadium, with Benjamin Sesko\u2019s 96th-minute leveller cancelling out Tomas Soucek\u2019s opener after Casemiro saw a goal disallowed.<\/p>\n
For Ilett, it means the opportunity to finally shed his huge mop of hair, a moment he planned to share with his now enormous following of millions on social media, went up in smoke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ilett, known as the United Strand, has vowed to not cut his hair until United win five games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,917,112],"class_list":["post-295979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-manchester-united","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295979","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=295979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}