So have sung misty-eyed nostalgists in bars and pubs accross Europe since Bobby Charlton slammed home the fourth goal of Man United's 4-1 victory over the mighty Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final. For us, the new generation of Stretford Enders, that song and its connotations had come to symbolise an impossible dream. However many times our new breed of young red-shirted heroes vanquished the old enemies of Leeds and Merseyside, the old guard were always one up on us. They had seen the shirts lift the European Cup.

Of course, we haven't done too badly in our lifetimes. When, in 1986, my Dad first succumbed to my imploring and allowed me to accompany him onto the terraces at the age of six, United were languishing in Ron Atkinson inspired ignominy. Not only did we have to sit through the Saturday embarassment of watching such carthorses as Ralph Milne and Colin Gibson perfecting ineptitude to the benefit of opponents all over the country, but we had to spend a torturous week in the school playground protecting our Man Utd holdalls from sabotage at the hands of the Liverpool supporting masses. In those days it was Liverpool who claimed all the glory-supporters and swept the board year in year out. Being a United fan in the mid-eighties, outside Manchester at least, was something akin to being a Man City fan in the nineties....no, it wasn't that bad.

But with 1989/90 came the glorious resurrection. At the start of that year all and sundry were calling for the head of Atkinson's successor, some Scot whose credentials with Aberdeen held little weight with a success starved Old Trafford. If little Mark Robbins hadn't poked a header past Notts Forest to start a Wembley run in January 1990, Fergie would have been sacked for sure. As it was, he doggedly led a frankly uninspiring team to a monumental FA Cup final victory. Mark Hughes bludgeoned Barcelona in Rotterdam a year later to land the European Cup Winners Cup, Eric Cantona signed in November 1992, and the rest is history.

But it was a bizarre feeling we experienced as we strolled out of Wembley in 1999, the embarassingly attired bar-code Geordies long gone. There was no orgasmic elation as there had been when our previous two doubles were completed. Instead of dancing down Wembley way and rocking the tubes with sounds of victory, we were collectively quiet, contemplative. Perhaps we've become too used to success and take it all for granted. But to a man, our heads were filled with the sound of old men singing; eulogising about the day they saw United lift the holy grail all those years ago.

For us, nothing else mattered. We were going to Barcelona and it was make or break time. Without victory in the Nou Camp, the double would be a phyrric victory. It was all or nothing.20

And so the Port of Dover was treated to the sight of the first envoys of the Red Army to pass through its terminals as the sun tentatively rose on Sunday morning. Post FA Cup Final hangovers were combatted with remarkable speed (really, it was great speed), and the leisurely pace of the cross channel ferry perfectly accomodated the supping of the first beers of this monumental European excursion.20

For those present - all around about 20-years of age, white, male, season ticket, designer labels only etc. - the Euro Away was nothing new. My first was Juventus in 1996 and eight since then. For the even more dedicated, this was the fourteenth or fifteenth excursion onto the continent to watch United. This collective wealth of experience in jibbing, blagging and plain cheek had never failed yet in transporting its posessors from Manchester to whatever deepest darkest destination for the minimum of expense. The Manchester swag merchants had rustled us up some 'liberated' Inter Rail passes for a fraction of their actual cost and, while some were paying companies £1000 for a one-day trip, we were planning to do a week for £250.

Memory is a short-lived thing, however, and far from recollecting and taking note of the agony induced by travelling to Juventus on a coach all those years ago, we all agreed the 30 hour train journey from Calais to Barcelona would be bearable. Wrong. By 8 o'clock on Monday morning, when we were dumped on a tiny platform marooned in the Pyranees just inside the French border, we would have swopped every pair of clean pants we had for a flight ticket. Sod it, even for something to eat. As it was, we stumbled off the train at Barcelona Sants without having eaten for more than 24-hours and with the last can of Stella having been drowned the other side of Toulouse. Whatsmore, the gaggle of United faces splayed out around cafe tables grimly informed us that a hotel room in the city for this week was harder to unearth than City's last trophy.20

Indeed, it soon became apparent that Barcelona was to be subject to the largest invasion by a club's supporters in football history. When we hit Las Ramblas just before lunch on Monday, Europe's most famous pedestrianised street was already teeming with familiar and entirely unfamiliar faces, all intent on drinking themselves into a stupor of anticipation. Dumping our bags in the cavernous Robin Hood bar, we set out on an intricate relay race around the city centre in search of spare rooms, procuring vague information, scurrilous rumours and downright lies from the hordes of already sorted, or resigned to sleeping on the beach, United fans. It was a bizarrely attired youngster with a cornflakes box inscribed with the mantra 'One ticket needed PLEASE' who finally pointed us to the Hostel Paris, a building which from the outside looked like the orphanage from which Daddy Warbuck rescued Annie. Unlikely to find a balding, sentimental millionaire to adopt us into his mansion, we had no option, and at a tenner a night for a room and something apparently constituting a shower, we could only be satisfied. Having rescued our bags, performed a David Attenborough style exploration of the shower's previous inhabitants and evicted them, and having extricated clean clothes and a couple of bank notes, the real trip began.20

It is hard to explain what being abroad with United is like. In Kosice, a sprawling post-communist tower block slum in Eastern Slovakia, there were just 600 hardy souls drinking 11p pints of seizmic strength lager. In Porto, under the hot copper sun, 10,000 United fans unfurled flags and instigated a carnival atmosphere on the banks of the River Douro. Barcelona 99 was the culmination of all this - of being twatted by over-zealous robot cops in Poland, of being blinded by tear gas in Italy, of hugging Alex Ferguson having drunkenly engineered entry to the players hotel in Slovakia, of sitting next to Stone Rose Mani in Dortmund, of ecstacy at the winner in Turin, of despair at defeat in Germany. This was it.

Everywhere you went, every bar you entered, every side sreet you turned down, you bumped into United fans. A chat with the chief of Manchester's football police, sat surrepticiously supping a San Miguel, revealed his expectation that 86,000 would make the trip and chance their luck on obtaining one of our pathetically low allocation of 30,000 tickets.20

Barcelona itself was oblivious, revelling in its own triumph as thousands of Catalonian nationalists packed the streets to cheer their own heroes. FC Barcelona were recently crowned league champions and no expense had been spared in the line of celebrations. The week prior to our trip had been overshadowed by the news that our multi-millionnaire chairman wouldn't be sparing any pennies to finance the traditional open top bus parade even if we succeeded in the unprecidented treble. Concession was eventually made in the form of a parade scheduled for the day after the European Cup Final - when all true Reds would still be in Barca. Typical. It was with a mixture of admiration and regret, then, that we watched the magnificent carnival procession afforded the Spanish champions. This was a display of real class. When it comes to supporter relations and pride in achievement, Manchester United are one of the footballing world's minnows.

We found our home for the evening in Placa Reial, a columned square of decadent magnificence which trapped the sunlight around it's grandiose fountain centrepiece, and housed perimeter bars from which United fans sprawled onto the cobbled stones and under the palm trees. Here, a litre of San Miguel cost A32, twenty Marlboro Lights were just over a pound and friends, aquantainces and familiar faces had already gathered to begin a monumental beer consumption effort. The essence of why we were here unfolded as the sun slowly disappeared and Britain's licensing laws were shown up to be the joke they are. Stories were exchanged, memories relived, songs sung. But strangely, even once the bars began to shut in the early hours and we mooched down to the quay side clubs, hardly a mention was made of the reason we were all there. Wednesday night and all its momentous significance was off the agenda. There was no need to discuss it, we all knew what had to be done.

The Barcelona experience has to be seen to be believed. Stretching out into the magnificent port is a futuristic sea monster of bars, clubs, restaurants, shops, cinemas and even a mini golf course. Accessed by a rickety wooden bridge, this behemoth of nightlife remains packed to the rafters and buzzing with atmosphere until 6am. Only when you stroll through its maze of marble floors, glass elevators, bouncing dancefloors, theme pubs and quaint outdoor bars do you begin to realise just what you miss in England. Indeed, for those who assembled in the top floor Irish pub, overlooking the Mediterranean, and supped pints of Guinness under a surreal moon with a background thump of dance tunes from the clubs below, this constituted the greatest nightlife ever experienced. Separated from the rest of the group, I wandered back up Las Ramblas alone, soaking up the first, uncertain forays of dawn light and just trying to take it all in.

Surfacing on Tuesday was aided by the slit of blazing sunshine which tore into our room as sore heads were being lifted soon after midday. Opting to steer clear of the rapidly swelling hordes on Las Ramblas, we procured some cheap supermarket liquer and copious amounts of fresh orange juice to accompany us to the breathtaking Barcelona beach. Splayed out on sun loungers sipping cool vodka oranges in between dips in the glassy blue Meditterranean, it was hard to see how life could get any better. Topless Spanish princesses strolled past unabashed and tanned windsurfers strutted their stuff on the spectacular horizon. Should we win on Wednesday, all thoughts would turn to means of emigrating.

Since United's suceess began in the early nineties and the bandwagon of Zoe Ball-esque glory supporters began their self proclaimed allegiance to the red devil, the week-in, week-out supporters have discarded the colours. No shirts, no scarves, not silly hats; just plain, understated Ralph Lauren, Henri Lloyd and Stone Island became de rigeur. But on Tuesday night, as Barcelona became a massive, swarming sea of red, there was no need for any pretence. We were away from the opposition fans we criticised so staunchly for their small-time behaviour, ridiculously inept fashion sense and part-time following. Whereas Newcastle, the media's proclaimed most passionate supporters, averaged attendances of under twenty thousand just a few years ago, Old Trafford has always been packed to the rafters in success or failure. And here was the coup de grace. As the party sped into full swing with midnight past and the early hours of the day of the game upon us, approaching 50,000 United fans revelled in their support of Sir Matt Busby's legacy.

That it would have been the late Sir Matt's 90th birthday on the day of our biggest match since his reign added an extra omen. Back in Placa Reial four hours before kick-off, the game was suddenly very much on the agenda. Rumours that Beckham had injured himself in training and wouldn't play suddenly became nail-gnawingly terrifying. All sorts of unthinkable circumstances popped into a drink and adrenalin fuelled imagination. What if my ticket doesn't get me in?20

Of course, everyone knows what happened in the awesome Nou Camp stadium that night. Scrambling in seconds after Munich had taken the lead, the stomach-churnng fear of defeat was frighteningly real. Looking around the towering bowl of partisans, it was apparent that United occupied close to three-quarters of the seats. We just couldn't lose. The anti-climax would be unbearable, impossible.

Perhaps the players realised that. Perhaps they just looked around them, realised the sheer enormity of the stage on which their young talent had been placed and were spurned on by the thought of the legions for whom their performance meant more than everything. Whatever was flashing through their minds and whatever drove them forward at the seemingly impregnable German back line, it was aided by the terrifying noise echoing down from the banks of United fans. Like a wounded animal nearing death, United's faithful roared like never before. It was a depressed, deluded and resigned roar, but tinged with a childlike hope. As the clock stood majesterially at 90 minutes, we all wanted so desperately to believe in fantasy but were unsure whether to trust the make-believe or succumb to the adult acceptance of inevitability.

So when the ball pinged from Teddy Sheringham's ankle into the near corner of the German net, the ecstacy was indescribable. When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hammered home the second, it seemed inappropriate even to move. Instead, like I was watching some film or waiting to wake from an impossible dream, I stood and watched the crazy scenes of jubilation. Hugging everyone and anyone in the ensuing minutes, inconspicuous tears of joy danced down the contorted faces of old and young alike. Proud pensioners wept in the arms of skinhead juvenile delinquents. It was the surrealist of surreal moments, an entry to never never land where make-believe was suddenly there before you very eyes.

As the players cavorted in front of us in the ensuing bedlam, there was a sense of achievement radiating from everybody. Bryan Robson's painful penalty miss which rested so hard on the disappointed shoulders of a six-year-old at his first match suddenly seemed part of this incredible occasion, along with every other incredible and ignominous match I'd stood and shouted through over the years.

Walking on air back to Las Ramblas, shattered and speechless, tired and emotional, the moments of ecstacy that had been experienced were almost conciously locked away. Now it was party time to seal in style a night that was not just special, but the most special.

We drank, we sang, shouted, hugged each other, sought words for the indescribable emotion. But when a Salford urchin scaled a towering statue in front of massed ranks of several hundred, his actions epitomised this great night and all that it meant to those for whom Manchester United is more than a football club. He unfurled a pristine flag with the words: "Happy Birthday Sir Matt. The Treble's for you." The ensuing chorus of Happy Birthday drew tears from the most hardened and a tingle down the spine never before experienced and never to be repeated.

What followed that night is personal; private between those to whom it really mattered. Goodness knows what was said, what actions were perpetrated in the name of celebration. But for an indefinable time, the world stopped turning and all that mattered was the sharing of an experience waited and longed for by those who propped up the bars of Barcelona until reality once again gained a grip. At dawn, when the gargantuan celebrations crecendoed, it seemed fitting just to leave Barca's mythical streets and head for home with memories complete.

When, physically and mentally shattered like never before, I finally arrived on Dover's white cliffs, the feeling of floating on a personal Cloud Nine was surreally real. 'What was it like,' rained the inevitable volley of questions. But strangely, the past week had become entirely indescribable. I really don't know what it was like in that stadium when the winner went in. Perhaps it just drew a line under childhood. Dreams can come true and I lived in one. Now, with that moment locked carefully away never to be forgotten, it is time to move on. When I watched the match on video, Clive Tyldsley summed up the Barcelona experience better than anyone. 'Where were you when Ole Gunnar Solksjaer won Manchester United the European Cup,' he said during his post match commentary. '50,000 people can say: I was there.'