‘I didn’t expect it to be so difficult’: Why this Manchester United fan is regretting a viral bet on his team

By Don Riddell, CNN

(CNN) — For any Manchester United fan these days, the team’s performances would want to make them tear their hair out.

But Red Devils supporter Frank Ilett can’t do that; he can’t pull it or shave it or cut it. In fact, the worse his team plays, the longer it grows. The impressive amount of hair on the top of his head owes everything to United’s shocking results on the field.

When CNN Sports spoke to Ilett from his home in Spain recently, it had been 324 days since he gave himself a buzzcut in front of the mirror, embarking on an uncertain hair-raising adventure.

“Back in October, I started the challenge of not cutting my hair until Man United win five games in a row,” he explained. “I thought it would just be a bit of fun for a few months and, obviously, it’s gone on for a lot longer than expected!”

Watching hair grow is like watching paint dry, but if you run your fingers through Ilett’s TikTok channel “theunitedstrand,” you’ll see how dramatically his appearance has morphed from a neat trim into a voluminous bouffant, a tangled weave within which he can now hide things like an apple or a lit candle. “Don’t try this at home,” he cautioned, blowing it out in front of the camera on day 225.

Once the most envied club in England with 13 Premier League titles, United has lost its spark in recent years.

When Ilett began his challenge last fall, the team was in the dying embers of manager Erik ten Hag’s reign. He came up with the idea to provide some light relief.

“I just wanted to make fellow Man United fans laugh in a difficult time,” said Ilett. “I didn’t expect it to be so difficult.

“I almost went for three in a row and, you know, me being me at the time, feeling optimistic, I went, ‘Three’s too easy, isn’t it?’ So, I thought, I’ve got to make it a bit more of a challenge otherwise people won’t be interested.

“Looking back on it now, maybe that was a bit too optimistic.”

As it turns out, three would have been easy. Wins against Rangers and Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League on both sides of a Premier League victory against Fulham would have seen him head to the barbershop at the end of January. Instead, he’s now facing the realization that he might not get it cut again for a long time.

His commitment is simple: The sequence of games can come in any competition, they just have to be competitive.

“I didn’t count preseason friendlies over the summer, not that it would have made a difference,” he explained (United has won just two of its seven friendlies).

“It’s been a bit of a tough start to the season,” an understatement that he conceded after United had picked up just one point from its first two matches.

Things got worse two days after speaking with CNN Sports when United was beaten in the League Cup by fourth-division club Grimsby Town, arguably the grimmest of all the results in the club’s fabled history.

To emphasize the sad state of affairs, Ilett updated his followers on another bad hair day from inside a running shower, his matted locks drooping to his cheekbones. “Still at zero,” he deadpanned as a trickle of water ran off the end of his nose.

United didn’t qualify for any European competition this season and the Grimsby debacle means the fixture list is now set until the FA Cup in January. Ilett has been combing the schedule.

“I looked a bit further down the line, and I think there’s a group of games between the end of November and the middle of December, they kind of look quite winnable,” Ilett offered hopefully. He didn’t say it with much conviction, though, and the fact that he couldn’t name any of the fixtures implies that he may already have given up on a quick reprieve.

“We’ll have to see if that’s ruined or if I’m helped out somehow,” he said. “There’s quite a few teams that you’d expect to be in the bottom half of the table.”

The run of matches he’s referring to is Everton, Crystal Palace, West Ham, Wolves, Bournemouth and Aston Villa; one fact he neglected to mention is that United itself finished in 15th place last season.

Still, Ilett’s dreaming of the day the Red Devils will turn things around. If they can win four in a row, then the fifth game would feel like his own “mini-Champions League final.” When that happens, he would plan to attend the fifth game in person, but admits if they got so close and then blew it, that would be “absolutely heartbreaking.”

Ilett says the hardest thing about his challenge is the heat that is now being generated by the pile of hair on top of his dome. “It’s absolutely boiling,” he lamented. But he remains committed, promising there won’t be a cut until the team gets to five in a row.

Meanwhile, it’s more likely United boss Ruben Amorim will be cut before Ilett’s hair, given the current state of affairs overseen by the Portuguese manager. Amorim himself has even admitted that he might quit before long anyway, saying after the Grimsby loss: “Sometimes, I want to quit, sometimes I want to be here for 20 years, sometimes I hate my players, sometimes I love my players.”

It’s hard to know when Frank Ilett will eventually sit down in a barber’s chair, but when he does, the groomer will certainly have their work cut out.

By that point, it might also have turned gray, if not from old age, then simply the stress of having to watch Manchester United play soccer.

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