With Old Trafford certain to be awash with emotion for United's first game since the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, there are very real fears that any tribute – and particularly the minute's silence – could be disrupted.

A certain element of City fans have long had an antipathy towards a club they feel grew out of their own team's shadow on the back of the tidal wave of sympathy that followed eight of the Busby Babes losing their lives.

Various distasteful songs about the crash have long been popular among supporters from the blue half of Manchester and their counterparts in Leeds – and, yes, of course it is not 'all' supporters who have joined in, but the fact remains a sizeable number have over the years.

A further worrying development in recent weeks has seen 'we're all going to a Golden Jubilee' being chanted at City away games – a clear reference to this weekend's 50th anniversary tribute.

City, to their credit, have done their best to discourage the idiots. A letter signed by manager Sven Goran Eriksson and captain Richard Dunne has been sent out to the 3,000 fans with tickets, urging them to be respectful.

Relatives of Frank Swift, the former City goalkeeper who perished in the disaster while working as a football reporter, will also be in the centre circle as wreaths are laid by Sir Alex Ferguson and Eriksson.

Furthermore, any fan caught misbehaving on Sunday will, according to the club, be banned, while the away seats at Old Trafford will be decorated with images of Swift in an attempt to show that it was not just United who suffered a terrible loss half a century ago.

As a further attempt to defuse any potential for problems, City's official supporters club wrote to Old Trafford three weeks ago to ask for the minute's silence to be replaced by a period of sustained applause. Quite rightly, this was refused with a minute's silence being a much more fitting way to remember the dead. Sustained applause is, surely, more to celebrate the life of someone who has only recently passed away.

Even so, Kevin Parker, chairman of the City supporters club, said: "Unfortunately we have to accept that, whilst there is some friendly rivalry between supporters, there is also a great deal of hatred."

The concern is understandable, as illustrated on Wednesday night at Wembley when two or three idiots managed to cut short a planned minute's silence before England's friendly with Switzerland. What then made it worse was others in the crowd berating these individuals by shouting 'shut up' to further shatter the silence.

It is to be hoped that there will be no repeat on Sunday.

Even if that does prove the case, however, there is one question I just cannot answer. Why the hell did the Premier League schedule such a potentially explosive game for the weekend closest to the 50th anniversary?

I do not buy into all this 'it is the fixture computer that decided it' nonsense, either. Not with the Premier League this season having already had a 'Grand Slam Sunday' where the big four were pitted against each other for the benefit of Sky.

And anyone trying to suggest this was a random occurrence clearly has even less sense than the halfwits who disrupted Wednesday's silence at Wembley.