ENTERTAINMENT ESSENTIALS: ANTHONY WILSON

On the front cover of the 24 Hour Party People soundtrack album Ian Curtis is described as a GENIUS, Shaun Ryder is a POET and Tony Wilson is a TWAT. This pretty much sums up the appreciation of Wilson for his contribution to Manchester music, even from a film that pretty much tells his side of the story. Of course, a lot of this is a typically Mancunian lack of pretension or nostalgia, but it's always seemed a little unfair.

At last year's Manchester Vs Cancer gig, when he introduced New Order's storming Joy Division set, Wilson was roundly booed by a crowd who didn't really know why they were booing him other than that he was a TWAT. Even Bernard Sumner chastised them for it during the show. The great tragedy of it was that just over a year and a half later, it is cancer that today killed him.

While he wasn't a music genius and his business sense was questionable to say the least, Madchester quite probably wouldn't have happened without him, Joy Division/New Order might never have become famous, the Happy Mondays might never have got round to releasing anything at all and the Hacienda wouldn't have existed. What kind of musical heritage would this city have had?

And it wasn't just the music either, Wilson's day job was in the media and worked on local news shows like Granada Tonight as well as having a show on Radio Manchester. Whatever you think of him, he was a Manchester legend and while it's very sad to have to put this up so soon after our obit feature on Lee Hazlewood, Wilson was much more important to Manc music and hopefully one good thing to come from his death (apart from perhaps some soul-searching about cancer treatment - the NHS refused to pay for the drug he needed to beat the disease) will be that the city he loved will finally start to love him back.