Manchester United opened the season with a 1-0 home defeat to Arsenal last weekend, taking Ilett and his bet back to square one. A trim could be possible soon. United’s upcoming schedule features a run of smaller clubs, starting with Fulham on Sunday followed by Grimsby Town and Burnley. But perennial power and rival Manchester City awaits on the road before a home clash with Chelsea.
There’s a high likelihood, barring upset victories, Ilett will be sporting a dark, thick shock of hair well into the fall. He says his girlfriend doesn’t mind.
“She likes the king’s guard look,” he joked.
Ilett says the wager largely stemmed from boredom. He moved from outside Oxford, England, to Castellón, Spain, in November 2023 to be closer to his girlfriend’s family and raise their 14-month-old daughter. Without any family or friends nearby and in between jobs, he entertained himself by watching Manchester United games.
But on Oct. 6, following four straight winless matches, he decided something needed to be done. Something that really spoke to the soccer gods and helped get the club back in a positive light.
So Ilett buzzed his hair and hit “post” on Instagram.
“Day 1 of not cutting my hair until Man United win five games in a row,” he said in the video. “Aston Villa today. I’m not feeling that confident.”
The team drew 0-0 that day and the rest is history.
The rules of the challenge were simple: be victorious in five competitive matches in a row. That meant any Premier League, Europa League or domestic cup game counted, while friendlies and exhibitions did not.
Over the first 10 days of the challenge, he said, he noticed “a few people were interested.” It slowly started to build to 2,000, then 10,000 and then a month later 50,000. As of Aug. 20, “The United Strand” has 227,000 followers.
“I didn’t expect it to go on for this long. I thought it would be a few months,” he said. “A funny little thing to do. Make some Man United fans laugh in a tough time, and then that would be it, it would be all over. We’d be back to normal, back to winning ways. But it hasn’t quite worked out like that.”
Some of his followers are Manchester United fans who are supporting him during this trying time. Others, he said, are opposing fans rooting for losses to keep the hair growing.
“On the whole, I’ve been really pleased. It has been very positive. Everyone’s been very nice, very supportive, and everyone’s kind of behind me, I suppose, rooting for me,” he said. “There’s even a lot of rival fans. I’ve had a few Liverpool fans say, ‘You’re the only Man United fan that I like.’ And I think that’s the biggest compliment that you could ever get.”
Ilett’s videos are typically less than 10 seconds long and simply state the challenge rules with the current day number. The real fun, however, is how he wears his hair. It’s become so long he’s now taking requests on how to showcase it.
Some days it’ll be poofy while others it’ll be curly or straight. Some days he’ll dunk it in a pool or put it up in colorful hair ties. The newest request is pulling items out of his mane — a recent video has him playing with multiple fidget spinners.
Ilett says while he’s enjoying his newfound fame, he’s ready for it to be over. Though there’s a very small chance he never cuts his hair again, he sees the challenge ending this year.
“I am genuinely optimistic that it will happen this season,” he said. “Now, if you ask me in a year’s time, if it hasn’t happened, then maybe I might not be smiling as much. I’m quite positive, quite optimistic that we’re going to have a good season this season, and at some point those five wins are going to come together.”
When his hair is cut, he intends on donating his locks to Little Princess Trust, a U.K.-based charity that makes wigs for people diagnosed with cancer.
Even more incentive for the bet to be completed.
“I feel like I’ve come this far now,” he said. “I have to see it through to the end, however long that might take.”
Though Manchester United has won England’s top division 20 times, tied with Liverpool for most in history, the last United championship came in 2013. The team made moves this offseason it believes will get it back into contention. After loaning Marcus Rashford to Barcelona, the club brought in forwards Matheus Cunha from Wolves and Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford. Its latest addition may be the most crucial: striker Benjamin Šeško from RB Salzburg, considered among the top young scoring talents in the world.
NBC Sports’ Joe Prince-Wright said manager Ruben Amorim knows “a top-six finish and a strong cup run is the very least United need to achieve this season if they’re going to show people they’re back on the right path.”
“United has been going through this rebuild for most of the last decade, but it still feels very similar to the New England Patriots’ current painful rebuild after the glory days of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady,” Prince-Wright said. “But there’s hope that United can be competitive, and if they can stay solid defensively, they now have the right combination of players, and characters, in attack to win games.”
Hopefully five of them in a row, for Ilett’s sake.
He said if the team wins four, he would love to possibly experience the final win in person at Old Trafford.
“It’s going to be like the Champions League final for me. It’s going to be crazy,” he said. “If we got to four wins in a row, and I went to the fifth game and I was watching it and we didn’t win, I think it would be the most heartbreaking moment of my entire life.”
