THE two men best qualified to explain the extraordinary clash of cultures on a legendary night in 1982 are sadly no longer with us. So let's wonder for a moment why right-on regional newsreader Tony Wilson would have invited bigoted mirth-maker Bernard Manning to be the first on stage at a nightclub aimed squarely at Manchester's pop-culture cognoscenti.

As many a journalist will attest, Manning, wearing only his underpants, would probably have answered the query by picking up the telephone with a brash: "Ello" and signed off with an offensive joke which left you feeling guilty to have laughed out loud.

"I played the Hacienda because I'm ****ing funny and he was ****ing paying," he might have added. "And it was about time those ****ing student-types learned what proper entertainment was."

Wilson, on the other hand, all smart suit and soft pumps, would have extracted the hidden meaning from an event in which the fundamentally post-modern joke was on the joker. "On a purely existential level, the club existed ... and Bernard was available," he might possibly have added.

Having lost both of these Mancunian icons this year, we can only really guess what was going through their minds on the night when Bernard became the first turn at Tony's new Hacienda nightclub.

Yet we do know that the city will never be the same again following the deaths of Manning, age 76, on June 18 and Wilson, age 57, on August 10. They were born into different eras and backgrounds but both helped to put Manchester on the map in one way or another.

Bernard Manning's World Famous Embassy Club probably never really reached the same level of notoriety as the Hacienda during its brief "world's best nightclub" phase, but both statements say an awful lot about the bragging abilities of their owners.

Parallels

There are other parallels, too. Both Bernard and Tony were opinionated, intelligent, passionate, foul-mouthed - and humble, caring, considerate and charitable. And both polarised opinion wherever they went.

Bernard was loved by the fans who saw nothing wrong in him ridiculing the fat, frail .... and any ethnic minority. Yet those often offensive gags - for which he would never apologise - led others to hate him.

It still seems bizarre that one man could have come to embody the very essence of bigotry and benevolence, with praise from the people who Bernard helped to raise money standing in stark contrast to those who he made no effort to like or understand.

Perversely, Tony Wilson came in for faux criticism from those who respected him most. Boos would rain down when he appeared on stage alongside Factory bands. But real music fans, those who knew his part in the bigger picture, would not want him to be anywhere else but part of the proceedings. Manning was a ruthlessly successful businessman whereas Wilson's entrepreneurial approach was based on a socialist idyll so rigorous that there wasn't even enough money to pay the bills without sending New Order out on another tour.

Manning was a City fan and Wilson was a United fan. Wilson was born in Salford, but had an undoubted influence on the shape of modern Manchester, while Manning started life in Ancoats, and would recount the days he met the Queen and performed alongside Dean Martin in Las Vegas.

Wilson started as a news reporter before creating a far bigger part for himself as svengali, cultural ambassador and indefatigable advocate for all things Manchester.

Manning started out at his father's grocery store before winning fans for his voice and his risque gags and probably wouldn't have anything nice to say about people who considered themselves a svengali.

In the end, both suffered somewhat from changing times. Madchester - the cartoon-like culmination of all Wilson had worked for - died an inevitable death, and the Factory dream ended in tatters.

Meanwhile, Manning's stock-in-trade fell from favour with TV commissioners and he ended his days peddling familiar fare at the testosterone-fuelled sportsmen's dinners which would still have him.

Both had an apologetic and slightly embarrassed revival for their TV careers - Wilson as an anchorman on Granada Reports (he left shortly after swearing on air) and Manning as the star of an excruciating documentary which saw him attempt his unreconstructed brand of humour with an Indian audience. Unsurprisingly, Bernard's Bombay Dream ended as a nightmare.

Yet such was their charisma and legend, that both were still very much part of the Manchester story at the time of their deaths.

And, somewhat spookily, both had publicly came to terms with the idea of dying, Wilson through these very pages, with a moving account of his battle with kidney cancer and the NHS, and Manning in an extraordinarily spine tingling Channel 4 TV programme which saw him planning and attending his own funeral, just weeks before the real thing.

They should both really be remembered equally for their absolute and unquestioning belief in the city which they came to embody, and one which neither ever really wanted to leave.

Manning, for his part, should best be remembered as the face of the former Manchester in which he grew up, scarring him with the inverted snobbery of a boy who fought through the gutters of east Manchester to earn a living and ended up king of all the post-industrial squalor that he surveyed.

Wilson, who famously got within a few miles of a new job with TV's Nationwide in London and then turned back, even claimed to have invented the very concept of loft living, which has proved so vital a part of Manchester's revival.

Manning's funeral saw him surrounded by comedians, Wilson's saw him surrounded by musicians. Neither would have wanted it any other way.

We'll miss them in different ways as men who helped to make Manchester a city which was big enough for both of them.