The Manchester City Experience

How would it be if we could make Uwe’s goal at Old Trafford stand, or if we hadn’t been robbed in the semi-final against Liverpool, or if someone – anyone – had got a tackle in against Ricky Villa? How would it be if Alan Ball hadn’t told the lads to keep possession, if the best goal of the FA Cup Final replay had actually won it, if Robbie Fowler hadn’t missed that penalty?

But we’ll take what we have, won’t we? We’ll take Georgi splintering the Southampton defence, Paul Dickov falling to his knees, Nicky Weaver calling the boys on, Jon Macken making it 4-3 from 0-3 while Joey soaks in the tub. We’ll take these things – in the first place because, as I said, they’re what we have, but in the second place because they’re all that we need.

There’s no hidden agenda to supporting Manchester City. There is hope, to be sure. There’s even a conviction that one day, and I think we all believe one day in the not too distant future, we’ll have a real success to call our own. But it won’t matter, really, whether we do or we don’t.

If you follow Manchester United, or to a lesser degree Chelsea, you’ve become accustomed. It doesn’t really matter much if you’ve carried the shirt close to your heart since God was a lad, you still know that every season will bring you something, even if that something is only a tilt at one of the big prizes. If you follow Liverpool or Arsenal, the burden of history isn’t really all that heavy, and you believe, truly believe, that next season will be your season. Everton, Villa, Spurs – dotted success, honourable support – but as much with the head as with the heart. For the rest of the Premiership, and some of the Championship – the Birminghams, the Wolverhamptons – well, the feeling of honour is that much more important – big clubs, places in history, acceptance of change. And the smaller clubs? Well, more often than not, you support Doncaster, or Yeovil, or Peterborough, because you were born there, because your identity is tied there, because you want to show the world what you are.

What makes a Manchester City fan?

I’m lucky enough that 41 years ago I saw us win the old First Division (Premiership) title. Forty years ago I saw us win the FA Cup. 39 years ago, a European trophy. I’m luckier than most. But when I first went to the ground, in 1966, it had been a long time since we’d glimpsed anything silver. Not as long as now, I admit, but we were down and out, in the shadow of the reds. Even then, the media thought we should have an inferiority complex.

But City supporters don’t have an inferiority complex. They really don’t. That’s part of the secret. It’s one of the things that outsiders can never grasp.

When we won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1970, we featured in the only European trophy final involving an English club not to be shown on live television. That same year (and my memory betrays me – it might have been the semi-final of the same competition when we hammered Schalke 5-1 – or it might not) we were squeezed off the back page of the MEN by a fitness report on key Manchester United players following a reserve game on the same night. Now – well, we’ve gone from being the nation’s favourite second team (“If there were cups for cock-ups….”) to the unwelcome new rich kids on the block. The lesson is that we’ll never be loved by anyone but ourselves. But we don’t care. And that’s not the Millwall, “Everybody hates us but we don’t care” mantra. It’s the simple truth. We really don’t care. And we’ve had forty years, or more, of not caring. Because when you support Manchester City….

….You support not with the brain, not exclusively with the heart. You support from deep within, with the sinew, with the bone, with an essential commitment which, for want of a better word, might come from the soul. A Peter Swales can’t change it, a Thaksin Shinawatra can’t change it, even an Alan Ball can’t change it. It’s a love, a pure love, not fuelled by benefit of trophies, not birthed in tragedy, not conditional on prospects, not a badge of honour, not a habit. Precisely, it’s a life. It may be moulded by media disrespect, but that doesn’t explain it. It’s strong enough to carry 30,000 of us through League One, to bear eight goals at the Riverside with a smile, to watch Keegan implode in the dugout at Oldham. And it’s rewarded by Kinkladze, Robinho, Berkovic, Bernarbia, Goater and Bell. By Ireland, Wright-Phillips, Tiatto, Doyle, Summerbee, Quinn and Rosler. It’s the strength of true support – the ability to live with the club as it is at any given moment and feel privileged to do so.

We’ll show it in Istanbul.

(A parting gift to SGE)