Firstly can I just say that I cannot agree with another posters assessment of how much of an embarrassment the result must have been. This game was never billed as a high profile match here, and like many have pointed out it was in effect out Junior reserves against the United Arab Emirates national side, who I am led to believe were pretty much at full strength-ish, although in all honesty I haven't got a clue as to how strong the side was. Admittedly we didn't play particularly well until the latter stages, but I would hardly class it as an embarrassment.
good turn out from the Blues traveling support am led to believe that the club estimate that about 300 /350 travelled from the UK, which when you consider that this was a pretty meaningless friendly shows you how good the supporters are, not many whingers here, I can tell you, and probably another 50 Blues from local areas and perhaps a further 100 or so ex pats who just came along for the ride, we had plenty of local support. The fixture was supposed to have been sold out of the 26 000 tickets that had been put on sale, but I would be very surprised if there were more than 18000 present.Never ceases to amaze me how City fans manage to get into areas that they probably should not be in. I was being escorted through a restricted area when I bumped into two City fans going in the opposite direction with schoolboy grins and knowing looks on their faces. Great, I Love it.
Have only been here for a very brief time but have to say that, as with all our recent escapades, we have been met with nothing but friendliness and warmth from our hosts, in terms of club officials, stewards and Police and indeed all the locals. Not sure how true it is, but there seems to be a feeling that this could become a regular event. I for one hope so, because I just love big family trips like this.
Just a couple of footnotes, There is a delegation from Manchester City council that have traveled with the club led by Howard Bernstein (Big Cheer) to try and forge links and drum up business with this part of the world and I'm not sure if it was part of this but Tony Blair stopped by today for a meeting with Sheikh Monsour. These guys though have had quite a busy time flitting from meeting to meeting always dressed in business suits, so lets hope they can do some wothwhile trade/business with the guys in Abu Dhabi, that may well boost the economy and possibly jobs back in Manchester. Fingers crossed.
And just to end on speculation or not as the case may be. and a personal view regarding Robinho. The general feeling is that he will not move before next summer and that he is genuinely happy at the club but there are other forces that may try to engineer a move away for personal benefit, lets just hope that if he continues to improve his all round game that he is strong enough to resist the pressure that may be heaped on him.
Got to go now ladies and gents, I'm knackered and have an early flight back to heathrow where more business meetings await, oh joy. but I'm sure that as soon as I sign off I'll remember something else that I wanted to say..
Kippax.
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