Goaters 103 wrote:Just my $0.02 but Ive been going to City regularly since 1977 when I was age 6, hadn't seen us win a carrot until 2011 and personally speaking I thought the days in the third tier and indeed the years 1993 - 1999 were the absolute fookin pits and I don't look back on them with any fondness.
The football was god awful, the team was shite, the managers door was a revolving one, we became a bloody laughing stock and some of the shitehouse teams we lost to, and many of the shit players who wore our shirt still make me cringe. The shit that we had to watch for years was an endurance test but certainly wasn't an experience I long for ever again!
Give me the Sheikh Mansour years every time please, and twice on sunday. The footballs about 300 times better, the players we watch are among the best in the world and the core of fans remain the same with our gallows humour and incredible loyalty. City have a hardcore of about 35-40k who will go come what may and they remain there now, despite the successes and failures. They were there before the Swales shambles set the club back umpteen years, and they are largely still there now.
I accept all that - and of course I doubt anyone would swap those days for what has happened since the Sheik arrived - but the key thing is that in those days we had no expectation just dreams. No one thought that dreams might actually come true and I guess we were all deeply (and collectively) depressed - but fuck we were loyal. Some of the managers (and even the stupid policy of continually sacking them)!! - some of the football they played - groan. Those were the days when 'typical CITY' was a way of life. It took real mettle to stick with that, but I guess that is what the 'identification of loyalty' should be about. I might be wrong but you may be a blue because of your family - so many of us 'kept the faith'.
That is why we were limited to the 30-40K fans that you mention. It was part of us and we passed it on whilst the likes of red scouse and the scum attracted 'followers' - but it was that loyal core that kept our club alive - through thin and thin. I am not suggesting that I would rather have those days, only that in a sense I am glad to have been through them - it makes me appreciate what the Sheik has done for us all the more.
People moan (and scum fans love pointing out) that we do not fill our stadium and question why we are expanding - but it is because we entered recent times with that 40k following and it takes time for a new generation to become attached through choice rather than inherited loyalty). But that will happen and we will have increased attending and global following - it is guaranteed and just needs time. Whilst I would gladly swap their lot because it means that I would be younger - I have experienced something that I am glad to have been through (perverse I know).
