Well that's the end of that then.
The club tried to make the best of a bad situation and laid on one free meal for all attendees and all you could drink. The presentation was decently choreographed and displaying the City Circle messages on the on the LED digital advertising banner was a nice touch albeit seeing some of the birthday messages for 18th's, 21st's, 40, 50, 60, 70 and even one fella who had one bought for his 90th only sought to highlight that some people might have passed away in the intervening period and others were 3 years older by the time they got to see the discs. I can't help feeling though that the club should have at least served up a couple of recognised first teamers, because it felt to me like the event wasn't important enough for the club to upset the routine of any of the players even though loyal fans had been let down by City's handling of the issue.
This was compounded by the fact my 9 year old kept asking 'Who's he' every time a 'City Legend' was presented and the same when the 'Future City legends' (George Evans & some other EDS dude) were presented. Ian Cheeseman revealed that just over 1700 City Circles were sold and that an estimated 1200 of us had turned out for the event. After an hour and a half we were guided by the City band over to the City Circle at the foot of the bridge for the official unveiling.
Me and my boy were too far back to see the unveiling and the fireworks that preceded it were a bit weak too. If this display were on a bonfire night it would have been considered a really poor display. Having said that, it was a normal Thursday night so setting east Manchester ablaze with fireworks would have probably just pissed off the locals.
After the fireworks we queued to view our City Circle and we found it easily enough after assistance from one of the club staff. I took some pictures of it and my lad asked if he could run over the bridge and back, which I allowed him to do. After taking more pictures of my boy he asked me was it all finished, I told him to ask one of the club staff who said yes it was, but that we could hang around for as long as we liked.
I asked my boy what he wanted to do and he said we might as well go home, so we headed off home. Whilst walking back to the car park, we spotted Peter Barnes taking pictures with some fans and my son asked who he was. I told him Barnes was my favourite City/England player during the 70's and that he went to a neighbouring school to me and grew up in Chorlton. My son asked if he could have a picture taken with him so I said sure, so we queued up. When it was our turn my son pulled a Sharpie pen out of his pocket and asked Peter to sign my son's City shirt which he did. Richard Edgehill was stood sheepishly to one side as all the fans seemed to be ignoring him, but after Peter signed my son's shirt I called Richard over and asked him to sign the shirt too which he was happy to do and then both Barnes and Edgehill posed for photo's with my son.
My son then asked who was the player the fans were queuing to see behind us and I said Paul Dickov. I explained how Dickov's equaliser in 1999 against Gillingham probably saved our club so my son said I want him to sign my shirt too. Whilst we were queuing for Dickov, my son spotted Big Andy Morrison posing for photo's and my son said excitedly 'There's that big guy who was on stage earlier, I want him to sign my shirt' so he walked out of the Dickov queue and went over to Andy Morrison who signed his shirt and posed for a photo with him. We then queued again for Dickov who did the same.
It was only then that I forgot about the mess the club had made of the City Circle and concentrated on the reason I bought into it in the first place. It was all about my son. I wanted something personal between us both that he could always go to look at and remember his dad and what City meant to both of us. At this point my boy was absolutely buzzing which made it all seem worthwhile and strangely better than if all the first team had shown up. My son had never paid any attention to any of our former players but for the first time, he was hearing stories from other fans present of how things used to be during my son's short lifetime so far.
As we finally began the walk to the car park, my son stopped at a picture of Colin Bell and asked me 'Who's he? Was he any good?' An elderly couple who were walking past at the same time stopped and spent a couple of minutes telling my boy about the legend that is Colin Bell. He was that impressed he insisted on having another picture taken in front of Bell's picture. He asked me afterwards 'Was he really that good dad?' I told him that many people felt that Najinsky was the best player ever to wear a City shirt and this has only ever been disputed since David Silva came to our club.
The boy was on cloud 9! On the way home he kept asking me to take charge of his shirt to make sure his Mum didn't wash it before we had a chance to frame it for him! Lol All said and done, this was always about my son and to see the happiness I'd brought to him made all the shit I've had to put up with over the City Circle throughout the last 3 years well worth while.
It could have and should have been a better experience, but at the end of the day, all's well that ends well.
