I grew up playing football (soccer :)), but where I'm from (North Dakota) it's just an entirely different world. I played two months of the year and quit by the time I was 11 or 12 as my friends didn't want to play anymore. I would become what I suppose you could call a "World Cup fan" and I assume that started in '94. I got into FIFA on the 32/64 bit consoles and perhaps there was some foreshadowing into my future love of the sport when I purchased Ultimate Soccer Manager in the late 90's. I played a lot of the football simulations in the late 90's/early 2000s, but finally ran across Championship Manager/FM in 2004. Initially it was a bit overwhelming for me, but I became absolutely addicted to the game in 2006 and I've purchased every iteration since.
I'm a more than casual fan of many sports and I follow pretty much all of the local Minnesota/Minneapolis teams in some capacity. When I decided to adopt a Premier League club there was nothing even comparable around me - I'm literally hundreds of miles away from the nearest big city and Minneapolis only had a 2nd division club that didn't televise matches and I can only assume had a very speculative online presence. A struggling student that wants to start following footie does not then decide to drive 500 miles roundtrip to follow a club that was most likely going to plunder. Instead, he buys a cable TV package for the first time to take advantage of Fox Soccer Channel. That would allow me to watch at least a handful of matches of the same club (omg wow!!1) over the course of a season.
My join date will always make me feel a bit uncomfortable, but it is when I started following the club. However, I didn't choose City because they were recently bought by the Sheikh and were destined for glory. I didn't know anything about the takeover before my decision was made, I didn't know about Robinho, and I sure as hell didn't know City were going to become one of the largest clubs in the world. I don't consider myself a glory hunter at all, that's just not what happened. The number one factor in my decision to follow the club was because by default I was supposed to choose United and I decided to do the opposite. The rags are the New York Yankees equivalent and I fucking hate the Yankees. I also loved the sky blue of city's kits. That's really how it started and I will not be apologizing for it going down that way anytime soon. :)
Fast forward a bit and I have to believe I'm one of the biggest American superfans of the club. I will do whatever it takes to catch any City match. I once spent 10 dollars so I could download our preseason match against AC Millan from a file sharing site and over the years I have spent thousands on satellite TV. Before CityWatch was around I followed 'The Lonesome Death of Roy Carroll' blog by Jack Pitt-Brooke. Speaking of CityWatch, it caused me to sign up for Twitter, which is something I thought I would never do. And it's the only account I follow. I have to avoid spoilers like you wouldn't believe, we all have to over here. I work a regular hours job and avoiding the European results is especially treacherous. I'm a single dad of a young one and often have to watch our league matches late at night after she has gone to bed. Doing these kinds of things involves me having to turn off Twitter notifications, avoid Blue Moon, and not click on half of my Chrome favorites.
I've only met one person that I can talk about football with face to face - imagine that! He's a recent co-worker of mine and lucky for me he's an Arsenal fan. I have been giving him grief over Sanchez even before his interest became apparent. I streamed the Vodacom Challenge, I've listened to many FA cup matches on BBC Radio, and I've paid hundreds of dollars in shipping-only to get apparel from the official City store.
I wouldn't ask the longtime local fans to take me in as their own, but to only accept me for what I am and know what the club means to me. I didn't grow up with it, but it's become a gigantic part of my life and who I am now. And unless my internet is choked off there is nothing that will change that - CTID. If my poor ass ever makes it over there I hope I can shake hands with many of you.
