Big Steve has nailed it. This disconnect between the club and the fans has been slowly rumbling along the tracks and getting stronger season by season until it's now hit the buffers. Enough is enough and action has to be taken, or everything we loved about supporting this football club will be finished for good. Bizarrely the one thing we all fear/ed the most, losing the 115 charges case, could be the best thing to happen to us if we do lose it. Why? Because there will be a clear out in the boardroom, the glory hunting Johnny come lately fans online and who go to the games will fuck off and once more the club will need us, the ones who were there in the old third division. Only then will they realise we were and are the glue that held and holds this shit together.
My wake up call that the club probably didn't give a shit about the fans started much earlier than this season. It was Wednesday 21st October 2015. Some of you may remember it, that night we beat Seville in the champions league with a late Kevin De Bruyne winner in injury time. It was also the night, without being over dramatic, I could have lost my life.
I was still working then and had just finished a gruelling 84 hour week onboard the ship. I left Dover late morning, arriving back into Manchester around 18:00. After a quick bite to eat in Piccadilly station I went straight to the game. On leaving at the final whistle I slipped on that horrendous ice rink new flooring that had been laid in the south stand and ended up in Salford Royal with a bleed on the brain. On blues and two's to Manchester Royal infirmary who transferred me to Salford Royal once the bleed was discovered on a scan. I posted my story on here at the time.
When I got back home I contacted the club as I realised something had to be done urgently to rectify the inadequate flooring in that area before somebody actually died. I certainly wasn't the first to fall on it. I was told that falling on the front of my head rather than the back probably saved me as the front part of the skull is thicker than the back. I was given the email for the fan liaison officer at the time, I won't name her in this post. I explained what had happened and asked to.meet her and show her the danger that flooring posed. I got no reply. I had a rant on here, Ric saw it and kindly contacted her on my behalf and she responded. Although still signed off sick as I wasn't 100% right I told her I was attending the next home game against Norwich on the 31st October and could meet and speak to her then. She told me couldn't as she was busy, then she was going to Seville for the return leg of the fixture i was injured at. She promised to contact me on her return but never did. To say I was incensed would be putting it mildly. As the club obviously didn't give a fuck about my health or the health of others I decided to take legal advice. The end result of that was after a long and stressful four year legal battle they settled with me out of court.
On the day I asked to meet her, the Norwich game, I stood on that very same concourse and watched three other people fall heavily as they too slipped on it. I told them all what had happened to me and urged them to report it but I never know if they did. Eventually City did an investigation on that area and discovered the paint used on it wasn't mixed properly and therefore it wasn't non slip as it was supposed to be. Not non slip was an understatement, it was like an ice rink even when dry. They eventually relaid it but in my opinion took too long and they were lucky somebody didn't actually die in the time it took them to rectify it. Before they did I saw many others fall victim to it. I have never received an apology from the club for the pain and trauma they caused me that night due to them not ensuring that flooring was laid correctly before allowing fans to walk on it. Zilch, nothing.
Sorry for the long post but that night was the first time I realised we are all just a number and aside from lip service and not wanting to.look bad they really don't give a fuck. Now it appears they're not even bothered about looking bad. Sad times indeed.
