I think, especially after watching part 2, that what virtually all journalists and rival fans (and even a few on here) don’t quite ‘get’ is that City aren’t run like any other football club in world football.
Football, naturally enough given the emotion it engenders in everyone, has always been run on the basis of “what will win us our next game/ what will get us through to the end of the season”. Our owners have never taken that view. From day one it has always been a seriously long term view, decades into the future.
Football, particularly English football, just did not recognise that level of forward thinking. This country had fallen into the trap, for many years, of believing that football was always going to be a fait accompli. One of United, Liverpool, Arsenal, and at a pinch Chelsea, were always going to win the biggest prizes. For sure there may occasionally be a bone thrown to the masses with a FA cup/league cup shock - it keeps them coming back - but ultimately the game was sewn up for the Sky four.
And as an industry, this was not just accepted, but celebrated. There just wasn’t the ability to imagine an outsider with the wherewithal to hijack this cosy little club. And when City came along not only was this NOT celebrated, it was dismissed. And then targeted. And they’ve been trying to destroy us ever since. Everyone involved in any capacity with the game in this country, fans, owners, media, journalists, everyone, simply did not and still does not, have the mental capacity to understand that City weren’t just trying to win a league or two, they are purposely disrupting the game.
This lack of understanding lead directly to the charges. From the PL, they are simply a case of “kill them. Literally kill this football club. We cannot allow the also rans to be given ideas above the station we have given them.”
From everyone else, lead by the hateful English media, it isnt jealousy, or embedded fans of United/other clubs, it is simple ignorance of what HHSM is building. They just don’t understand the concept of building a football club from the ground up with a view that stretches 30 or 40 years into the distance. Because that’s never been done in the modern game.
Clubs and fans have been conditioned to accept that if they’re not one of the “big four” ( remember that term?) then their role is to be grateful for the odd point at old Trafford/anfield, and back home on the coach you go. See you next year.
And like sufferers of Stockholm syndrome they have embraced it. So much so that instead of looking at City and thinking “we could do with owners like that” they look at City and think “we need to get rid of these, they’re ruining the game”. The game that gave them fuck all and patted them on the head every season as one of the originals hoovered up most of the trophies and almost all the money.
We won’t change their minds in my lifetime, it will take decades.
So instead we’ll get to watch them torture themselves in Plymouth, derby, Middlesbrough, Ipswich et al as we continue to grow. And fuck them. I despise the also rans more than I do “the big four”. Because I despise rank stupidity.
Oh, and anyone watching part two who still has ANY doubt that we have/are going to shortly, win the charges case, watch it again. Does anybody seriously think this man and the men he represents has had any need or desire to act in a grubby manner? It’s more simple than that. He’s been operating far beyond their level of knowledge for years now and because they cannot fathom how a club like city could grow so far and so fast they have fallen back on the old comfort blanket “they must have cheated”. Because the truth is even more terrifying for them. “They’re cleverer than we thought and they decided they weren’t going to settle for the odd crumb”
Fuck them all. I can’t wait for the announcement day.
