it was my mecca for 40 years, as a boy i would stick by match of the day to get my fix of city, which prompts the question that why i never had a bedtime or it seemed that way, anyway i digress, it was the sunday paper and the football pink where we would gleam any info about the city fall and rise of the mid 60's.
i remember my elder brother and our dad being "old enough" to go to the games and i wasn't, truth was that we were skint and they couldn't take me.my brother even went to away games and it wasn't rotten fair.
once i was 11 my brother now 17 went in the navy and whilst on leave he took to maine road, it was 1965 and joe and malc had been installed. i was mesmerised, i was sold on city hook line and sinker.this is a time with no laptops, game cubes etc, as a boy i was star struck at seeing buzzer, young and johnny crossan (lee and bell were yet to arrive)in the flesh.
maine road was buzzing, it was a football ground, not a stadium, not a bowl, a football ground.everyone was skint, everyone working class, it was the sole entertainment and release for people with proper jobs who grafted through long hours to bring up a family and then keep a little back for the visit to city.it seemed to mean so much more back then.
as i daydreamed in to playing for city i would drift off thinking "if they were just one short" and they pull me out of the crowd, of course madness but i was 11 and city were everything to me.
i would look over to the kippax from the platt lane stand drooling over the time i could be allowed to go in there and of course stand up and sing my heart out, although eternally grateful to our kid i didn't want to sit on what seemed like a park bench to watch the game, to his credit and his mates they were only in the platt lane cos our mam insisted on it if he was taking me to the game.not one of them grumbled that they were in the boring stand cos of me, maybe they did but they didn't let on.they even gave me a cig, now i know i am grown up, i've made it, i'm a big lad now, except the cig made me heave and go dizzy so after two drags i with a "green" face handed it back with some embarrassment. best move ever.
of course as time moved on and greatness came to my team i made the journey to the kippax, got to away games and even a few wembley's.i watched our team and ground develop, we were world beaters at one point and the thought of the decline was unthinkable.its been a roller coaster and though maine road saw some bloody awful games and disappointments it was still our home, nothing and i mean nothing could dampen the excitement of going to the ground on match day. the rows of buses back and forth to aytoun st, the closeness of the players during the game, the characters like buzzer who talked to the supporters during the game was all in on a weekly basis.
the last game at maine road cut me up, the result meant fuck all, the memories though of when me mam and dad and brother would take an excited kid along with them means everything to me.
it always will.
my kids will probably feel the same about eastlands one day...........
.........but i doubt it.
