Purely in terms of enjoyment, it's probably Gundogan vs Villa.
When Rodri scored, something clicked inside me and I just thought "Yeah, we've got this". I was no longer stressed about the outcome of the game because I could feel our winner coming before it happened. We'd suddenly woken up, found a rhythm, and Villa were folding. So when Gundogan did get the winner and I started celebrating like mad, I stopped myself and made a conscious decision to stand still, put my hands on my head, and take everything in.
RE: Aguero vs QPR, it was total chaos. The team had no rhythm, it came about because Sergio dropped deep for a one-two and Balotelli produced his one and only assist for City. Everything between Sergio scoring and the final whistle is a blur. As soon as the ball went in I was knocked over and my glasses came off. I found my glasses but stayed on my knees, protecting my head, until the jumping and screaming had stopped. I remember getting up and seeing Kolarov jumping on somebody's back near the dugout, then the final whistle blew.
My memories of the moment have all been filled in by TV pictures down the years.
On Sunday, apart from thinking Jesus had scored until "Ilkaaaay Gundogaaaan!" came over the stadium speakers, my memories are almost crystal clear. I felt the goal was coming before it even happened, it came via the usual means (De Bruyne cutting inside and playing it low to the back post for a tap-in), and I was calm enough once we'd scored to make a point of remembering how noisy the stadium was and how much everyone around me was beaming from ear to ear. All we had to do was see it out after that.
The main thing, though, is that not winning on Sunday would have been unfortunate and annoying but not the end of the world. We've already won loads of trophies, we've got Pep, Haaland is coming in. But in 2012, 2-1 down going into added time, that's the lowest I've ever felt at a City game. I couldn't fathom how we'd fucked it up so badly after beating United and Newcastle, and the idea of facing my United mates made me want to throw up. At that point, our credentials as a top side were still questioned and the "winning mentality" wasn't there yet.
I was (wrongly) convinced that, as one final, cruel shot of wicked irony, winning the FA Cup had been the biggest false dawn possible. The Premier League title was always going to elude us and it was always going to be United who pipped us to it. I'd only been alive for 17 of the 35 years we went without a trophy, but I'd still been that one child in a class of 30 at school who supported City. When QPR were winning, all I could think about was being 10 years old and having my City water bottle broken by a bunch of vile little shithead United fans at school.
Always the bridesmaid, so to speak.
When Gundogan scored against Villa, it was a season's worth of hard work going into one shot. When Aguero scored, though, it was an entire lifetime's worth of pain (plus an afternoon of feeling devastatingly nauseous with depression) going into one single moment. When Gundogan scores, the cheers have already started because we can all see it coming and we're enjoying the moment before it's even happened. When Aguero pulls his leg back to shoot, however, you can hear the entire stadium hold its breath.
We'll never know, thankfully, but choking in that game might have scarred us permanently and derailed the Abu Dhabi project. We were able to claw our way back to winning the title in 2014 because we'd done it before; we were able to claw our way back to winning the title in 2019 because we'd come back twice already. We were able to come back against Villa because we all remembered Aguero vs QPR. I think choking in 2012 might have convinced us that winning the Premier League was never possible. We'd had a lifetime of being plucky losers in United's shadow and the inferiority complex might have grown too large.
It took Liverpool so long to recover from losing the title race in 1991 that every time they got close to winning the league after that (2002, 2009, 2014), they completely shat the bed. I remember speaking to a Liverpool fan in 2014 who said "It'll be years before we get another chance to win it now - this was our big chance and we fucked it". Given the natural state of pessimism most City fans find themselves in, an event like losing the league in 2012 might have meant we shat it in 2014 and beyond.
Aguero vs QPR remains the only time I've ever cried like a baby at a football match. When they brought the "PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS 2011-12" podium out onto the pitch from the service tunnel, I burst into floods of tears. I remember a bunch of Bluemooners going to Sam's funeral a few weeks afterwards (Gaudino's Stolen Car, for those who remember) and saying to each other "I don't care if we never win anything ever again, we've just seen the best it can possibly get". We went from the lowest of lowest to the highest of highs.
In some ways, it's quite sad to know we'll never feel those kinds of emotional extremes again. But I believe in the philosophy that you shouldn't cry because it's over, you should smile because it happened. As such, I was able to enjoy our comeback against Villa so much because, the way I see it, we've already had our best ever and we're already set for life with amazing memories that 99% of football fans never get to experience. Gundogan scoring is special, and I've watched the goal 100 times already, but it's not Aguero vs QPR, is it?
More enjoyable, less stressful, but nowhere near as cathartic.
