Blue Tuesday (Lakey's question): Derby Day defining moments!

The 5-1.
I played in the Manchester Saturday Morning league. We played and got beat (again) at our home ground in Sale. From there a group of seven of us (two blues, four rags and a Rangers supporter) went to one of the rags houses in Stretford, dropped our kit off and went for a chippy dinner. From there the seven of us jumped into two taxi's and went to a pub at the top of Dickinson Road. A few bevies were sunk and then we walked to the ground. It was a fabulous sunny day and I remember thinking this is what football should be about, everyone mixing together. We arranged a meeting point for after the match and split up.
The feeling of nerves as the game started was incredible and made even worse with the crowd trouble in the North Stand. What a game, I was in my usual spot on the kippax towards the away supporters, so at the right end for Blue Ripple's square pass for Oldfield's tap in and Hinchy's bullet header.
We all met after the game and one of the rags, Matt, who looked absolutely gutted, shook my hand and said "well done"

Now this is the defining moment for me. The seven of us fell into a pub at the top of Claremont road and we were all sat round this table. I was just sat there stunned into silence whilst one of the rags was collapsed across the table. He looked up at me, his beer untouched. He had tears in his eyes and he said "I don't fucking believe it" and then burst out crying.............................Absoulutely magnificent
 
The last ever derby game at Maine Road. We hadn't beaten them for so long, it almost felt like we never would. I was lucky enough to be taking a customer, who was also a mate and his wife in the corporate suite but with a ticket in the stand as we both hate being behind a glass box .

On the morning of the game he rang to tell me his wife was unwell and would it be OK to bring his 86 year old Grandad. I said of course and arranged to meet him inside. When I got there his Grandad had a look in his eyes of absolute wonder, he couldnt believe that the food and ale were free and was soon piling into everything in between amazing tales of when he used to watch City in the 40's, 50's & 60's. Turns out he was a bit of a rum 'un back in the day.

As the match got underway, I began to feel that this was our time and when we went 1-0 up the place erupted. Then of course, the moment that changed modern derby games happened. The obnoxious Gary Chuckle had been mouthing it off all week about how he would never play in a losing derby side. When he gave the ball to Goater, the joy spread around the ground before big Shaun had even stuck it in the back of the net. the sound was deafening and my friends Grandfather was leading the celebrations.

As the sound eventually died a little, Neville came over to make a tackle near the main stand an old man approximately 3 feet to my left could be heard to shout.

"you big daft bugger, you should have kept your mouth shut you useless bastard"

Cue laughter all round and shouts of "you tell him Grandad".

An amazing day that will live with me forever.
 
Its the 5-1 Derby. My first one. We gets in the ground, spank those bastards and then Helen takes us in the player's lounge and our kid's spent the whole night preparing an A4 sheet of paper with our badge on one side for the autographs to go on and one side for those bastards. We gets in the lounge after the game (courtesy of Helen - RIP) and get every blue autograph (including yours Lakey) and only Danny Wallace and Paul Ince signed it for them bastards as they were the only ones who showed their ugly mugs). Then me and Dave, who used to go to the games with Helen, got to watch the MOTD highlights at the ground with the cameraman who had those tracks that ran along the side of the ground. Best. Day. Ever. Oh, and Helen hitting some rag fan in the North Stand with her bell when it kicked off was pretty good too.

PS: If you do read this one out you can edit the swearing out. Replace bastards with arses or summat.
 
Hi Paul---------THE one for me has to April 1974----Denis Law's backheel goal at Old Trafford.He was my favourite City player as kid before we flogged him to Torino,and i was really pig sick when he came back to England and signed for United.I was in the ground with some United friends from work[the only way i could get a ticket]----so had to keep a very' 'low profile' when he scored.I remember glowing silently with satisfaction that my hero had nailed the bastards to division 2 and quietly chuckled when some rags invaded the pitch to get the match abandoned.A lasting memory is that all the players were running off the pitch except Mick doyle who stood his ground and looked as if was willing to take on the entire Stretford end!-------The pathetic end to this story is that my 'mates' were so cheesed off they buggered off in their car and left me to walk home.Later met some Blues in the Abercrombie and after a few beers we all thought " what a defining Derby Day moment' or summat like that!!!!!
 
gotta be uggerly spawn of neville neville feeding thew goat for me....altho our fans did us proud on rememberence sunday
 
going back to the wilkie pen? they reckon that he was got too, before the game? as it was the first united game he officiated since the cantona kung foo kick? people were saying it was a sweetener, the guy is nothing but a coward for that decision? the first derby i went too was 1967 at maine road lost 2 goals to 1 bell then charlton got 2? highlight of that game was brian kidd and stan bowles fighting on the touchline? but little did we blues know what was about to unravel at old trafford, that season? they expected to wipe the floor with us? best scored after 30 seconds, then we just totally wiped united out with goals from bell heslop and lee won pen? probably the greatest derby result ever, the reason it put us 2 points in front with about 4 games left to win the championship, its not just beating united its beating them at the right time? it should be interesting to see who the referee is and which way favours as i think that will tell at the end of next sunday???
 
Y'know what Lakey, for an ex-footy player you've got some literary chops. When's the book looking at coming out?

Anyway, the derby week is always my worst of the season. From the moment the game before finishes, all thoughts turn to it. I spend most of the week thinking about tactics, about our chances, about the matches of years gone by; the 5-1, the 5-0. It's the most nerve-racking weeks of the year, and I have butterflies in my stomach every day, which increase in intensity as the fateful day draws closer. During my degree, I used to take the Thursday and Friday off beforehand, as I couldn't face the snidey rag bastards I went to Uni with, and all their stupid chants.

The derby is horrific and exhilirating. A once in a lifetime event, twice a season.

The one thing that sums up my whole feeling on derby day was this:

A couple of seasons ago, I had a ticket to OT to watch the derby. Unfortunately, my girlfriend at the time had booked/paid for a holiday for us as a gift and refused to move it. I dumped her. If she couldn't understand why a South Manchester lad who grew up surrounded by rags wanted to go to watch us stuff them at OT in front of going to a foreign country and sitting in the sun, then she wasn't the girl for me.

The derby is just another game, in the same ways that the Mona Lisa is a bit of colours on some paper, and the Pyramids are a few bricks thrown together.

The rags quite often say to me "it's your cup final", like that is some sort of insult. I always reply, "oh no lads, it's much more important than that'.

The media says it's about 'bragging rights', the rags say it's 'a cup final', but both of those cockneys don't understand. It's our revenge for their constant posturing over the course of the season, their constant defence of the indefendable, their fascination with conspiracies concerning the media, their worship of a crap French thug as their greatest player, their support of a drunken scotsman who consistently brings the game in to disrepute, their Asian and American 'marketing strategies', their removal of the words Football Club, their 14 minutes extra time in games that they are getting beat at, their accusations of buying the title without a hint of irony, their delusion about their history as a HUGE European great (despite the fact they were recently outside the top ten of FIFA's greatest clubs of the 20th Century list), their insistence that 50,000 fans in OT every week are born and bred Mancs, their 'knowledgable' take on football despite the fact that they have never been near the Second Division and have no clue how football is played outside the Prem, their nomadic nature to the point where they now have no connection with the area they are in, their deninal over the true colour of Manchester, their whinging at not winning a trophy in a year, their Fergie Out chants a couple of seasons ago, their Glazer protests that have convienently shut up now they've been successful, their comments on us living outside our means despite the fact that they are £699 million in debt, their chants about City at European away games while saying that we don't matter to them, their banners about us at OT, their employment of David Gill as anything but a court jester, their world beating youth policy that has produced Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher and their constant, constant arrogance about the state of football and their effects on it.

For two days a year, we get to shut their fucking mouths and show them what a real football club is all about.
 
The 3-1 in 1968. I was 14 and I'd never seen us win a derby before. God did we play well that night.

I still remember the complete silence around me on the way out of the ground. A huge crowd of red zombies, all utterly miserable. I didn't dare say a word, but my heart was singing!
 
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