Fascinating situation.
City have always been my 2nd team (since 1976?) when they thrashed Man Utd 4-0 (glory hunter maybe?). Loved that. Lived in Crewe then, quite a few City but mostly Rags or Scousers and Stoke.
Have posted occasionally on here, but sorry I was brought up in Wolverhampton and family from there too so unfortunately as I grew up I plumped for Wolves rather than City. What a mistake that was eh (:-.
What I have always admired about City is their (by comparison) local support. Everyone admires this. Even the FA Cup final last season emphasised that this was still the case. It was a tremendously satisfying game to watch as an outsider and see clips of cockneys supporting London-Irish and Mancs supporting the Blues.
When Wolves were in the lower leagues, and I am sure this was replicated in every town, it seemed like the place was infested with Man Utd and Liverpool glory hunters, to the point that Wolves fans in Wolverhampton were in the minority. Especially impoverished inner city areas, BME concentration too. To some degree that is still the case.
But now 90% of kids support Wolves. One huge change though is the apparent decline of man Utd fans locally. If they were on Sky for a game, 15 years ago a pub locally would be packed out with them. These days we watched a game last season, and one lad gave an little cheer amongst perhaps 50 watching. Man Utd are definitely on the decline which is great, but I don't want City to go that way even if it is perhaps inevitable. Having said that, when me and my son, went to watch Wolves away at Fulham last year (bless him he has never seen us win away in 21 attempts), we were stood at Euston waiting to catch our train back. The Manchester derby train pulled into Euston, and around 1,000 Man Utd fans got off. Not a single City fan. We just stood there laughing at them. Love it when Wolves play them and the South bank sings "You only live round the corna", or "Mourinho's right, ya fans are shite".
Its great that City are now appealing to more and more with no links to Manchester, but I also really don't want this to happen. But it is inevitable of course and can't be controlled by anyone. Either way, Man Utds decline outside London and Ireland is a joy to see, at least at present.
In all fairness, I know Man Utd have strong support in Manchester, but City must really be turning the tide these days. You deserve every lovely moment of that.
Loads of mixed messages in my post, just random thoughts. Sorry to intrude.