City's move to the Etihad

[Chris in London]

By the end I was glad about the move to COMS.

The Maine Rd stadium was a bit of a dog's breakfast by the end, and the area around was a bit seedy. The dog shit, human piss and chip trays in the alleyways was not pleasant.

It seemed strange to go to COMS to see City v TNS for the first match, but as soon as City came out of the tunnel onto the pitch I felt at home.

My real awakening I think as far as football stadia is concerned was Italia 90. We had been banned from Europe for 5 years since Heysel and shit grounds that were falling to bits were par for the course. It is not really a surprise that Heysel, Hillsborough and Bradford all happened within five years of each other.

And then we watched a world cup played in stadiums that were more like cathedrals of football than the rank death trap shitholes we were used to. It really opened my eyes to how football grounds could be, and how they were. My first city game the following season was an away match at Wimbledon's ground, plough lane, and by god the contrast was more pronounced than ever.

I share the view that Maine Road, for all it's wonderful memories, looked fucking awful by the end. I was glad to be moving to a wonderful ground of the sort I had hankered after ever since the summer of 1990.

And every single time I walk along Ashton New Road towards the ground I get a huge buzz that my club plays at that wonderful stadium.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Loved Maine Road as I grew up in Withington and first went there in 68 but was ready for a move. The last match against Saints was a typical City moment..a total anti-climax. To be honest I left for the pub before the music started and have never looked back.
I loved the new stadium from the first moment on that warm evening in the Barca friendly. It's a fantastic arena and its character has grown. I love drinking pre and post match in town (especially the Northern Quarter) and it's great that City fans have re-claimed our city centre (we owned it in the 70s and 80s) and essentially turned it into a rag-free zone.

 

[Gary James]

My real awakening I think as far as football stadia is concerned was Italia 90. We had been banned from Europe for 5 years since Heysel and shit grounds that were falling to bits were par for the course. It is not really a surprise that Heysel, Hillsborough and Bradford all happened within five years of each other.

And then we watched a world cup played in stadiums that were more like cathedrals of football than the rank death trap shitholes we were used to. It really opened my eyes to how football grounds could be, and how they were. My first city game the following season was an away match at Wimbledon's ground, plough lane, and by god the contrast was more pronounced than ever.

That's a really good point. Italia 90 did make you think 'wow, this is happening in a country we're supposed to be ahead of' (based on what the media told us for years) and yet our stadia were more about packing them in than making it a good environment to watch in.

I think with Maine Road the most visible sign of how the club had gone wrong under Swales & his supporting directors (never forget he only had about 10 shares for his first decade!) was the difference between the two end stands. The North Stand was the last great act of the pre-Swales Alexander inspired era and was, for its time, one of the leading stands in the country (widely acknowledged as one of the best at the time) and then 22 years later the first stand built by Swales (yes, I know he also had the main stand roof replaced - but not a new stand) was less than half the capacity of the stand it replaced and was really small-time.

I could go on, but a great leading stadium that had staged so many major landmarks, including being selected over Wembley to stage the first World Cup qualifying match in England, was turned into a heavily mortgaged small-time venue with no hope of ever being a leading venue once more.

The Etihad remains a vast improvement on those final years and the enlargement plans will improve its status further.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

That's a really good point. Italia 90 did make you think 'wow, this is happening in a country we're supposed to be ahead of' (based on what the media told us for years) and yet our stadia were more about packing them in than making it a good environment to watch in.

Funny how it's now the Italian stadiums looking anachronistic, under-invested and arguably dangerous( in part). Contemporaneous public safety, in terms of stadiums, follows the money, it would seem.

 

[Gary James]

That's a really good point. Italia 90 did make you think 'wow, this is happening in a country we're supposed to be ahead of' (based on what the media told us for years) and yet our stadia were more about packing them in than making it a good environment to watch in.

Funny how it's now the Italian stadiums looking anachronistic, under-invested and arguably dangerous( in part). Contemporaneous public safety, in terms of stadiums, follows the money, it would seem.

Possibly, and something we need to be aware of as time moves on.

 

[Blue Punter]

That's a really good point. Italia 90 did make you think 'wow, this is happening in a country we're supposed to be ahead of' (based on what the media told us for years) and yet our stadia were more about packing them in than making it a good environment to watch in.

Funny how it's now the Italian stadiums looking anachronistic, under-invested and arguably dangerous( in part). Contemporaneous public safety, in terms of stadiums, follows the money, it would seem.

Possibly, and something we need to be aware of as time moves on.

I was at a friends wedding in Verona and a few of us went to watch Chievo play Bologna almost 10 years ago to the day at the Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi. That was a stadium renovated for Italia 90. I thought it was a bit of a dump considering it'd only been refurbished 15 years earlier. It didn't compare favourably to the COMS. If we'd have still been at Maine Road I would've probably been blown away by it.

 

[laserblue]

I didn't have a problem with moving from Maine Road. In fact I was looking forward to it. Maine Road held a lot of memories for me but it was clearly too small and impractical to expand further. More significantly for me it was no longer the Maine Road that I knew and loved in my formative years as a City fan. When I first started going the ground had hardly been altered since it opened in 1923 apart from roofs on the Kippax and Platt Lane stands. I can remember as a kid being in the Platt Lane stand before it had seats. It was time to move and I seriously doubt there are any City fans now who truly regret it.

 

[Wilf Wild 1937]

I was all in favour of the move for the reasons others have outlined above, namely the size of Maine Road at the end due to it's
poor redevelopment and the fact that emotionally it had ceased to be Maine Road with the destruction of the old Kippax.

The one thing that made me really sad on the final day though was that we were saying goodbye to the home where we had
seen success in the past albeit a long time earlier. I remember watching Football Focus before going to the match and it said
"Today City say goodbye to Maine Road where they were twice champions of England" and thinking I bet we won't be able
to say that when we leave COMS in 80 years time. I bet we never win it there. We moved to Maine Road in 1923 and won the
FA Cup in 1934. So in 2003 in my own mind I set 2014 as the target date for our first trophy at the "new stadium".
I fully expected to be disappointed.

It's amazing how things have changed so quickly. As others have said we would never have been taken over if we had stayed at Maine Road.
I've supported City since I was a little kid in the Mercer-Allison era and have been going regularly since 1968-69 but I've got to say that
most of my positive memories of City have been at the Etihad. If I'm being honest Maine Road for me now looking back was really more
associated with failure and decline than success. For every LC semi-final win against Middlesborough in 1976 moment there were
two or three Luton 1983 moments. So do I miss Maine Road? I'd really like to stand on the Kippax one last time and see the
ground full with the old Platt Lane still in place but other than that no.

 

[Kakhaber Tskhadadze K.O.T.A.]

Although it was quite a few beers ago and memory is a bit foggy but didn't we have a vote as to whether we should move from Maine Road and wasn't it an overwhelming yes (I also seem to think that we all thought the the result was rigged).

 

[Manchester33]

I was all in favour of the move for the reasons others have outlined above, namely the size of Maine Road at the end due to it's
poor redevelopment and the fact that emotionally it had ceased to be Maine Road with the destruction of the old Kippax.

The one thing that made me really sad on the final day though was that we were saying goodbye to the home where we had
seen success in the past albeit a long time earlier. I remember watching Football Focus before going to the match and it said
"Today City say goodbye to Maine Road where they were twice champions of England" and thinking I bet we won't be able
to say that when we leave COMS in 80 years time. I bet we never win it there. We moved to Maine Road in 1923 and won the
FA Cup in 1934. So in 2003 in my own mind I set 2014 as the target date for our first trophy at the "new stadium".
I fully expected to be disappointed.

It's amazing how things have changed so quickly. As others have said we would never have been taken over if we had stayed at Maine Road.
I've supported City since I was a little kid in the Mercer-Allison era and have been going regularly since 1968-69 but I've got to say that
most of my positive memories of City have been at the Etihad. If I'm being honest Maine Road for me now looking back was really more
associated with failure and decline than success. For every LC semi-final win against Middlesborough in 1976 moment there were
two or three Luton 1983 moments. So do I miss Maine Road? I'd really like to stand on the Kippax one last time and see the
ground full with the old Platt Lane still in place but other than that no.

I get what you're saying, but I don't think we ever lifted the league trophy at Maine Road?

We won the League at St Andrews and at St James' didn't we?