There are a certain type of City "fan" who seemed to revell in our ineptitude. It's as if they wore our innate shiteness as a badge of honour. "Yeah, but I supported us in League One" or "I've been around since Swales destroyed the club in the 1980's". It's as if they enjoy being able to claim, despite the poor standard of football on display and the complete lack of professionalism shown by the chairman and directors, they follow the club. Our current situation has come about so fast, and is so alien to most City fans, that they are struggling to cope. They feel the club they knew no longer exists, and in a way their right. What they're failing to grasp is the reason it doesn't exist is that it has transformed itself into an altogether better entity. We are now run with professionalism and ability, we have finances that we could never have dreamed of, and we're doing what every other club wishes they could, building for success.
People like Shindler can't, and won't, get it. They pine for the "good old days" when they could cling to City's failures juxtaposed with their loyalty and use it to bolster their pride. They can't see past their own nostalgic views and recognise that City are a football club that has embraced the modern game. We have found the only way open to football teams in the modern era to become competitive, and that's to court investment on a huge scale. Shinawatra wasn't the best solution, he came with bravado and promises he couldn't actually deliver. However his tenure wasn't totally unsuccessful and I'm in no doubt without him we wouldn't be in our current situation. ADUG are the perfect owners, financial solvent (in the extreme), socially aware, historically respectful and professionally qualified. Some may find their spending to be uncouth, but that attitude is either monumentally naive or stupendously jealous depending on the source.
One has to wonder whether Mr Shindler would have been so veciferous in his distain for our recent developments had Manchester City been purchased by a stunningly wealthy British businessman. Keeping everything else the same, the professionalism, the financial clout and the respectful nature with which the fans have been treated but having multi-billionnaire "John Smith" as the owner and I feel confident in saying Mr Shindler's perspective may be somewhat different.
I'm not saying his standpoint is inherently anti-muslim, which would be easy to do given his religious background, I'm saying it's the well known British trait of being distrusting of anything that isn't the same as us. It could have been a Middle Eastern company, and American company or an East Asian company that took control of City and I believe Mr Shindler would have had similar issues to those he currently has. He's of the opinion that English football clubs should be run by English football owners, and he's not the only one. Sepp Blatter too has expressed his dissatisfaction with the foreign ownership of English clubs. British law has no control over the nationality of who can own a British company, this is not the same in Italy, Spain, Germany etc where over 50% of a domestically based and registered company must be owned by domestic entities.
Essentially Shindler is living in the past, he can't progress as he's too set in his own ways and, as with a number of members of the older generation, he's also ever so slightly bigotted. He'd never admit it mind.
