BTH
Well-Known Member
It’s about 4 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, 22 January, 1976. My mother and I are on the 101 returning from town. We both instinctively look up Bowes Street towards Maine Road. “See if you can see a ball over the roof,” my mother suggests unhelpfully. Even with my Maine Road debut 10 months off, I know that no-one could kick a ball that high and besides, Steve Redmond was only nine years old at the time! Brian Kidd famously scored four that day, with Mike Doyle getting the odd one. I wasn’t there, but even at the age of ten I knew I wanted to be at Maine Road. Every week. When I’m older, I thought…
A few years later, I bought a season ticket for the Kippax: eight quid. EIGHT QUID! Or was it six? Anyway, my father was never a fan. Literally. “There’s too much trouble, so you’re not going.” He was right, of course. There was too much trouble and I wasn’t going… well, not as often as I would have liked. I got to go to some and then most, but not all. And he wasn’t interested in watching City. “One Book and 11 comics” was another one of his popular refrains. It was odd because all of his family were Blues and, with the exception of Frank Swift and Bert Trautmann – both of whom he idolised – he had no time for the rest. When I’m older, I must have thought…
Fast forward to Saturday, January 9, 1982. A crowd of 31,941 saw City draw 1-1 against Stoke, with Trevor Francis netting our goal. I wasn’t among them. The memory of what I occupied myself with instead on that particular afternoon two thirds of a lifetime ago has long since faded and so I’ve no idea why I didn’t go. When I’m older, I would have thought…
But I do know that it was the last game I missed. At home, at any rate. Maine Road was always a magical place, especially if we were at home on the first day of the season. Especially if the sun was shining, which it normally was. Rushing to the top of the Kippax, you knew that that perfect playing pitch would never look so good again, all season. Maine Road put on its top hat and tails for the start of the season, especially if Peter Swales had dug deep for a few pots of paint during the close season, and it had a romantic beauty that the vastly superior Etihad Stadium cannot begin to emulate.
Having said that, I’ve seen some rubbish. Rubbish players and rubbish managers, rubbish games and rubbish crowds. Three summer games against three of Jamaica, Sunderland, Cardiff or Sheffield Wednesday. All ended 0-0 and all were instantly forgettable, hence my memory failing me with regard to the teams. Three or four thousand for Simod Cup games, not many more for Ken Barnes’ second testimonial and next to no-one against Mansfield in the Auto Windscreens trophy.
For a long time I’ve lived by Robert Browning’s maxim that “A minute's success pays the failure of years” for that’s how we used to measure our success: in minutes. But who wouldn’t endure a season or two of failure to see the rags thrashed 5-1 and in such devastating fashion that Paul Ince and Danny Wallace (as memory serves) got left behind, such was their coach driver’s haste to effect a getaway? Or to watch the comprehensive 10-1 demolition job on Huddersfield, even if they did beat us 1-0 in the return game?
Certainly there’s been more famines than feasting and as the years have clocked up in those near three decades, I’ve become an expert at avoiding things: primarily weddings, holidays and jobs. You name it, I’ve missed it! It amazes me when people I know reasonably well even bother to invite me to their weddings when they know City are playing at home or even if they may be playing, including my own brother. Although there was no game to miss in the end, that was another wedding I missed!
I had a close call 20 years ago when my best mate named the day, when City were due to be playing Southampton. No end of arm-twisting could get him to change the time, never mind the date! Mercifully, the wedding fell through and City promptly lost 1-0, but at least I was there to see it.
When he did eventually get married (to someone else, I hasten to add) I was there, as City were away at Reading. I missed the stag do though as City were away at Colchester – a one-off match and unlikely to be repeated. Even so, my ex wasn’t impressed. “You and your bloody record,” she’d say. I wouldn’t mind, but she was a City fan and a season ticket holder too. I thought she, of all people, would understand. But she didn’t. She had to go.
Besides, I can go to a wedding any time. Or on holiday. Why people go on holiday between August and May is beyond me, although I did book a flight to Australia once for the weekend after the Cup Final, before the hot, sticky feeling of realisation descended on me that we were actually playing Chelsea at home that day due to the FA’s brainwave to have the Final during the season. And not for the last time either. A frantic ’phone call to Trailfinders saved the day.
Although Sky’s warped thinking that every night is a football night has really buggered things up in the last two decades. In the past I’d just walk out of the interview when they even suggested working on a Saturday. Thanks, ta-ra! Needless to say, I’ve never had a shop job. And it’s worked, Thus far.
But there’s tomorrow. Tomorrow’s different… Tomorrow. I. Can’t. Go. To. The. Match.
There. I’ve said it. And that’s all there is to it. I’ve got a prior commitment that I have to go to. Someone will be sitting in my beautiful blue bucket seat, but it won’t be me.
I knew I’d run out of steam eventually or hit the buffers. But I thought it might have been in glorious fashion at least: laid low with an insanely rare strain of some tropical disease with the cream of the BMA fussing over me and sending daily bulletins to the Duke of Edinburgh, or shipwrecked on a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean after being Shanghaied in some obscure port whilst on a rare holiday. Plus it might have helped if it had been a League Cup game against Coventry or Norwich etc.
But not, please not our first ever Champions’ League game, against Napoli. Come on! That can’t be right, can it? I don’t know what’s gone wrong! The rags have been at home on Wednesdays for years while we’ve been fobbed off with Tuesdays in our secondary role as the noisy neighbours (nee poor relations). I could scream at the colossal injustice of it all. And I probably will do tomorrow night when I find out that City have won by a hatful, as I hope they do (but please lads, no more than nine! That I couldn’t bear.). And then maybe I’ll ring my brother up and apologise for missing his wedding – even if he isn’t with her any more…
A few years later, I bought a season ticket for the Kippax: eight quid. EIGHT QUID! Or was it six? Anyway, my father was never a fan. Literally. “There’s too much trouble, so you’re not going.” He was right, of course. There was too much trouble and I wasn’t going… well, not as often as I would have liked. I got to go to some and then most, but not all. And he wasn’t interested in watching City. “One Book and 11 comics” was another one of his popular refrains. It was odd because all of his family were Blues and, with the exception of Frank Swift and Bert Trautmann – both of whom he idolised – he had no time for the rest. When I’m older, I must have thought…
Fast forward to Saturday, January 9, 1982. A crowd of 31,941 saw City draw 1-1 against Stoke, with Trevor Francis netting our goal. I wasn’t among them. The memory of what I occupied myself with instead on that particular afternoon two thirds of a lifetime ago has long since faded and so I’ve no idea why I didn’t go. When I’m older, I would have thought…
But I do know that it was the last game I missed. At home, at any rate. Maine Road was always a magical place, especially if we were at home on the first day of the season. Especially if the sun was shining, which it normally was. Rushing to the top of the Kippax, you knew that that perfect playing pitch would never look so good again, all season. Maine Road put on its top hat and tails for the start of the season, especially if Peter Swales had dug deep for a few pots of paint during the close season, and it had a romantic beauty that the vastly superior Etihad Stadium cannot begin to emulate.
Having said that, I’ve seen some rubbish. Rubbish players and rubbish managers, rubbish games and rubbish crowds. Three summer games against three of Jamaica, Sunderland, Cardiff or Sheffield Wednesday. All ended 0-0 and all were instantly forgettable, hence my memory failing me with regard to the teams. Three or four thousand for Simod Cup games, not many more for Ken Barnes’ second testimonial and next to no-one against Mansfield in the Auto Windscreens trophy.
For a long time I’ve lived by Robert Browning’s maxim that “A minute's success pays the failure of years” for that’s how we used to measure our success: in minutes. But who wouldn’t endure a season or two of failure to see the rags thrashed 5-1 and in such devastating fashion that Paul Ince and Danny Wallace (as memory serves) got left behind, such was their coach driver’s haste to effect a getaway? Or to watch the comprehensive 10-1 demolition job on Huddersfield, even if they did beat us 1-0 in the return game?
Certainly there’s been more famines than feasting and as the years have clocked up in those near three decades, I’ve become an expert at avoiding things: primarily weddings, holidays and jobs. You name it, I’ve missed it! It amazes me when people I know reasonably well even bother to invite me to their weddings when they know City are playing at home or even if they may be playing, including my own brother. Although there was no game to miss in the end, that was another wedding I missed!
I had a close call 20 years ago when my best mate named the day, when City were due to be playing Southampton. No end of arm-twisting could get him to change the time, never mind the date! Mercifully, the wedding fell through and City promptly lost 1-0, but at least I was there to see it.
When he did eventually get married (to someone else, I hasten to add) I was there, as City were away at Reading. I missed the stag do though as City were away at Colchester – a one-off match and unlikely to be repeated. Even so, my ex wasn’t impressed. “You and your bloody record,” she’d say. I wouldn’t mind, but she was a City fan and a season ticket holder too. I thought she, of all people, would understand. But she didn’t. She had to go.
Besides, I can go to a wedding any time. Or on holiday. Why people go on holiday between August and May is beyond me, although I did book a flight to Australia once for the weekend after the Cup Final, before the hot, sticky feeling of realisation descended on me that we were actually playing Chelsea at home that day due to the FA’s brainwave to have the Final during the season. And not for the last time either. A frantic ’phone call to Trailfinders saved the day.
Although Sky’s warped thinking that every night is a football night has really buggered things up in the last two decades. In the past I’d just walk out of the interview when they even suggested working on a Saturday. Thanks, ta-ra! Needless to say, I’ve never had a shop job. And it’s worked, Thus far.
But there’s tomorrow. Tomorrow’s different… Tomorrow. I. Can’t. Go. To. The. Match.
There. I’ve said it. And that’s all there is to it. I’ve got a prior commitment that I have to go to. Someone will be sitting in my beautiful blue bucket seat, but it won’t be me.
I knew I’d run out of steam eventually or hit the buffers. But I thought it might have been in glorious fashion at least: laid low with an insanely rare strain of some tropical disease with the cream of the BMA fussing over me and sending daily bulletins to the Duke of Edinburgh, or shipwrecked on a tiny atoll in the Pacific Ocean after being Shanghaied in some obscure port whilst on a rare holiday. Plus it might have helped if it had been a League Cup game against Coventry or Norwich etc.
But not, please not our first ever Champions’ League game, against Napoli. Come on! That can’t be right, can it? I don’t know what’s gone wrong! The rags have been at home on Wednesdays for years while we’ve been fobbed off with Tuesdays in our secondary role as the noisy neighbours (nee poor relations). I could scream at the colossal injustice of it all. And I probably will do tomorrow night when I find out that City have won by a hatful, as I hope they do (but please lads, no more than nine! That I couldn’t bear.). And then maybe I’ll ring my brother up and apologise for missing his wedding – even if he isn’t with her any more…