The manager and player comments come and go like the wind. You can take those with a pinch of salt.
Only 3 weeks ago people were saying how great Pep and the team were, how Pep looks hungry and refreshed, how he was going to sign another extension at some point, how Pep2 and Kolo have brought a fresh feel to everything and how this young squad of players were responding well after a shaky start to the season due to no pre-season.
A few poorer results and displays later, the other end of the spectrum come out and say Pep looks frustrated, he’s lost his touch, he’s been found out and he’ll be leaving at the end of the season, that the recruitment’s been shit and the players should be miles better than they are.
But that’s natural, that even happened in the midst of the best times in 2017-23, just like it happened in our worst times in the mid80s and late90s. That’s just football fans for you.
Those discussions should be seen as distinct from the feeling fans have towards the top ranks of the club and the way they’ve been treating our core support for too long.
This is a more serious issue than the team and tactics.
The issue with fans and atmosphere is a symptom of the issue with the board+execs. They don’t let us know anything in advance of their decisions. They even purposely keep us in the dark, don’t allow fan groups to attend all meetings and even when they do they make them sign NDAs. Manchester City is our club, not theirs, they just happen to be employed by the club at this moment in time and at some point in the future they’ll be long gone and we’ll still be here.
No fans on the board, no fan consultations before things happen, 13 price rises in 16 years, some as high as 12%, people pulling out of Cup Schemes to make up for that, people feeling they have to give up their STs because they’re priced out or are sick of not enjoying the ‘matchday experience’ aimed at a faceless worldwide fanbase, increasing number of ticket tout partners added to the club’s list, only reducing £78 tickets for adults and £48 tickets for children after fan protests and would have made them even more expensive if we hadn’t protested, not replacing lapsed ST holders with new ST holders for a number of years, making it harder for ST holders to transfer tickets, increasing number of tourists surrounding us at games, more neutrals, non-City fans and away fans surrounding us at games while we see mates give up their STs because they’re sick of it, dead atmospheres becoming more of a correlating feature as all this grows…
They do a lot of things right, but they do a lot of things wrong and as I say, it’s our club. These people aren’t just providing an entertainment destination for us to attend a few times a month; this football club is part of the history and culture of this city and it’s citizens. We live and breathe this club every day and care about it more than any employee at the club could ever dream of doing.
There’s good reason to be pissed off with them. Decimating a club’s support is a fucking disgrace. And that’s what they’ve done. It’s happened at Chelsea too in the decades since their takeover, so it’s not just a City problem. Happened to United though the 90s and 00s, and will probably happen to Newcastle over the next few decades.
These fanbases are what made English football great. We should be held in the highest regard by our clubs’ boardrooms and we are treated like we’re a fucking nuisance they could do without.
At one time you could go anywhere in the country, or abroad on holiday, and get a conversation about football going and mention you were a City fans and you’d get instant respect. Now it’s almost embarrassing saying you’re a City fan and you often have to start a conversations by justifying that you are someone who was there from decades gone by when we were shit. And it’s the club who’ve done that to us.
Anyone happy that two dozen of their friends and family don’t come to City games anymore and are sat at home watching games, just because City have been successful in the last 15 years, are not cottoning onto the problem and are only contributing to the problem. Because eventually it will all end, whether that’s City’s individual success or the PL bubble finally bursts and we see a decline as a league… what will clubs be left with then?
Big stadiums and an alienated disenfranchised local support who don’t got to games anymore and are used watching games at home or used to doing other things with their time. The culture of fanbases, cities and the country altered. Football is as big a part of English/British culture as anything else. It should not be allowed to be taken away from us just because board members and execs at clubs want their bonuses for hitting revenue targets at the end of the year.
We should be holding every single decision that isn’t in the best interests of local and core supporters of this football club, in the highest of scrutiny, forever more! Every set of fans in this country should be coming together to combat what every boardroom is doing to their fanbases. The people of this country are too passive. In Germany, about 12 years ago, every fanbase in the league marched in their tens of thousands because a few individual clubs upped ticket prices. Here, we just shrug our shoulders and call each other ungrateful just because we’ve lifted a few pots and pans over the last decade and a half.
A fanbase should never let up on being hard-lined and demanding. Until the protests last year, it felt like we were far too passive with it. It probably got ten years too far down the line before we starting reacting to it sufficiently as a set of fans.
Football clubs and their fanbases are part of the history and culture of the cities and countries they come from. Clubs should never be allowed to have their fan cultures changed because that also alters the culture of our cities and country. History and culture are more important than short term business plans.
I’ve said this a lot recently, but core football fanbases should be sacrosanct to their clubs. Does anyone feel like we are to the City board/execs or that any clubs’ fans are in the PL?
