I come back from a long, difficult absence toward the end of another amazing season in which the club has again achieved things beyond my wildest dreams as a young lad and what do I find?
Far too many posts on here and elsewhere calling players “shitebags”, complaining about players’ commitment, criticising Pep’s management, and just generally moaning about the club.
After one loss in a dead rubber with one of the single worst (read: bent) refereeing performances I have seen in three decades of supporting City, a few weeks before our first ever Champions League final!
And on Twitter I see many abusing our players (some racially, especially when it comes to Sterling) after less-than-stellar performances or runs of form.
How have so many of our “fans” become so ****ing entitled, bordering on ragish. Or abhorrent, full stop. I know it’s not everyone — there are plenty admonishing and rebuking these impish idiots (at best). But there are still too many of these “fans” for my comfort. They are not what our club is about. They aren’t representative of our values. Perhaps United’s or Liverpool’s, bit not City’s.
Am I seeing more than are actually there? Am I falling in to just another trap of football tribalism, except creating more “us v them” amongst our own?
That could be the case and I am happy to be convinced I am.
But as of late, it seems like there has been a surge of the worst sort of “fan” in our ranks and I worry that the various aspects of the pandemic (isolation, shift to online engagement, return to the hooligan culture for many disaffected in order to find community/purpose/lost power, etc.) has them quickly taking over. At least the most visible, vocal realm of our support, anyway.
What do you think? Am I exaggerating the issue? Is it really that bad? Or is it just a prominent minority of “fans” that will eventually be drowned out as things get back to whatever “normal” is once the virus is under relative control?
I won’t be able to respond to all posts, or quickly to any, but I do appreciate everyone’s thoughts as I have been ruminating on this for some time, especially in light of the recent ESL debacle.
I think the general reaction of supporters — especially those in Manchester — really showed who we are and what we want the club to represent, but I also saw plenty of questionable stances among those claiming to be City fans. And I wonder what would have been the response of the club if the seemingly “entitled” contingent, who mostly appeared to love the idea of the ESL, had more time to rise in the ranks. And whether that means a similar situation in the future, if things progress as they are in my view, may result in a very different outcome.
Perhaps this is all down to my loss of sympathy for those that don’t know how good they have it. Maybe I’ve become even more of a miserable **** than I was before.
Regardless, although I can only mostly read threads these days,
@Ric, it’s probably best to remove my mod privileges as seeing these daft, entitled, ragish posts throughout, it’s only a matter of time before I muster the energy to wildly swing the hammer. And, at any rate, I can’t really properly moderate any more, and have shed most of my diplomatic skills, so best I go back to being limited to addlebrained contributions like this.
Up the Blues!
