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LEAGUE CUP WINNERS 2013/2014!! Post Final Thread
- Thread starter Champions2012!
- Start date
Rammy Blue said:Just finished watching the second half, Vince just about to lift the cup.
;-)
You want to change your internet provider. That's some serious fucking lag on your stream ;-)
prestonibbo_mcfc
Well-Known Member
MotownBlue
Well-Known Member
Here is an AMAZING piece written by Simon Curtis for ESPN. I hope you have all seen it and read it. If not, here it is.
THIS is how it feels to be City. I love that he still writes like "one of us" and still acknowledges our past and where we have come from. I pray that this never stops. I don't mean it in the sense that I want us to always feel dread when things look bad on any given match day (although for those of us of a certain age and history, I feel it is impossible not to), but rather that I wish us to remain humble. To always have a sense of humor about ourselves. To always honor the memory of the years that we spent in the shit TOGETHER as fans.
Hope you are all having fun and still celebrating. When Yaya's strike went in, I shed a few tears. There is nothing in life like those pure moments of class. I never saw it coming. He was so nonchalant. Just swept at the ball and then BOOM. I was so tense at that point - so nervous. I have been following City since 1997 and I understand why I felt that way today and why the match thread was full of grunting and whinging. It is who we are, to a degree, if we have been following City since before the new era. It can't be helped. It will always live in us a bit. Long may it be so and long may it keep our feet on the ground as this club reaches for the sky. I don't ever want to be like those other clubs where the fans are all arrogant pricks, full of venom and attitude. I want to be MANCHESTER CITY.
I would give ANYTHING to be across the pond tonight, sitting in a pub with some of you, drowning in ALE (I'm a professional brewmaster) as we celebrate. Live it up, Blue boys and girls. Hopefully this is just the beginning for this year. CTID!
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/manchestercity/id/2479?cc=5901
Out With The Old Man City, In With The New
LONDON -- Of late, we have all been asking what is the identity of Manchester City these days? If the Cup for Cock-ups has been handed down to other worthy contestants, what are City in these times of plenty?
You do not easily carry a burden like that for 40-odd years without coming to a crossroads and wondering who you are anymore. The miss-hits, the airshots, the bumbling own goals, they all begin to blur into one after a while. Carrying Manchester City on your back can turn you into the Hunchback of Rusholme.
City fans have been forced to feast on Dennis Tueart's immaculate overhead kick in the League Cup final victory in 1976 (yes, I know full well that it was 38 years ago and that half of the people reading this were not even part of a vaguely planned family enlargement project at that time). Me? I was there. Bowl haircut, liberal sprinkling of acne, wide eyes and a growing passion for the gentle suggestive hue of sky blue. Tueart, purchased from Sunderland, launched himself into the air with his back to goal, as Tommy Booth's headed nod-down from Willie Donachie's looping left-wing cross found a space in front of the City striker. Instinct, as it often does in extremis, took over. Tueart himself always maintains it was not the best connection he made during a career jam-packed with glorious goals from litter-strewn Wearside to the banks of the Hudson River.
City fans have feasted on that goal for 38 long years. There have been others since then, of course, others that brought the house down, that brought in the new trophies that none of us recognised, that turned City into a fully paid-up member of the Elite Brigade at the top of UEFA's leafy tree. But let us be honest here: Not a single City fan, be he 10 or 100, feels completely comfortable with this newfangled machine. This thing that goes off pop, that smooches and smirks, that preens and poses and obliterates. Those of us a little long in the tooth have lived through too many maelstroms of mediocrity, too many seasons of wailing discontent, too many performances of lacklustre nothingness to suddenly carp and sneer. What is the point when you empathise with the opposition, when you have been there 1,001 times yourself?
So when Sunderland, backed by their magnificent supporters, play a half of immaculate anti-City football, closing space, unleashing energy, eating up turf, there is time and room to stop, think, ponder and realise: City are still just the same. Just the same agony and embarrassment. One-nil down at halftime to a team of limited talent playing on the absolute fringes of their potential. Spot on. Playing as if their lives depend on it, backed by a wall of noise with a strange accent. Good luck to them.
All the old doubts resurface. Here comes Gordon Davies, Jason van Blerk, Barry Conlon, Bob Taylor. Here comes the nightmare of recurring history. Here comes the Manchester City that people have laughed at and felt sorry for over decades and decades. Only now it is worse. Because nobody feels for the club anymore. Nobody in their right mind feels sorry for City. There is too much cash. Too much swagger. Too many star players who do not resemble Trevor Christie in any way, shape or form. Too many flashbulbs. Too much attention. Too many column inches. Too many people craning their necks to hear the magical words, the dulcet tones, the gospel according to Manuel Pellegrini. Nobody feels sorry for City anymore. Are you mad? More money than a medium-sized European country. More star players than you could fit into FIFA's hall of fame. No, nobody feels for old once upon a time slapdash City anymore.
So Manchester City have to do something else. They have to gain hearts and minds in a different way. Still, there is the theatre, still the hills of chaos, still the flickering doubts, the trembling butterflies playing havoc with your lunch. But now, wait for it, there is more to add.
Now we have this: two minutes of inspiration from another world. Yaya Toure, chased, harassed, bundled out of his giant stride, waves a nonchalant, languid, coquettishly poised boot at a ball played across from the flank. He is kilometres from the goal. In the vortex of noise and silver cloud, it is impossible to imagine the ball ending up in the net. But it does. I swear it ends up in the very top corner of the net, flying in an arc that Pythagoras would have blanched at. The net ripples. The air turns white. Silence. Noise. Silence. Noise.
Before we can steady our breath, check our thumping hearts, a swirl of activity down the left. Sunderland suddenly open, exposed, disorganised -- for the very first time. The ball whips in, skids off a heel (just like it did off Rodney Marsh's heel in 1974 to gift Wolves their winner in this very competition) and flies haphazardly towards Samir Nasri. Silence, noise, silence, noise. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Nasri swipes at the ball like no Manchester City footballer in the last 40 years has ever dared to swipe at it. Not in a Cup final, not with this much at stake.
In the olden days, the ball would have curled gently to one side and gone out for a throw-in, perhaps damaging the spectacles of an elderly Sunderland supporter in the process. This time it is different, for here is the new Manchester City. The cock-ups have gone, the own goals have dried up, the embarrassment has faded into a hill of light grey dust, blowing in the breeze ...
Nasri's contact is perfect. The outside of the boot. The ball swerves like a party balloon. It arcs away in a line that will take it outside Vito Mannone's far post, then re-enters Earth's gravitational pull and rockets unapologetically into the inside of the goal netting. Light, dark, light, dark. Hot, cold, hot, cold. We are witnessing the birth of a new Manchester City. I am in tears. The old City that have carried me and countless others this far, is taking its leave of us all. What will we do now? Where do we go from here? How will we cope without those old frailties, those ancient lead weights around our necks?
We will see about that another time. For now, there is champagne to be coiffed.
THIS is how it feels to be City. I love that he still writes like "one of us" and still acknowledges our past and where we have come from. I pray that this never stops. I don't mean it in the sense that I want us to always feel dread when things look bad on any given match day (although for those of us of a certain age and history, I feel it is impossible not to), but rather that I wish us to remain humble. To always have a sense of humor about ourselves. To always honor the memory of the years that we spent in the shit TOGETHER as fans.
Hope you are all having fun and still celebrating. When Yaya's strike went in, I shed a few tears. There is nothing in life like those pure moments of class. I never saw it coming. He was so nonchalant. Just swept at the ball and then BOOM. I was so tense at that point - so nervous. I have been following City since 1997 and I understand why I felt that way today and why the match thread was full of grunting and whinging. It is who we are, to a degree, if we have been following City since before the new era. It can't be helped. It will always live in us a bit. Long may it be so and long may it keep our feet on the ground as this club reaches for the sky. I don't ever want to be like those other clubs where the fans are all arrogant pricks, full of venom and attitude. I want to be MANCHESTER CITY.
I would give ANYTHING to be across the pond tonight, sitting in a pub with some of you, drowning in ALE (I'm a professional brewmaster) as we celebrate. Live it up, Blue boys and girls. Hopefully this is just the beginning for this year. CTID!
http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/manchestercity/id/2479?cc=5901
Out With The Old Man City, In With The New
LONDON -- Of late, we have all been asking what is the identity of Manchester City these days? If the Cup for Cock-ups has been handed down to other worthy contestants, what are City in these times of plenty?
You do not easily carry a burden like that for 40-odd years without coming to a crossroads and wondering who you are anymore. The miss-hits, the airshots, the bumbling own goals, they all begin to blur into one after a while. Carrying Manchester City on your back can turn you into the Hunchback of Rusholme.
City fans have been forced to feast on Dennis Tueart's immaculate overhead kick in the League Cup final victory in 1976 (yes, I know full well that it was 38 years ago and that half of the people reading this were not even part of a vaguely planned family enlargement project at that time). Me? I was there. Bowl haircut, liberal sprinkling of acne, wide eyes and a growing passion for the gentle suggestive hue of sky blue. Tueart, purchased from Sunderland, launched himself into the air with his back to goal, as Tommy Booth's headed nod-down from Willie Donachie's looping left-wing cross found a space in front of the City striker. Instinct, as it often does in extremis, took over. Tueart himself always maintains it was not the best connection he made during a career jam-packed with glorious goals from litter-strewn Wearside to the banks of the Hudson River.
City fans have feasted on that goal for 38 long years. There have been others since then, of course, others that brought the house down, that brought in the new trophies that none of us recognised, that turned City into a fully paid-up member of the Elite Brigade at the top of UEFA's leafy tree. But let us be honest here: Not a single City fan, be he 10 or 100, feels completely comfortable with this newfangled machine. This thing that goes off pop, that smooches and smirks, that preens and poses and obliterates. Those of us a little long in the tooth have lived through too many maelstroms of mediocrity, too many seasons of wailing discontent, too many performances of lacklustre nothingness to suddenly carp and sneer. What is the point when you empathise with the opposition, when you have been there 1,001 times yourself?
So when Sunderland, backed by their magnificent supporters, play a half of immaculate anti-City football, closing space, unleashing energy, eating up turf, there is time and room to stop, think, ponder and realise: City are still just the same. Just the same agony and embarrassment. One-nil down at halftime to a team of limited talent playing on the absolute fringes of their potential. Spot on. Playing as if their lives depend on it, backed by a wall of noise with a strange accent. Good luck to them.
All the old doubts resurface. Here comes Gordon Davies, Jason van Blerk, Barry Conlon, Bob Taylor. Here comes the nightmare of recurring history. Here comes the Manchester City that people have laughed at and felt sorry for over decades and decades. Only now it is worse. Because nobody feels for the club anymore. Nobody in their right mind feels sorry for City. There is too much cash. Too much swagger. Too many star players who do not resemble Trevor Christie in any way, shape or form. Too many flashbulbs. Too much attention. Too many column inches. Too many people craning their necks to hear the magical words, the dulcet tones, the gospel according to Manuel Pellegrini. Nobody feels sorry for City anymore. Are you mad? More money than a medium-sized European country. More star players than you could fit into FIFA's hall of fame. No, nobody feels for old once upon a time slapdash City anymore.
So Manchester City have to do something else. They have to gain hearts and minds in a different way. Still, there is the theatre, still the hills of chaos, still the flickering doubts, the trembling butterflies playing havoc with your lunch. But now, wait for it, there is more to add.
Now we have this: two minutes of inspiration from another world. Yaya Toure, chased, harassed, bundled out of his giant stride, waves a nonchalant, languid, coquettishly poised boot at a ball played across from the flank. He is kilometres from the goal. In the vortex of noise and silver cloud, it is impossible to imagine the ball ending up in the net. But it does. I swear it ends up in the very top corner of the net, flying in an arc that Pythagoras would have blanched at. The net ripples. The air turns white. Silence. Noise. Silence. Noise.
Before we can steady our breath, check our thumping hearts, a swirl of activity down the left. Sunderland suddenly open, exposed, disorganised -- for the very first time. The ball whips in, skids off a heel (just like it did off Rodney Marsh's heel in 1974 to gift Wolves their winner in this very competition) and flies haphazardly towards Samir Nasri. Silence, noise, silence, noise. Tick, tock, tick, tock. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Nasri swipes at the ball like no Manchester City footballer in the last 40 years has ever dared to swipe at it. Not in a Cup final, not with this much at stake.
In the olden days, the ball would have curled gently to one side and gone out for a throw-in, perhaps damaging the spectacles of an elderly Sunderland supporter in the process. This time it is different, for here is the new Manchester City. The cock-ups have gone, the own goals have dried up, the embarrassment has faded into a hill of light grey dust, blowing in the breeze ...
Nasri's contact is perfect. The outside of the boot. The ball swerves like a party balloon. It arcs away in a line that will take it outside Vito Mannone's far post, then re-enters Earth's gravitational pull and rockets unapologetically into the inside of the goal netting. Light, dark, light, dark. Hot, cold, hot, cold. We are witnessing the birth of a new Manchester City. I am in tears. The old City that have carried me and countless others this far, is taking its leave of us all. What will we do now? Where do we go from here? How will we cope without those old frailties, those ancient lead weights around our necks?
We will see about that another time. For now, there is champagne to be coiffed.
Rammy Blue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 23 May 2008
- Messages
- 30,554
stony said:Rammy Blue said:Just finished watching the second half, Vince just about to lift the cup.
;-)
You want to change your internet provider. That's some serious fucking lag on your stream ;-)
Ha, that inlcudes being at Wembley and a 3 and 1/2 hour drive home.
Rammy Blue said:stony said:Rammy Blue said:Just finished watching the second half, Vince just about to lift the cup.
;-)
You want to change your internet provider. That's some serious fucking lag on your stream ;-)
Ha, that inlcudes being at Wembley and a 3 and 1/2 hour drive home.
I'd already seen your post about getting back before I posted that ;-)
Rammy Blue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 23 May 2008
- Messages
- 30,554
stony said:Rammy Blue said:stony said:You want to change your internet provider. That's some serious fucking lag on your stream ;-)
Ha, that inlcudes being at Wembley and a 3 and 1/2 hour drive home.
I'd already seen your post about getting back before I posted that ;-)
I parked at the stadium and fluked a great shortcut to beat the traffic out, walked through door in Rammy at 7.50 which I thought was a sterling effort consdidering the driving conditions on the way home. Nearly pissed now as well after necking a bottle of fine red.
Rammy Blue said:stony said:Rammy Blue said:Ha, that inlcudes being at Wembley and a 3 and 1/2 hour drive home.
I'd already seen your post about getting back before I posted that ;-)
I parked at the stadium and fluked a great shortcut to beat the traffic out, walked through door in Rammy at 7.50 which I thought was a sterling effort consdidering the driving conditions on the way home. Nearly pissed now as well after necking a bottle of fine red.
Some Sunderland fans where still stuck in the car park two hours after the game.
Rammy Blue
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 23 May 2008
- Messages
- 30,554
stony said:Rammy Blue said:stony said:I'd already seen your post about getting back before I posted that ;-)
I parked at the stadium and fluked a great shortcut to beat the traffic out, walked through door in Rammy at 7.50 which I thought was a sterling effort consdidering the driving conditions on the way home. Nearly pissed now as well after necking a bottle of fine red.
Some Sunderland fans where still stuck in the car park two hours after the game.
Seriously? I always use the official car park and have always had a breeze getting out but today was unreal. Ignored my satnav and ended up going through Harrow onto the M40, clear as a bell.
Rammy Blue said:stony said:Rammy Blue said:I parked at the stadium and fluked a great shortcut to beat the traffic out, walked through door in Rammy at 7.50 which I thought was a sterling effort consdidering the driving conditions on the way home. Nearly pissed now as well after necking a bottle of fine red.
Some Sunderland fans where still stuck in the car park two hours after the game.
Seriously? I always use the official car park and have always had a breeze getting out but today was unreal. Ignored my satnav and ended up going through Harrow onto the M40, clear as a bell.
Yep, some really funny posts on SMB forum from some frustrated fans. A pissed up Sunderland fan got out of one coach and tried to block another coach so his could get out. The driver went ballistic, and it all nearly kicked off.