I've just listened to the BBC podcast series 'How to buy a football club' about the Fall & Rise of Manchester City.
Who are the three people presenting this?
United fan Faisal Islam, who's the BBC Economics Editor. And the trio is completed by 'Silly' Sally Nugent and Simon Stone. Not one of those three has any real feeling for City.
Despite that it's certainly not a terrible listen, as there's contributions from Thaksin Shinawatra, Michael Brown, Nedun Onuoha, Dennis Tueart and David Bernstein but none of the three presenters have any real insight into some of the background. They clearly don't really understand the so-called 115 charges and probably have no idea how close we were to disaster just before Sheikh Mansour took over.
There's nothing revelatory but there's a few interesting things. Sally Nugent speaks very warmly about her treatment by the club, compared to the way united dealt with her. Simon Stone talks about how well we've been run and how effectively we've spent a lot of money compared to other clubs who've spent badly (although he fails to mention united as one of those clubs). Stone also talks about how some clubs are getting quite angry at the PL.
But right at the end they're talking about what the fans think. Stone comes out with the ludicrous comment that there's probably a few City fans who are uncomfortable with our recent successes and would probably prefer to be back in the Eighties. I'd love to meet one of those fans.
