The Guardian shocker, Rich man gets Richer......WOW! What isn't pointed out is that Sheikh Mansour was investigating the possibility of investing in a Premier league club before buying City and rumour was his preferred club was Liverpool. This is a City a number of years ago was selling properties for £1 wonder what the Sheffield bods think about that that? The report says there are nine areas sold at a lower price than nearby sites,where? Hale maybe. I remember talking to a lady some years ago, she had been offered a terrace house near the Etihad for £12,000 she turned it down thinking It was in a downbeat area. Within a year of the takeover the same property sold for around £100K she was obviously kicking herself but as she said the stadium was there but nothing else.If you go back to 1993 and the 2000 Olympic bid, there was a plan to build an 80,000 stadium on the present site, a number of company's compulsory purchased and then a stitch up whereby the sneering snobs were asking " where would you rather visit Manchester or Sydney? and London will be the only City considered in the UK" three years later it took a terrorist bomb to kickstart the regeneration which has enabled the emergence of a modern City. So then comes the London Olympic bid and with a pat on the head plummy voiced London centric suits imply that the Capital would be bidding but as a payoff you northern oiks can have the Commonwealth games and don't forget to touch your forlocks. So the site earmarked for the main arena is obviously the area where the Olympic bid stadium was to be built. Though a lesser competition there would still be a substantial amount needed to cover the costs of staging the event.To avoid the main stadium becoming a white elephant an anchor tenant would be needed or the alternative would be to build a temporary arena and demolish it afterwards and so they say the rest is history. For a lot of us moving to the new stadium was strange. Who can forget the sneering rags lined up on the balconies every other week,their smirking faces indicating their thoughts were you might have moved into a new council house but you're still shit and our returning glances acknowledging that we may be shit but you're the ones living in a shithole. So fast forward to today, the sneering rags have disappeared and the area is unrecognisable to 2003 Large swathes of east Manchester have changed considerably and initially that can be thanks to MCFC agreeing to become leaseholders (also part of the deal was over 16 acres of the Maine rd site being part of the deal) and as such Manchester City Council in partnership have enhanced the quality of life of a large number of its residents by providing better quality homes and increasing the value of private property owners.
