Memories of your first time watching City

[J.G.Blue.]

I recently had my 60th birthday & had a chat with my brother about the first time dad took us to see city play,
I must have been around 6 or 7 years old so it would have been around 1968-69 & we parked the car by Alexandra Park (looked it up, Smalldale Avenue & its still there) & despite the attention of the "mind yer car mister" kids I remember some very old bloke with one leg coming out of one of the houses & dad handing him some money to keep a eye on the car, he seemed a really grumpy old bloke but you knew the car would be ok, for some reason I seem to remember dad telling me the bloke had lost his leg in the Boar War but I guess it could have been the first world war,
We then walked up Claremont road, called in at at tobaconists on the right, (elderly couple running it with terrible tales of football hooligans pinching things) so we could get a bag of crisps or a massive wagon wheel,
Past the old Claremont? Cinema on the left & then round the corner to see the ground & see if the camera vans were there & if we were going to be on TV,
Dad trying to keep us kids away from the ticket touts & dodge the dog shit, hot dog stalls & police horses untill we passed the front entrance to Maine Road & got to the corner where you paid to get into the Platt Lane Stand, it was a different gate for kids (make sure you have the right money!) so it was always a worry if we were ever going to find dad again!
Once inside the walls we then started up the never ending steps at the back of the stand & for me this bit was one of the best when you saw the beautiful, huge & amazingly green football pitch!
We then found a space on the wooden bench seats usually just to the right of the goals & about 10-15 rows back, looking over the pitch to the open scoreboard end & the huge mass of people to the right in the Kippax (the bloody kippax stand just looked like it went back into the dark for miles!)
Brilliant times watching the likes of bell, lee, summerbee, young, oakes etc but I still cant stand up at a football game without thinking someone is going to shout SIT DOWN!

Sorry for rambling on a bit, anyone else remember there first time watching city?

 

[adr2.8i]

I recently had my 60th birthday & had a chat with my brother about the first time dad took us to see city play,
I must have been around 6 or 7 years old so it would have been around 1968-69 & we parked the car by Alexandra Park (looked it up, Smalldale Avenue & its still there) & despite the attention of the "mind yer car mister" kids I remember some very old bloke with one leg coming out of one of the houses & dad handing him some money to keep a eye on the car, he seemed a really grumpy old bloke but you knew the car would be ok, for some reason I seem to remember dad telling me the bloke had lost his leg in the Boar War but I guess it could have been the first world war,
We then walked up Claremont road, called in at at tobaconists on the right, (elderly couple running it with terrible tales of football hooligans pinching things) so we could get a bag of crisps or a massive wagon wheel,
Past the old Claremont? Cinema on the left & then round the corner to see the ground & see if the camera vans were there & if we were going to be on TV,
Dad trying to keep us kids away from the ticket touts & dodge the dog shit, hot dog stalls & police horses untill we passed the front entrance to Maine Road & got to the corner where you paid to get into the Platt Lane Stand, it was a different gate for kids (make sure you have the right money!) so it was always a worry if we were ever going to find dad again!
Once inside the walls we then started up the never ending steps at the back of the stand & for me this bit was one of the best when you saw the beautiful, huge & amazingly green football pitch!
We then found a space on the wooden bench seats usually just to the right of the goals & about 10-15 rows back, looking over the pitch to the open scoreboard end & the huge mass of people to the right in the Kippax (the bloody kippax stand just looked like it went back into the dark for miles!)
Brilliant times watching the likes of bell, lee, summerbee, young, oakes etc but I still cant stand up at a football game without thinking someone is going to shout SIT DOWN!

Sorry for rambling on a bit, anyone else remember there first time watching city?

That's an amazing way of telling your journey....I could really picture it in my mind......the sights, the smells, the noise......I think we can all remember the first time we saw the maine Road pitch and how big and wide it seemed. My first game was for my 12th birthday in 1986, I remember more about getting in than the game itself! We drew 0-0 with qpr

 

[J.G.Blue.]

That's an amazing way of telling your journey....I could really picture it in my mind......the sights, the smells, the noise......I think we can all remember the first time we saw the maine Road pitch and how big and wide it seemed. My first game was for my 12th birthday in 1986, I remember more about getting in than the game itself! We drew 0-0 with qpr

Thanks, The thing that got me most as a kid was how big & Green the pitch was? obviously I had seen fields & big areas of grass but it just seemed so neat & tidy & green! no idea who we played or what the score was but after one visit I was hooked for the rest of my life :-)

 

[simmo]

Remember parking at the toast rack looking building, walking through platt fields to the ground. The floodlights in the distance.

Separate turnstile for juniors and once inside getting a programme for 25p. Sat on the white wall at the front in the Kippax and had to have feet not facing the pitch. There was someone at the front selling wagon wheels.

The best part followed a year or two later in getting my first season ticket for my birthday for 80/81 season.

 

[spacecadet]

Mine was v Chelsea 6th January 1973. Got to turnstiles no movement. Game off for fog. Devasted.

 

[ROBSH34]

City v Tottenham December 1969. Entered the Platt Lane stand and again couldn't believe how green the pitch was and how big the ground was.Prior to then i had only seen football on a black and white TV. Also remember how nervous i was in what was a crush leaving the ground. It was as if you were being lifted off the ground and were being carried out. The match itself was a 1-1 draw. Even though we had Bell, Lee and Sumerbee the only player i remember from the day was Pat Jennings for some reason. I am sure that on a couple of occasions he would pull the bar down to make the goals smaller. Many many good and bad memories since then.

 

[drthingy]

94 v Wimbledon Quinn scored first time I’ve been hugged by someone I didn’t know !

 

[Blueknows]

Remember parking at the toast rack looking building, walking through platt fields to the ground. The floodlights in the distance.

Separate turnstile for juniors and once inside getting a programme for 25p. Sat on the white wall at the front in the Kippax and had to have feet not facing the pitch. There was someone at the front selling wagon wheels.

The best part followed a year or two later in getting my first season ticket for my birthday for 80/81 season.

That season was my first season ticket junior £9 in the kippax.. me and my brother didn't miss a game in the final home game and as was the tradition at the time to welcome the team onto the pitch a big ticker tape went up , the only thing available to us was the remaining away ticket application forms in the back of the season ticket as we had already secured our tickets for the final we didn't think anything more of it , until my dad going ballistic cos he needed one of the application forms to apply for some replay tickets , don't think he ever forgive us

 

[daveoswald]

1st of April 1972 as a ten year old wasn't even a City fan, lost to stoke, and blew our title chances, sat in the platt lane, aroma of cigar smoke and bovril. Instantly hooked on the atmosphere, and the aesthetics of sky blue and white. lots of bad years, but like a good hollywood movie, came good in the end.

 

[blueandwhite]

Great thread!

I moved to South Africa in 1972 at age 7. As my dad was a Blue I became a Blue, following from afar. If we were lucky, the results of the games played on the Saturday would appear in a column called "stop press" right at the back of the paper; how I would scan the paper for these as they weren't always in the same place. Fast forward 5 years and we went back to Manchester to see all the relatives.

I persuaded my dad, who had stopped going to football matches when the Sheffield Wednesday scandal came to be- so this was a big deal for him. Not nearly as big a deal as it was for me though!

He decided we were going the match against Birmingham City on 19 April 1977, a nigh match two days before my 12th birthday.

And we were off! We got the bus from Ashton into the city centre and got the special from Aytoun Street. While there were a smattering of City fans on the bus from Ashton, the special was full of them. Back in the 70's the typical football fan was a different animal to the typical football fan now. They were rougher, tighter and somehow bigger and nastier, and I loved every second of being in that bus with them. To be on a bus where everyone was talking and chanting about City was heaven. Had I died on the bus that day I would have died happy.

When we got to the ground my dad and I queued up at one of the turnstiles at the Kippax and then we were in. As many have posted in this thread, the site of the pitch, massive and green under the floodlights just took my breath away. It's something that has stayed with me all my life and will be with me forever.

We were in the ground quite early, so we found a nice spot closish to the away supporters (but not too close) in the top left of the Kippax. As people filtered in, the atmosphere grew and grew until I noticed that there was very little space left, but my dad looked after me and everyone around was friendly to us.

The roar when the match started was unbelievable and the game went by in a blink. As I remember, a young Trevor Francis was playing for Drum that night but Dave Watson never gave him a look-in all game. We came out winning 2-1 and I was as happy as I could remember.

If it wasn't for a freak loss to Derby shortly after we could have won the first division.

Maine Road never let any dreaming kid down on their first visit.

Still a Blue and always a Blue