fathellensbellend said:
surely the only new fans we obtain are kids in this country, and overseas supporters with a passion for the english premier league.
i cannot see how anyone who is say above 10 years of age hasnt already got a team, or are there swathes of 40 year olds who have been waiting 35 years for this moment.
We are reputed to have the oldest average S/C age of any club in the premier league. Yes we do have "swathes of 40 odd year old fans[i am one] as when i was a lad there were as many blues as rags in my junior school. We lost a lot of potential support to the rags i think in the early 80's when we were missmanaged by the board,[mainly swales obsesssion with how rags were doing] chopping and changing managers and as a consequence yoyo-ing relegation to promotions. City supporters are unique and resilliant to anything we ever suffered by having a kind of 'typical City' northern black sense of working class humour that has kept us together down the years, galvanising us as one, brothers together in those dark days of the old third division.
I remember when we we had only 16500 for a league game v Brighton[80's] when the vast tardis better known as the kippax was almost deserted, and you could walk from one end to the other without bumping into anyone. We were struggling to attract support back then having to rely on fathers bringing their sons, trying to convince them to be a blue when most lads that age were siding to a rather more fashionable and trendy u****d, who were winning the odd cup back then, unlike us winning fuck all and being riddiculed at school for following City.
I have seen us onthe end of some right thrashings over the years and after we suffered being thrashed 0-4 to the once Mighty Liverpool[late 70's], i turned to my dad, all watery eyed and sickened by what i had just seen asking, "will City ever be better than them dad"? to which he replied in a stern faced manor of that of a murder detective "one day son, one day". At the time i didn't believe him but since then and seeing us thrashed many times and to much lesser opposition, i have always had a weird gut feeling i couldn't explain that one day we would hold our own to anyone,able to compete and win trophies just like we did in those short halcyonic years of the late 60's, early 70's.
We are a long way from those bleak days brothers for our fortune has well and truly changed and changed for the better throughout the club, and our unwavering loyalty was a big reason as to why Thaksin Shinawatra invested in us was us long standing loyal supporters. Since then to now where we are the hands of the best investers ever to have been involved in football, we are truly fortunate that we take 20 plus million signings for granted having won the FA cup and qualifying for Europe. I always said that the winning of our first trophy would be the catalyst for new supporters and that time is now.So, although i have been following us throughout many lean years home and away as many others have, i for one welcome any new blue that decides to follow us in the future, and if they are proud to support City whatever future fortune may bring, good or bad, then they will do for me.
