Prestwich Blue - Daily Mail article 2008

Prestwich_Blue said:
Thanks for the kind comments. I'm not sure, as a season ticket holder and particularly having spent 4 years on City Matters, that I'd quite echo the sentiment about understanding us as fans if I were to re-write that piece. But at the time Garry Cook had replaced the self-serving Mackintosh and everything looked rosy under Sheikh Mansour's ownership. @Gary James will confirm that Khaldoon was keen to understand the club, its history and the fanbase.

I asked Ian Ladyman if he'd let me write a rebuttal of Shindler's article and he kindly agreed.

My mum also knew his brother Geoff, and his sister-in-law very well.

Now I do have a confession to make. I know Colin Shindler and we've met and exchanged emails since that article. We actually go back many years, as my dad used to work for his dad when I was very little. I did get to see his father regularly in his later days and we always had a nice chat.

My dad died in 2012, just 11 days before the QPR game and Colin rang my mum to offer his condolences. I spoke to him and we exchanged email addresses. Then he mentioned he was doing a talk, with the late David Meek, at the Football Museum and I went along and we had a good chat afterwards.

Obviously our views on City are diametrically opposed but I have the greatest liking and respect for the family and I really enjoyed his other book, 'Manchester City Ruined My Life', which was a very moving description of his adult years.
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Excellent post PB. Life isn't all about football.
 
Gone for a Burton said:
We didn't win the lottery, that's a moment of luck.

We are who we are today as a result of deep research into our history and culture.

Evaluation of our sporting and economic potential.

Development of a multi level,long term plan.

Recruitment of world class executives.

Shrewd Investment in elite players, Coaches infrastructure and East Manchester Projects.

A unique,global network of football affiliations.

This is not luck, this is justice !!
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We won the lottery in 2008 imo. Sheikh Mansour first looked at ArseAnal, then Newcastle, then Everton but was being frustrated with his attempts at striking a deal with any of them.

Enter stage left Garry Cooke & his famous PowerPoint presentation. This was our lottery win, & I agree with the rest that followed leading to where we are today.

Let's not start splitting hairs & dissecting the minutiae of how our journey started, & let's instead celebrate our class leading leadership & ensuing success under Mancini, Pellegrini & Guardiola. )(
 
Jazzyblue said:
Pretty sure last summer he told the M.E.N he doesn't even watch us TV unless it's the derby. The thing I find hollow about his argument is that he is of the generation who enjoyed the success and glamour of the club fifty years or so ago. If you're a Manchester kid or someone with affinity with the club enjoying the success and glamour of the club now, then this is your Bell-Summerbee-Lee era. You should be able to enjoy that without people calling you a JCL just because you weren't born in the 50s. There have always been ups and downs for the club and there have always been Blues. He seems to think it should have been our destiny to stay struggling, but if, in a Sliding Doors scenario, we had maintained the success of the Mercer-Allison era we probably would have ended up in the same place as we are now anyway. He's also exaggerating. The club can't have 'lost it's soul' because the core fanbase is still from the same places it always was. He is just older now, bored of it and chooses to see the background of our ownership as a personal insult.
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I share much of your thoughts there. I was born in 1967 and my parents took me as a baby (Mam was pregnant at a derby and I was born 8 days later) with my earliest dateable memory of Maine Road being Marsh's debut but we were regular before then. To me City was a powerful, glamorous, trophy winning team (I didn't remember the successes as I was too young but we had family scrapbooks and the 3 trophy team photo was in my bedroom) and I genuinely only knew of Utd because Grandad supported them and they always lost.

I loved the glamour of City - even though it was dark, dismal Platt Lane we sat in - and loved it when they signed big names. I do remember Dad explaining that although City ended the season top of the League they were going to be overtaken by other clubs who still had to play (we missed the title by a point and it took me a long time to get over that even though I was still only about 5). 1976 was significant but we continued to be a powerful, glamorous club, challenging for the title and - make no bones about it - we were LFC's main rivals for quite some time.

Then it all fell apart until our resurrection. Of course there were highs in those wilderness years BUT those years of struggle, particularly the late 1990s, were the exception. Prior to that City had been a giant and had been able to buy any player. We were screwed over by a chairman and his supporting directors (some of whom Shindler praises!) who downgraded a successful and profitable club year on year. Think of present day United under the Glazers. Okay, Swales didn't gain personally at the level the Glazers have but he and his supporting directors took a giant and made us a laughing stock. So...

I've told this before but in 1994 I tried to find a publisher for something I was writing on MCFC from the end of Mercer's time to Lee's takeover. I met with Headline who were keen but their commissioning editor (who supported Utd) said to me that they'd prefer it to be a comparison between City and Utd - a sort of 'we're down here and it's all their fault' book. 'Tell us how they've ruined your life.' 'But they haven't! I'm a City fan and the ups and downs are football.' They suggested having United in the title would sell the book and I could make a decent amount from it.

Obviously, I turned it down. It wasn't an angle I wanted and I then went to Polar Publishing and they convinced me to make it the full history of MCFC instead (Manchester The Greatest City if anyone remembers). That was the right decision. Soon I heard about Shindler doing this book 'Manchester United Ruined My Life' for Headline and it was so obvious what had happened.

When the takeover happened Shindler was often in the media being quoted as representing City fans - he didn't and let's face it no one can ever represent all fans. It's like saying someone represents the LGBTQIA+ community - it's multiple communities with differing views. Shindler is good at what he writes but that whole narrative about a rival ruining your life or how a club is taken from us feels wrong to me. No matter who owns City the fans are the real custodians of our club - and that's why it hurts so much when the club gets criticised.

Thinking about the years I've experienced I enjoyed the camaraderie of away games in the 80s/90s but I've enjoyed the wider experience of City as a successful, glamour club in the 70s and in the last decade or so much more. I miss many things but football evolves.
 
Gary James said:
I share much of your thoughts there. I was born in 1967 and my parents took me as a baby (Mam was pregnant at a derby and I was born 8 days later) with my earliest dateable memory of Maine Road being Marsh's debut but we were regular before then. To me City was a powerful, glamorous, trophy winning team (I didn't remember the successes as I was too young but we had family scrapbooks and the 3 trophy team photo was in my bedroom) and I genuinely only knew of Utd because Grandad supported them and they always lost.

I loved the glamour of City - even though it was dark, dismal Platt Lane we sat in - and loved it when they signed big names. I do remember Dad explaining that although City ended the season top of the League they were going to be overtaken by other clubs who still had to play (we missed the title by a point and it took me a long time to get over that even though I was still only about 5). 1976 was significant but we continued to be a powerful, glamorous club, challenging for the title and - make no bones about it - we were LFC's main rivals for quite some time.

Then it all fell apart until our resurrection. Of course there were highs in those wilderness years BUT those years of struggle, particularly the late 1990s, were the exception. Prior to that City had been a giant and had been able to buy any player. We were screwed over by a chairman and his supporting directors (some of whom Shindler praises!) who downgraded a successful and profitable club year on year. Think of present day United under the Glazers. Okay, Swales didn't gain personally at the level the Glazers have but he and his supporting directors took a giant and made us a laughing stock. So...

I've told this before but in 1994 I tried to find a publisher for something I was writing on MCFC from the end of Mercer's time to Lee's takeover. I met with Headline who were keen but their commissioning editor (who supported Utd) said to me that they'd prefer it to be a comparison between City and Utd - a sort of 'we're down here and it's all their fault' book. 'Tell us how they've ruined your life.' 'But they haven't! I'm a City fan and the ups and downs are football.' They suggested having United in the title would sell the book and I could make a decent amount from it.

Obviously, I turned it down. It wasn't an angle I wanted and I then went to Polar Publishing and they convinced me to make it the full history of MCFC instead (Manchester The Greatest City if anyone remembers). That was the right decision. Soon I heard about Shindler doing this book 'Manchester United Ruined My Life' for Headline and it was so obvious what had happened.

When the takeover happened Shindler was often in the media being quoted as representing City fans - he didn't and let's face it no one can ever represent all fans. It's like saying someone represents the LGBTQIA+ community - it's multiple communities with differing views. Shindler is good at what he writes but that whole narrative about a rival ruining your life or how a club is taken from us feels wrong to me. No matter who owns City the fans are the real custodians of our club - and that's why it hurts so much when the club gets criticised.

Thinking about the years I've experienced I enjoyed the camaraderie of away games in the 80s/90s but I've enjoyed the wider experience of City as a successful, glamour club in the 70s and in the last decade or so much more. I miss many things but football evolves.
Click to expand...
Great insight - and you made the right call.
 
Dribble said:
We won the lottery in 2008 imo. Sheikh Mansour first looked at ArseAnal, then Newcastle, then Everton but was being frustrated with his attempts at striking a deal with any of them.

Enter stage left Garry Cooke & his famous PowerPoint presentation. This was our lottery win, & I agree with the rest that followed leading to where we are today.

Let's not start splitting hairs & dissecting the minutiae of how our journey started, & let's instead celebrate our class leading leadership & ensuing success under Mancini, Pellegrini & Guardiola. )(
Click to expand...
As I said !!
 
Brilliant PB, I can't quite believe the DM agreed to publish it, so kudos to you.

Apaet from your excellent writing style, what's interesting to me is the comments section. Not a single snide comment from any bitter Rag or Dipper. Not one. Nothing.

How times have changed now we've taken what is deemed to be rightfully theirs.
 
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