Prestwich Blue - Daily Mail article 2008

[johnnytapia]

What a fucking great article.
Chapeau PB.
Fuck your Conn.

 

[BringBackSwales]

CSIAFC

 

[Dribble]

Its really something reading that now after everything thats happened following the takeover. Its been a story that if Colin had written it as a projection in his article, nobody would have believed. One piece stood out for me:

'They understand our relationship with the club and what we want from it, off the field as well as on it. And they are delivering'.

I wonder as a fan base if we still think this is true?

My own views are that commercialism was absolutely inevitable and necessary to build what we are - the best team in the world. That comes with inevitable compromises and attraction of fans globally which can cause tension with the more local and fan base.

Our owners have had missteps like the Super League and response to the problems in Istanbul. On the plus side, they have invested millions and millions in the club infrastructure, community and wider Manchester, in the main recruit players that are fine role models and have produced a succession of teams that play football the like England has never seen. Without them would we ever have attracted Pep, probably the best coach that has ever drawn breath?
Is the soul of the club intact? For me, absolutely. Have they delivered? Yes, like none of us would have believed possible.

There were more than a few rumblings at the time from Blues about "Day-Trippers", "Sightseers" "Corporates" & "Johnny Come Lately's" supplanting them.

I was fine with seeing a few Chinese tourists clicking away with their cameras, because it represented growth & our progression from being a local club with a local fan base, to a global behemoth.

Previously many foreign layman fans didn't even realise there was another team in England with Manchester in their name.

Comparing Manchester City in 2008 to who we are today is night & day, & the easiest way to judge this is when we say "City", & people inside & outside the sporting world know who's been spoken about.

Personally I wouldn’t have our journey or status any other way. We won the lottery & are living the dream under Pep Guardiola, with the best squad, owner & management team in the world. We really couldn't ask for more.

 

[Jazzyblue]

Did Colin Shindler stay away like he suggested?

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.

 

[BringBackSwales]

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 its 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.

You could have saved yourself a lot of words. He is a bitter self-obsessed ****

 

[Eccles Blue]

You could have saved yourself a lot of words. He is a bitter self-obsessed ****

That made me laugh out loud. I agree with you though. :-)

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

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.

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

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.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

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.

So he watches just the two games plus cup games a season?

Think he's talking porkies there.

Correct on the Mercer-Allison era, if that was bigger and more fruitful in terms of trophies won we'd of been the team he supposedly dislikes anyways

 

[Gone for a Burton]

There were more than a few rumblings at the time from Blues about "Day-Trippers", "Sightseers" "Corporates" & "Johnny Come Lately's" supplanting them.

I was fine with seeing a few Chinese tourists clicking away with their cameras, because it represented growth & our progression from being a local club with a local fan base, to a global behemoth.

Previously many foreign layman fans didn't even realise there was another team in England with Manchester in their name.

Comparing Manchester City in 2008 to who we are today is night & day, & the easiest way to judge this is when we say "City", & people inside & outside the sporting world know who's been spoken about.

Personally I wouldn’t have our journey or status any other way. We won the lottery & are living the dream under Pep Guardiola, with the best squad, owner & management team in the world. We really couldn't ask for more.

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 !!

 

[Maly]

I was at the club one day for a meeting about something. It must have been about 2010 - it was before we'd won any of the trophies. As I waited I saw him leave the main offices with Bernard Halford, both laughing about something. I was somewhat surprised to say the least. I asked someone I knew at reception 'Is that Colin Shindler?' (knowing full well it was) and then was told that he was chatting with Bernard for a book he was researching. Not certain what the book was (possibly Manchester City Ruined My Life which came out about 2012) but it really surprised me. I never discussed it with Bernard and it may be that it was all just flowery, nice stuff. My guess is that it was about 70s/80s/90s City.

i think it must’ve been a different book, as I’m sure I read Manchester City ruined my life many years before 2012 mate