This may come across as spoilt and ungrateful, i am typing this a few days after winning the domestic treble after all, but i will be extremely disappointed to the point of jacking in my season card if there is yet another increase.
I think the club have realised in the last few weeks that they are not being respected for what they are doing. You ask any football fan in the country what they think of Manchester City and you can play City bingo with the responses:-
- Hollow club
- Oil money
- Plastic club
- Shit fans
- No fans
- Cheaters
- Financial dopers
- Emptyhad
In the past week alone, the attacks on the club when winning another trophy have been disgraceful especially by the media, the likes of "journalists" Harris and Delaney having a field day trying to make a name for themselves whilst not realising how hypocritical they are (or too thick to even care)
This has clearly irked the main people at the club to the point that they made a rare statement defending themselves and with Pep his recent gripes about our coverage on our success. Respect is massive to these individuals, it's what they crave, i cannot imagine the Sheikh, Khaldoon etc are happy that the success that have created is being overshadowed by allegations of wrongdoing, especially in the west and then you have Pep, what he has done is unimaginable in this country. His response last week about Pogba arguing with a fan being top story on the Daily Mail app and yesterday's response to that disgraceful question clearly hurts him, when you do what he has done and you don't get the plaudits for it, it would hurt anybody, let alone someone as obsessive with perfection as him.
With all due respect to the Sheikh, Khaldoon and Pep, who i cannot thank enough for what they have done to this football club, my football club, OUR football club but they are only experiencing what we as a fanbase have been experiencing for a long time now. The continued attack on our fantastic fanbase is relentless, anything we do and you can get your dobber out and play City bingo and i must admit, it used to bother me, i was only human after all and defending my family as we all do in our personal lives. It does not even bother me anymore, coming home today from London i crossed paths with a Leyton Orient fan who proceeded to tell me how hollow we were, how we have no fans and how we have cheated (HOUSE!). Does he really think that? Does he balls, he's just following the football bandwagon and repeating what he sees in the media or on social media. (Thanks Danny Rowe for the winner!!). Yesterday i received numerous texts from United fans "No one is arsed", "You winning the treble is all a bit meh" and my personal favourite "History will not remember this juiced up franchise". I am not unique here, it's a general feeling that is reiterated on social media, on forums and on phone ins. It's the only thing they can attack us for.
Are we ever going to be respected? Probably not. Does it bother us? I think there will always be an element of getting defensive when someone attacks our club but when i was with my dad, uncle, two nephews and my niece this weekend watching us lift another trophy, making memories that will last a lifetime, do i really care what Miguel Delaney, a Peterborough United fan or @FantasticFirminho on twitter think? Do i balls! To put it politely with a big smile, they can all get fucked.
The main point of this long post is the word respect. We have UEFA, our Premier League rivals, opposition managers, opposition players, opposition fans, football fans in general, the print press, the tv companies and social media all ganging up and snapping at the club pretty much 24/7, telling everyone who is willing to listen that what we are doing is wrong, how we are ruining the game and how it doesn't mean anything.
The only ally the club have are us, the fans, and for too long now we have been shown no respect. We have supported the club and defended the club constantly with loyalty and love and we continue to be taken advantage of. Another price rice will cement what they really think of us as a group and i am of the opinion that it will be the point of no return for some (maybe many?) longstanding blues. I personally know of at least 9-10 blues who have been priced out of attending on a regular basis and i would imagine everyone who reads this post will know others, that is a lot of blues not attending matches.
I have always been of the opinion that going to the football is a habit, it's something you arrange your life around and for those who give up their season cards due to cost won't be enticed back to spend £46 against Cardiff especially when 29 of the 38 league games have been televised. It doesn't make them any less of a fan, they would be there week in week out if the prices were reasonable and then maybe City bingo would be null and void as those empty seats you see so often on TV would be replaced by actual fans who are watching at home or in the pub.
I cannot thank the club enough for giving us the success of the last 9 years, Aguero, Silva, Yaya, Bernardo, KDB and Pep and the trips to europe each year. I will be forever grateful for what they have given us and for allowing my loved ones to create memories that will last a lifetime but with all due respect, the players i have mentioned above will be replaced, Pep will be replaced, Tixxi will be replaced and no doubt Khaldoon and the Sheilk will depart at some stage.
The only ones left will be us, the fans, or will we? If the continued price rice and phasing out of match going fans doesn't halt soon, then there will be generations of City fans who won't be match going fans. My uncle won't be able to take his children, my nephews and niece who attended on Saturday won't be able to go until they are at least 18 but with that being 9 and 7 years away respectively, will we lose them forever?
I fear we will and it will be down to some executive in a fancy office, using Excel to calculate how to make the clubs profit margins bigger by charging us all an extra £50 to make an extra £2m. It is not just the £50 this year, it is the £50 last year, the year before and no doubt next year as well. You will get some blues who will say "it's only an extra £2.87 a game, just don't get a tesco meal deal on a Thursday" but it is not just a one time raise of £2.87 per game, it's been seven or eight years of that reasoning and no one would pay £20.09 for a meal deal from Tesco if we applied the same flawed logic.
The recent attacks on the club should be used to create a siege mentality, a new wave of energy that if the club are clever enough to act upon will mean they will profit more in the long term, but not if we are unable to be there to take part because they wish to raise the equivalent of what we spent on Phillipe Sandler (sorry Phillipe!)
