This post was on the MUEN in response to the article. It's a bit long, but the best post I've ever read on there so bear with it....... (BTW, I think they should have kept the banner up & I'm hoping they replace it with something equally as brain-numbing, because it will act as the best incentive for us to hit them where it hurts, City Success after City Success)
Varelapinto, Dukinfield (18/05/2011 at 09:35)
Most of the esteemed Blues posting on these pages are missing an important point. "That" banner has never been about banter; it has never been a mere representation of Man United's success or anything as trivial as a boast.
Whether they like to admit it or not, a vast amount of United fans were progressively attracted during the nineties, an era when Sky television transformed the face of English football and chose the Stretford club as its chief mascot which it set about transforming into global brand. The fact that BskyB invested a considerable amount of money in club shares may have had something to do with that particular decision, but I digress.
I do not wish to suggest that all United fans are fickle glory hunters that have seldom or never set foot in Old Trafford or anywhere near Manchester for that matter; in the past few days I had the opportunity to come across very gracious posts on City pages, from red fans congratulating the Blue half for the FA Cup win and Champions League qualification. There is no way to be certain but I imagine that most of these came from long-serving reds who have been following the club through thick and thin... Particularly the pre-1993 days when you could find less people at Old Trafford than you can today at a Will Young concert.
Unfortunately, the post-93 era brought that different breed of fan which I previously made reference to: the glory hunters, for which the club's success is seen as compensation for everything that has ever gone wrong in their lives. The glory hunter gets inebriated by counting the league titles the cups, the champions leagues, charity shields and European supercups. And he does it very often. It makes up for the dead end job, the nasty teacher, the pimples and black heads, the tyrannical boss, the girlfriend you just cannot get. It alleviates the frustration caused by each premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, losing your hair and the beer gut you just can't get rid of. United's titles mean so much to the glory hunter because he has nothing to do with them, it is one thing that he can't mess up.
This is exactly what drives a playground bully to pick on smaller kids: he is all to aware of his own inadequacies and takes solace in inflicting pain and humiliation on someone who is very often defenceless, some small kid who is no match for the stocky bully. And so the harassment continues, the bully perfectly aware that the smaller kids will never be in a position to challenge his reigning over the playground.
This is the mindset behind the 35 years banner. It was erected nine years ago, a time when Manchester City were just back in the Premier League and Kevin Keegan was the manager who had plunged the club into the red to bring in players like Jon Macken, David Sommeil and Antoine Sibierski. Tougher times followed, the Blues flirting with relegation on a couple of occasions. In those years, City were an easy target for glory hunter United fans who took immense pleasure in putting us down, never imagining that we would one day stand up to them. The playing field was slanted and even hard-core Blues fans would never be able to imagine what would happen later in the decade. The banner went up and the years ticked on.
What the glory hunter bullies never imagined is that the Blue kids would one day receive a big box of vitamins, courtesy of an uncle from Abu Dhabi. Overnight the blues kids grew muscles and all of a sudden they were capable of fighting back. The field was level now... And that's what these people cannot deal with. Yes they have another title but it does not feel the same somehow, the joy of mocking the neighbours has been taken away. A true fan revels in wins and trophies; humiliating City has become quintessential of Glory Hunters. They miss it and haven't learned to live without it, hence the rumours of a new banner, the incessant empty jibes about City "buying" success, Tevez leaving, Sheikh Mansour moving on, the financial "fair play" rules... the list is endless.
City have, of course, a lot of ground to make up if they are ever to overtake United in absolute honours. The gulf in titles won is, as it stands, immense as they keep reminding us- but I do not know a single City fan that gives a damn. The indisputable fact is that City are now in a position to take a fight to the neighbours and be more than a match for them. It may take a while to upset the establishment a bit further and take that last step towards greatness but sooner or later, City matches will be played over 97 minutes if need be.
