The Darkest Day - 20 years today

[HelloCity]

Relegation to the third tier despite an away win at Stoke.

Where were you and how do you feel about it all those years on?

 

[Blue Hefner]

I was there!

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Was my birthday, decided against going due to family pressures.

Ended up sat in the garden drinking & crying.

 

[The Lightbowne Cowboy]

Still feel sick :(

 

[The Lightbowne Cowboy]

The fact that the two teams ( Pompey and Port Vale) off top of my head) were both away and neither had won away all season, then BOTH won away that very day, still makes me believe that we were truly cursed. I remember getting back to the Museum in Moston later on and the piss that was taken out of us blues that night was horrendous. I got dragged away from various rag twats at different times of that night. Truly horrendous.

 

[EL APACHE TEVEZ]

Yes I was there,fighting my way out of a pub with an ice bucket.

 

[jimmy blue shoes]

I was there. Kicked off to fuck! The walk back to town was an experience I'll never forget

 

[The perfect fumble]

I wasn't there but I remember that day, it coincided with a very low period in my life, both personally and professionally. Our relegation was the perfect little turd on a very large shit cake.

 

[uweuweuwe]

Manchester evening news as article on the Lad whose distraught face was plastered all over the papers. Can't post link sorry. Even though they were horrible times I have some great memories mostly of us fans who never abandoned the club and makes me glad to be a city supporter

 

[Shaelumstash]

I was there, it was pretty hanging getting out. But I remember the atmosphere in the ground being not too bad. There were thousands of blues in the Stoke end who kept running from their stand and jumping in to ours which got huge cheers every time!

We actually played really well and battered them. I think a lot were resigned to us going down by that game. I don’t remember the mood being anywhere near as toxic as when we lost to Middlesbrough for example, that’s when I got angry and knew we were going down.

Although technically it was, that Stoke game didn’t feel like the darkest day for me. The Makin phonecall to GMR seemed darker. Phil Neal in temporary charge seemed darker. As did getting relegated from the PL by Liverpool. As did that Middlesbrough loss when Gazza took the piss out of us. As did the loss to Stockport. As did going 2-0 down to Gillingham at Wembley...

Edit: From memory, I think the whole Alan Ball / Frank Clarke / Phil Neal era felt like the darkest days because we were dropping like a stone and it felt like we were never going to recover. But when Royle came in, there was a lot more optimism about the place. So although we went down after that Stoke game, it still felt like we had more cause for optimism than we did the previous winter when we seemed to be losing every game and had a wet fish for a manager. That was certainly my recollection.