The future Manchester City fan

[BlueForever123]

My boy is coming up to 8, he’s City mad. This started from an early age (with my influence) but he’s carried it on. I must admit I used to worry about the expectation levels but the older he gets the more I can see it’s just in his blood like it is mine. The first season he started coming with me to some matches was when we won the league. His record is that he’s been to about 20 matches and has seen 19 wins and 1 draw! Quite different to when I started going to Maine Rd with my old man.

In his class at school it’s about 60/40 support wise in our favour over the other lot. What makes me happy is he’s always loved City – when we won the league there were kids in his class that decided they wanted to support City instead of Utd . Last season when they won it, it never crossed his mind to even contemplate a different team but I think at that age a lot of them do alternate from year to year. I think what helps too is his best mate is a Leeds fan so he keeps an eye on how they are doing and the lower leagues too. He knows that footy isn’t all about the premier league. So I’m not worried about him at all and he likes to hear about our history and the “bad days” – makes me laugh though – he heard Goater on the radio the other day and said “is this the Goat??? I thought he was dead!”

It doesn’t bother me if people have started following us in recent years and have caught the bug. What bothers me is those who have recently started supporting us but purely because we won the league (and I’m sure there are some) – what got me really angry was in the Watford cup game I heard some booing at half time! REALLY??? I ‘d put my mortgage on that having come from more recent supporters. That’s the world we live in though I guess.

 

[BillCarlisle]

I recently read 'Richer Than God' by David Conn, a journalist and lifelong Blue. It's basically about the Sheikh's takeover and also generally deals with the way the PL and Sky money has changed football. In the book he raised a fair point that I had never before considered - that during the 60's & 70's City's crowd at Maine Road included a high percentage of teenagers and guys in their early twenties (I was one of them). In comparison nowadays when you look around the crowd at the Etihad it's somewhat different. A good number of us 60's & 70's lads are still watching City, albeit greyer around the gills and larger round the midriff, but the proportion of teenagers seems to be dramatically lower than it was in those days.

Price of course has a lot to do with it. Plus televised football, and other distractions such as computer games etc. The point David Conn was making is that an entire generation has largely been skipped during City's lean years and we now have a completely new section of our fanbase at home games. New fans, a lot of whom have jumped on the train since 2008.

The hard core 28,000 or so of us who suffered through most of the 1980's and 1990's are still around to tell the tale of the ups and downs of our beloved Club but like the OP I wonder how today's youngsters will view City as they get to our age, when hopefully City will have had years of continued success.

I expect that the likes of us will always sing 'We never win at home' & 'We're not really here'. I just hope that the future Manchester City Fan doesn't materialise in a latter-day Rag in different colours. God forbid that ever happens, and if it does I hope I'm not still around to see it.

In the meantime it's just good to be enjoying the ride and us older geezers have a responsibility to keep reminding the young 'uns of just where this Club has been and what it means to us all. Then with a bit of luck the Future Manchester City Fan will be pretty similar to the Present Manchester City Fan.

 

[zeddie]

Well im also a "foreign" city fan from Dubai.. I started supporting city a long time ago, well before the sheikhs reign and my primary reason was because my circle of friends i used to play footy with, were English city supporters studying or working in Dubai. They played a big part in making me a passionate supporter! Since then, i doubt i have missed a single game. (they show a lot more prem league games here than in the UK) I also couldnt stand the rags arrogance. I am making my first trip to the Etihad on saturday to watch us beat chelski as im in the UK for a while for work :)

If i was living in Manchester id certainly attend a lot more games and probably try and get a season ticket, but i think id miss the sun too much.

 

[dronefromsector7g]

Like us, but with hover boards is what I imagine.

 

[blueyorkie]

Fans are always going on about this type of stuff.

I spend loads of time with City fans, friends, family, people on European trips etc. It's the same people it always was, with exactly the same outlook. NEarly everyone around me in my seat has been there for years. There are a few foreigners with cameras at games, but they are just passengers.

Far too much shite is talked about what a virtue being shit was, and how we our fans were all some sort of football elite. In the main we were just clutching at straws, and embracing a bit of gallows humour because we had nothing else to embrace.

Think that sums it up most eloquently Dave.

 

[Rösler von Stretfordbömber]

"Plastics" are easily denigrated but do they really swap allegiance at a whim? Or is it the case that the team of the moment attracts a high proportion of new supporters, who then stick with their team just like anyone else?

I think it is mostly this. Generally people stick with their club even if the bad times come. Red Dippers haven't exactly monopolised the trophy haul over the past 20 years and you still see fans of them in great numbers all over the world.

I do notice that some aspects of the our culture seep slowly but surely to newer fans. Be it from visiting these boards, or reading Gary James' books, or just from exposure to the worldwide pestilence of rag fans. So in the end I think these matters will sort themselves out well enough.

 

[Techno]

Well, I am a foreigner City fan and my story of starting support City can look a bit silly but what I will say is true. In my country I was not able to watch Premier league on TV until winter of 2008 because none of the televisions were broadcasting Premier league football (at that time I didn't have a computer, it's true). Then, in 2008 winter, a new sports channel has created. It has started to broadcast Premier league football. One day, just accidentally, I turned on that channel and it was broadcasting Blackburn - Man City. It was 85 min when I turned on. Sturridge scored and made it 1-2 and then that fantastic goal by Robinho at 94th min. These 10mins were the first time when I was watching Premier league football. I was really impressed by the comeback which City made and I became eager to watch more City's matches . At that time I was 14 years old and I didn't know anything about new owners and why Robinho was here. I just was impressed by that comeback. Maybe no - one will read this but this is my story of starting support City. I hope that one day I will be at the Etihad :) .

Great story - Welcome To Manchester :)

 

[BillCarlisle]

Well, I am a foreigner City fan and my story of starting support City can look a bit silly but what I will say is true. In my country I was not able to watch Premier league on TV until winter of 2008 because none of the televisions were broadcasting Premier league football (at that time I didn't have a computer, it's true). Then, in 2008 winter, a new sports channel has created. It has started to broadcast Premier league football. One day, just accidentally, I turned on that channel and it was broadcasting Blackburn - Man City. It was 85 min when I turned on. Sturridge scored and made it 1-2 and then that fantastic goal by Robinho at 94th min. These 10mins were the first time when I was watching Premier league football. I was really impressed by the comeback which City made and I became eager to watch more City's matches . At that time I was 14 years old and I didn't know anything about new owners and why Robinho was here. I just was impressed by that comeback. Maybe no - one will read this but this is my story of starting support City. I hope that one day I will be at the Etihad :) .

Great story - Welcome To Manchester :)

Yes, great story and welcome to the City Family. I'll bet you were warmer watching it on TV than we were that day at Ewood. It was bloody freezing.
That was my son's first away game. As you say, what a comeback and what a finish to my lad's first away trip.

 

[pardoe]

For me, any concerns about football moving away from the working class supporter, and people being priced out of the game are counterbalanced by the positive steps the club have taken since the takeover and continue to take. Yes, match tickets have risen sharply in price, but season tickets are very competitively priced, the club has upped its community work even further, there are more women and children at the games than ever and the expansion of the ground will see more people buying fairly-priced season tickets. We are attracting more foreign supporters, and more support within the UK outside of Manchester, but i'm not sure that's a bad thing, in fact it's pretty vital to our future. Obviously there are other issues such as the selling of prime tickets for key games via secondary market websites, but again this is probably a necessary evil as we aim to rapidly build incomes.

One thing that does worry me is the change in attitudes amongst supporters. There's nothing wrong with being desperate to win, and i'm not one of these supporters who measures everything we achieve or fail to achieve in the present against what went on way back yonder, but i don't like how the lion's share of our supporters nowadays expect to win, react so badly to losing, think every man and his dog is out to get us and consistantly fail to respect the opposition and their supporters.

For me, supporting Manchester City is and always has been something to be immensely proud of. As a supporter i consider myself to represent the club and so what i say and how i behave matters. The better we get on the pitch the less amiable and considered we tend to be. Yes, there's much more at stake, and a much greater spotlight on us, but we can still be humble, good humoured and gracious. Sadly, plenty aren't, and we've very quickly developed the sneery arrogance we used to hate about plenty of those of a red persuasion. It's not particularly the newer fans, but plenty of the old ones, too.

 

[BlueAnorak]

if they step out of line and show Glory Seeker tendencies then give them a slap...