For me, the harsh reality of being in the third division was scouring the dailies to find the match report...., and if you did find it the three paragraphs were a grim reminder of the situation. When the trapdoor opened i was more relieved than devastated, I was sick of losing to teams we should have buried. Conversely, the atmosphere on the Kippax improved, there was an Alamo-type attitude that was palpable, and the away trips were even more mental. Not certain it would have survived for long if we had not yo-yoed back. Pretty sure that season we broke more attendance records at away grounds than any other team. You still needed a thick skin to be City, the piss-taking was pandemic, fourth-rate comedians padding their "banter", gems such as "20 top throw-ins", the new group from Manchester the easy-beats, etc. etc. There were still many awful periods to endure, balanced out by some sublime stuff, but always pissing on my chips were the stretford lot, Eusebio gifting them the E.C. at wembley, partly atoned by Barce humiliating them. But that was then, warts an' all, and we still have the siege mentality thanks to bent, biased msm, ffp pgmol eufa
F'kem