This needs to go in the classics. I can't believe I missed it at the time.
@Wheelsy's post sums it up best. Yes, of course the fans in Istanbul (and at home and elsewhere) celebrated, but the majority of pre-takeover Blues were just completely beside themselves. It was the same after the Stoke final in Wembley - you could see it on everyone's face. After the initial celebrations died down we were all just thinking about our loved ones who'd endured the 80s and 90s but hadn't lived long enough to see us back at the top. A mixture of relief, joy, but also crushing grief.
The first thing I did when the final whistle went after Istanbul was fall off the sofa onto my knees and start crying. I just completely crumpled. Looked like I was performing salah in the fetal position. After about 30 seconds I just about mustered the strength to crawl over to my mum who was sitting on the other sofa in tears. I put my head on her knees as she cradled me. She's not held me like that since I was old enough to walk to school on my own. She'll probably never hold me like that again. After the FA Cup final a week before I was stunned into silence but after Istanbul I was inconsolable.
My mum's followed City since the early 70s thanks to her older brother, my uncle. Dave. They were both there in 81 and she's never forgiven Spurs for it. Dave died suddenly in 2020 aged 58. She spent the entire 20/21 Champions League run begging for us to go out - she couldn't face us winning the European Cup right after he'd gone. A part of her died with him that's not come back. She's admitted to me that it took her about a year to get back to normal after both her parents died, but that the piece of her that's been missing since Dave's death has never returned.
During the pandemic she also lost two of her best mates, Neil and Andy, who'd been Blues for just as long as she had. Andy was part of Cheadle Blues, if anyone knew him. Andy Mullen his name was. Neil died just before the pandemic after a long, long illness, but Andy got taken by cancer in a flash. His wife Julie had been diagnosed as terminally ill in 2016 (she died in 2022) but somehow it managed to kill Andy first. Andy and Neil had seen us come back to the top and been there for Aguero vs. QPR but devastatingly they just fell short of seeing us lift the big one.
As I was crying in my mum's arms about us winning the treble, she said through her own tears: "That's one for for Dave, one for Neil, one for Andy". We were sat with Neil's wife too, so we had an emotional moment with her - even if she's a Red. After things had calmed down, my dad, also a Red, sneaked off into his bedroom and whipped out a bottle of champagne he'd secretly bought in advance. He shook my hand and said congratulations. And it really hit me that I'd lived to see all this with my parents after having serious health complications of my own.
Even my fiancée was there. Doesn't do football, still doesn't understand why we were all so emotional after winning a solitary football match, but she was there with a smile on her face and her little crochet set in her hands. She'd been knitting a hat while the game was on. She put it down for a glass of champagne and she was there getting drenched with the rest of us in Manchester when the parade was on a couple of days later. She doesn't get football but she knows I love City and that's all she needs to understand really.
I've had trouble with eating disorders for years. No matter how many doctors I saw, they were never been able to pin it down to anything in particular because it wasn't about body image or weight. I wanted to put weight on, I was just convinced that certain food groups made me sick so I avoided them, even as my weight dropped and dropped and dropped. They eventually settled on ARFID, which is only usually seen in kids with autism but is starting to be seen in non-autistic adults (although I'm not entirely convinced about that either). I went in hospital for four weeks in 2019 and then three more weeks in 2020.
I got out just before the pandemic hit and spent lockdown getting better, putting weight back on and beating the eating disorder back bit by bit. Lived with a tube in my face for 15 months. By the time of the Champions League final the tube had been out for three years and I was back up to a healthy weight. I forget sometimes, but I couldn't forget in the aftermath of the Inter game - I did nearly die in 2020. My weight was dangerously low and hat hospital trip was a last resort to try a new experimental feed. If that new feed hadn't worked, it was total parenteral nutrition or nothing. Emsogen or bust. Thankfully Emsogen won.
So I got to see both sides of the experience, I guess. How it felt to experience Rodri's goal in the moment, and how many mixed emotions my mum would have been feeling if she'd lost her son, her brother, and her two best friends before we'd all had a chance to celebrate winning the European Cup. Since that night in Istanbul I've been absolutely determined to outlive my mum. Not saying I wasn't already intending to do that, but years of being malnourished alters your perspective on how important life is - it makes you think there's no point to anything.
But there is a point and there is a meaning. The meaning of life is learning to be okay with death - I can't speak for anyone else but my experiences have taught me that I can only be okay with death if I think I've done enough in my life. When I've gone doolally at the end and I've lost all but my core memories, I'll still remember holding that glass of champagne with
all of my loved ones around me and Ilkay lifting that trophy on the TV. It's been enough to make me not want from City anymore because there's nothing more they could possibly give me.
