When / why did you become a City fan?

Before I start I want to doff my cap to all the old school fans on here who've been fans their entire lives, like a birthright and such. Much respect and I'm taking note as to not get smart with these gents and ladies when interacting on BM, lol.
My own story is a bit different. I was raised in the States in a soccer-mad immigrant family from Italy. My uncles were all players of some note in these parts and my Dad was/is a Lazio fan. In the 1992-93 inaugural season of the Prem, Paul Gascoigne came to Lazio from Spurs and it raised my interest in English football. At the time I was still playing and basically everyone in the soccer community here had a Prem team they supported, mostly United and Liverpool. I decided to take on a team of my own and decided on City for 3 reasons. The first was simply because they wore sky blue like Lazio. The second is because they were an underdog. And the third was because they weren't United for whom I had already developed a healthy dislike (which grew into hate).
Strangely the more abuse and ridicule my buddies threw my way the more engaged I became. I was suffering through demotions and celebrating promotions. Staying in the Prem from 2002 onwards was a big victory in itself.
Then came the event that changed everything for me. Not the big purchase that started this era, but the hiring of Roberto Mancini. Soon enough I was giving it back to the United and Liverpool and now Arsenal frontrunners and it was all changing, quickly. Winning the Prem the way we did and seeing Mancini, a member of Lazio's last Scudetto winners in 2000, draped in an Italian flag and hoisting the EPL Champions Trophy was beyond incredible! To go from '94 to 2012 and then to where we are today was impossible to imagine.
That's my story and I'm sure there are thousands of others like it. The bottom line is there are dedicated City loving Blues everywhere, each with a story and each with an unwavering loyalty and love for the team that started somewhere, many in Manchester and many others in all corners of the world.
 
Otamendi's Beard said:
My dad is a blue and I was going to Maine Road from 5. But I'd say that being a mascot at 7 was when I really knew it was city til I die.

My two girls are already well on the way to maintaining the family tradition.
Click to expand...
Dad and uncles on both sides. Mum grew up in Withington about a mile from Maine Road. My Dad further afield in Handforth but went everywhere in his younger days watching us. Eventually him and his brother would go with my Mums brothers and when I was born in 89 I quickly caught the bug!
 
A few reasons
  • Could hear goals going in at Maine Rd before I was old enough to go on my own and played football on the street instead
  • Secondary school was 15 mins walk tops
  • School games lessons and school football team home games on Platt Lane (City’s then training ground) Astroturf
  • Old fella and his brother were Irish but contrary, so picked City as their local club and also to wind up the compatriot sheep who blindly followed the odd lot
  • A natural affinity with the underdog as we were back then
  • I’m not an arrogant entitled smacked arse ****
 
JewelZee said:
Before I start I want to doff my cap to all the old school fans on here who've been fans their entire lives, like a birthright and such. Much respect and I'm taking note as to not get smart with these gents and ladies when interacting on BM, lol.
My own story is a bit different. I was raised in the States in a soccer-mad immigrant family from Italy. My uncles were all players of some note in these parts and my Dad was/is a Lazio fan. In the 1992-93 inaugural season of the Prem, Paul Gascoigne came to Lazio from Spurs and it raised my interest in English football. At the time I was still playing and basically everyone in the soccer community here had a Prem team they supported, mostly United and Liverpool. I decided to take on a team of my own and decided on City for 3 reasons. The first was simply because they wore sky blue like Lazio. The second is because they were an underdog. And the third was because they weren't United for whom I had already developed a healthy dislike (which grew into hate).
Strangely the more abuse and ridicule my buddies threw my way the more engaged I became. I was suffering through demotions and celebrating promotions. Staying in the Prem from 2002 onwards was a big victory in itself.
Then came the event that changed everything for me. Not the big purchase that started this era, but the hiring of Roberto Mancini. Soon enough I was giving it back to the United and Liverpool and now Arsenal frontrunners and it was all changing, quickly. Winning the Prem the way we did and seeing Mancini, a member of Lazio's last Scudetto winners in 2000, draped in an Italian flag and hoisting the EPL Champions Trophy was beyond incredible! To go from '94 to 2012 and then to where we are today was impossible to imagine.
That's my story and I'm sure there are thousands of others like it. The bottom line is there are dedicated City loving Blues everywhere, each with a story and each with an unwavering loyalty and love for the team that started somewhere, many in Manchester and many others in all corners of the world.
Click to expand...
Class and this birthright you mentioned; your offspring (if blessed), are bonafide blues (: you’ve created that lineage and stand proudly next to blues who relate, we didn’t choose it, we were content to be perennial underdogs when even though the majority of us were born into it; there was an easy option to not hand over your soul to a club that was literally just existing; this is the tribal embodiment for 99% of football fans, it becomes your faith/religion, and we blindly follow, however, miracles clearly exist (:

You’re as much a blue as any one of us, as for me, backing a 3 legged horse is done so in the belief that the others may beat you 9/10, but that one win, when it comes, is about as great a feeling you can experience.. what separates us from the establishment is we have never forgotten where we came from, it’s been flipped on its head and they fucking hate it, it’s as satisfying as it gets!
 
Zin 'messiah' Zimmer said:
Class and this birthright you mentioned; your offspring (if blessed), are bonafide blues (: you’ve created that lineage and stand proudly next to blues who relate, we didn’t choose it, we were content to be perennial underdogs when even though the majority of us were born into it; there was an easy option to not hand over your soul to a club that was literally just existing; this is the tribal embodiment for 99% of football fans, it becomes your faith/religion, and we blindly follow, however, miracles clearly exist (:

You’re as much a blue as any one of us, as for me, backing a 3 legged horse is done so in the belief that the others may beat you 9/10, but that one win, when it comes, is about as great a feeling you can experience.. what separates us from the establishment is we have never forgotten where we came from, it’s been flipped on its head and they fucking hate it, it’s as satisfying as it gets!
Click to expand...
we have never forgotten where we came from, it’s been flipped on its head and they fucking hate it, it’s as satisfying as it gets!

This all day long. Fans of the odd lot, arsenal, dippers have never had the full experience we have
 
1975 or thereabouts (I'd have been 5 or 6). An uncle bought me a full kit, used to wear the white shorts over my brown cords. Loved the sky blue. Grew up in Blackburn, lots of other teams represented but we weren't pariahs and lots of folk liked City back then. Never doubted, even in the wilderness years, that we'd be back up there again.
 
It was my first visit to Maine Road. 18th March 1970. City v Academica de Coimbra. Tony Towers scored. It was a wonderful night
 
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