Why Does Ricky Hatton Want Us To Be Rubbish again?

[JGL07]

Re: Why Does Ricky Hatton Want Us To Be Shite Again?

There is a lot of stuff I agree with in here but its a pathway that I cant see changing.

I was watching people enter the main entrance yesterday before the game for 5 minutes and there were two girls being paid to wave a flag each. I felt sorry for them as it was clearly the shit job of the day straw that they pulled out of the workers hat in the morning!

I see what you both think you mean.

There is a lot of rose tinted stuff looking back , thinking that Maine Road was some football mecca full of salt of the earth city fans.

Well at least since the late 70s definitely not it was a soulless, atmosphere less shit hole in the middle of an even bigger shithole pulling in 30odd thousand if we where lucky.

Every club is different to back then but for better of worse who knows? I just know that in another 30 years fans will look back to the good old Etihad and how it used to be so much better than now and on and on....

You obviously didn't attend during the Keegan promotion season, to name but one. One of, if not the best atmospheres in the country.

PS: For a lot of the later years, we could only hold 34,000.

I'm guessing you didn't actually get to go to Maine Rd much.

I thought the capacity was restricted to around 30,000 after the new Kippax opened. It was expanded later to 34,000 by squeezing in extra seats in the corner. The ground was not far below capacity during the spell in Division 2 (Division 3 as far ad I am concerned) and stayed so until the move to Eastlands.

I do remember crowds of 20,000 earlier and some less than 10,000 when the stadium held 63,000, but that is another story.

 

[Why Always Ste]

maybe its an identity thing.

i know i identified with city as a kid as i wanted to support the underdog and it always felt better beating the big teams as the underdog,

now we have come of age, i feel part of that identity has been lost forever

but that's just my opinion

Same with my "identity" of City.
Felt more proud supporting the Underdog, probably brainwashed by Family as well.
Now it seems we walk into "battle" as the Top Dog and leaves me feeling less hungry for victory.

 

[Davs 19]

Re: Why Does Ricky Hatton Want Us To Be Shite Again?

I see what you both think you mean.

There is a lot of rose tinted stuff looking back , thinking that Maine Road was some football mecca full of salt of the earth city fans.

Well at least since the late 70s definitely not it was a soulless, atmosphere less shit hole in the middle of an even bigger shithole pulling in 30odd thousand if we where lucky.

Every club is different to back then but for better of worse who knows? I just know that in another 30 years fans will look back to the good old Etihad and how it used to be so much better than now and on and on....

You obviously didn't attend during the Keegan promotion season, to name but one. One of, if not the best atmospheres in the country.

PS: For a lot of the later years, we could only hold 34,000.

I'm guessing you didn't actually get to go to Maine Rd much.

Yes I went during the Keegan promotion season. I bet you were living life to the full then a young man so you remember it fondly and think the place was rocking every week or it was the first season you watched us do well.

Been to the vast majority of Maine road games since the mid 70s and of course there were some great times but this illusion that the place was bouncing is just not true its just a lazy thing to harp on about.

We very rarely sold out the 34,000 back then and got 20 odd thousand regularly over the years which was still great support in view of the league we were in and the standard of football.

You'd lose your bet mate ;.)

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

maybe its an identity thing.

i know i identified with city as a kid as i wanted to support the underdog and it always felt better beating the big teams as the underdog,

now we have come of age, i feel part of that identity has been lost forever

but that's just my opinion

Same with my "identity" of City.
Felt more proud supporting the Underdog, probably brainwashed by Family as well.
Now it seems we walk into "battle" as the Top Dog and leaves me feeling less hungry for victory.

"I love the smell of adversity in the morning. It smells like.....pyrrhic victory."


;-)

 

[Blue Streak]

Quite an interesting one this especially regarding the comments of those who went through the lean times of the 80's and 90's not having known success. That's not completely true however. Many people during these times had great memories of the 60's and 70's and it was sad watching them make comparisons to the current players (then) to the players they remembered such as Lee, Bell, Summerbee etc.

My most vivid recollection of this was leaving the Main Stand after we had suffered a defeat in the FA Cup at Maine Road sometime in the very late 80's (it may have been the QF defeat to Liverpool) and passing the Tony Book bar with his picture of him hoisted up on the players shoulders holding the Cup aloft. This old fella was in tears and telling anyone who would listen 'that we would never see this again'

When we won the Cup in 2011 this guy wasn't far from my thinking.

 

[paulchapo]

I think as a club we are in a strange position and perhaps one Chelsea found themselves in after their takeover, although they were more successful than us prior to theirs.

On the one hand you have the long suffering fans who saw us win some stuff in the late sixties and early seventies and then endured thirty five years of dross. Alongside them are the fans who missed the early success and just endured the dross. Mixed in are the fans who have only seen a small part of abject failure then our recent success and the new fans attracted to that same success. No wonder as a club we are now a little bit confused and lost!

Prior to the takeover life was easy. We were shit and we knew it, our only joy was beating the rags or a cup run. This cemented our fan base and joined us together in a kind of ‘Pride in battle’ ironically our NEW motto. We thrived on being loud and loyal and in spite of all the cock up’s and dross served up we stayed with it and drew national admiration for this.

We are now kind of lost and fragmented accused of being glory hunters when any football fan worth their salt knows we are not and along the way we have kind of lost that inner ‘’Fuck them all we are City!!’’ that set us apart. We need to get it back, starting Saturday!!