Why you supported our wonderful club

Henkeman said:
Like so many, I was taken as a child by my father.

But I'll tell a little story I have done before about the coda to it.

My father went constantly from his boyhood to the mid seventies until the family moved south when I was little. So I didn't get quite the same experience, it was going to visit family that I would be taken to games ("I've put up with it for 40 years, I don't see why he should get away with it"), so throughout the eighties I would go to occasional games. It was always a wonderful treat.

Into my adulthood I'd still make the trek north to see City. Not often, maybe a couple of games a season, and more usually to City away matches in the south in those days when you could get tickets for them.

My father as he got older stopped going more or less. He had grown out of the habit of it, though would watch on TV and still was very much a blue.

Come 2011 and City reached the cup final. A friend of mine was a member of the Sussex FA and they got tickets to such things, and knowing me as a City fan asked if I wanted them. Obviously I did.

So I rang my father and said that it was 30 years since he first took me to a game, the FA Cup 3rd round v Crystal Palace (January 3rd, 1981). He didn't remember. I then said that year City had reached the cup final, and we watched it at home. Wouldn't it be nice, all those years later to watch it together again?

"Oh yes it would. That would be nice. Do you want to come down and watch it with us?"

"I could dad. Or you could come with me to Wembley".

I will treasure that long silence for the rest of my life. And what a day we had. The turning of the circle - son taking his father to football.

I love my Dad for introducing me to City. And though I don't go remotely as often as many on here, I do go. I'm there on Saturday, I'm up for the Spurs league match. All because he took a little boy to Maine Road, wide eyed in the North Stand, wondering who this lady with a bell was, watching Joe Corrigan patrol his six yard box and do shuttle runs across it.
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Great story mate...
 
My dad was a Yorkshire man so he would watch both teams when he could ,mainly City. When I came along he took me to Old Trafford for my first game but it was sold out, he didn't want to disappoint me so we jumped on the bus to watch City reserves.I was at the next home match and I was hooked .Dad also became an avid blue and detested the reds until the day he died.
 
blue b4 the moon said:
Made my eyes water a bit that mate. Lovely stuff.
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Same for me,lump in the throat time.
Dad first took me and my younger brother in the 1965-66 Division 2 promotion season,and then I started going with my school friends 4 years later.
So it was bringing the wheel full circle when I started taking my Dad to matches in the mid 90s. His birthday is early December and it was difficult to know what to get him as a present(he was in his late 60s by then and had all the material things he wanted).
So I would buy tickets for a home match near his birthday and then pick him up from Alkrington and then take him back home after the match. And then do the same a few weeks later for a Christmas present.
So thanks Dad for taking me to City matches in the 1960s.
 
My Dad didn't really give me a choice in the matter. We moved away from Manchester when I was 4 and was the only City fan at school. I started High School the same year United won the treble and City were in Division 2, but its all been worthwhile looking back. That was just character building.
 
I went to school in Bradford in the 80s and wanted to be different as everyone else supported Leeds United. Bradford City or Liverpool at the time. As a Smiths fan, I read articles in the music press that Johnny Marr was a huge City fan, so decided to follow his path.
Having worked shifts for most my life, I didn't actually get to attend a match until Arsenal at home in 2009 (the infamous 4-2 Adebayor celebration game) and have been hooked ever since.
Yes, I know I'm a JCL !!!
 
I'm born and raised in Stretford. Surrounded by United fans, including Aunts / Uncles / cousins.

Was disgusted by the sheer arrogance of them all ... even in those days (70s & 80s), when Liverpool dominated, everyone would tell me United were the biggest club in the world, it's every kid and professional footballer's dream to play for United, even the Liverpool players secretly wish they played for United, George Best, Bobby Charlton, at the start of every season every other team just looked at their fixture list to see when they'd have the honour of playing at Old Trafford, before every FA Cup draw all the lower division teams would say they just hoped to draw United for the honour of being eliminated by them and telling their grandkids one day that they were on the same hallowed turf as United, as soon as United were eliminated from any Cup everyone who knew anything about football was sad because that competition was now devalued, when United did manage to win anything they were "back where they belonged", anywhere you went in the British Isles you'd be surrounded by people who had never even visited Manchester / laughed at northern accents but were "lifelong United fans" ... etc ad infinitum. (Could go on forever).

Couldn't stand their sheer entitlement / cockiness / patronising / glory-hunting.

So became a City fan and dedicated myself to hating United and everything they stand for.

Have never regretted it ... although for many years it felt like a bit of a curse. Now we get to watch Vinnie, Merlin, KDB, Sergio, etc ... it's become a wonderful blessing !
 
Lived in Hull - but sky blue was the school team colours and my mum bought me the school kit (this was in 1968) I didn't know who played in sky blue but found out and the rest is history - used to get a trans pennine train into Victoria to watch City, now travel up from Hertfordshire so its never been easy to watch city. My son now is a blue of course but so much easier as I do all the fetching and carrying and paying !! He's 15 seen us lift the FAC, league cup 4 times and took him to Shalke this year - so easy how lucky he is to be a blue but tbh all the football of the 80's and travelling make it so much sweeter now !!
 
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