This article was a response to one by Anthony Sanchez "The Fall and Imminent Rise of Manchester City Football Club". He generously suggested that I should post this as a separate article. It is a little adapted from the original, which you can find as a comment on Anthony Sanchez's.
My grandfather was one of the original shareholders in Manchester City. He bought a single share of the 2000 original shares. He lived in Hulton Street in Moss Side.
I went to school in Moss Side in the 1950s. In the years after the Second World War, it was City that were the rich club. They spent vast sums in those days on "star" players. I remember Alex Harley holding a goal scoring record... I believe they spent more than any other First Division club in those years.
Before the war, too, City were the big club with luminous stars. But this money was not well spent by managers, and did not buy much success. My recollection of those days was of Bert Trautmann saving the club from relegation year after year, and the manager Les McDowell being showered with halfpennies as he left the ground with chants of "Sack Mac!" following him to his car.
City's reputation for unpredictability was undiminished. Out of the blue, I recollect them defeating Spurs 6-2 at White Hart lane. "Fantastic City!" the "Football Green" headline screamed in 2 inch high headlines. Some people would not buy the "Football Pink"....
(Many forget that City bought Denis Law for a then UK record fee of £55,000 before he went to Italy and later came back to play for United.)
The sums of money have got bigger. More and more is spent on advertising through football, through the media, and more and more is spent by the fans on merchandise and tickets. Someone mentioned a Premiership level playing field last week, suggesting that Man City's new owners had made it unfair. This did make me laugh. There has NEVER been a level playing field. Maybe it was a bit more level in the past, but it's been far from level for decades now.
The top four are the top four largely because of money.
In one sense, football has been taken away from the true supporters who are referred to in Anthony Sanchez's article. But it was always owned by directors who often treated the players with contempt and the supporters, too, if the truth be known. Men with big egos who wanted to be seen to matter.
The fundamentals are much the same, but the form has changed beyond recognition.
But so has our society. And in many ways we should not want to go back to the past, as there was more abject poverty. Before the Second World War, football matches were a brief diversion from the interminable grind of physical labour.
We look back with rose-tinted spectacles—although mine are blue-tinted.
However, we must keep a sense of proportion and remember that it is a game. Being taken over by a succession of unlikely billionaires is entirely consistent with the unpredictable strand which has always run through Manchester City.
But in another sense, the game itself can never be taken away from the supporters and fans, if they can afford to see it (the fact that many can't afford to watch it live at the ground is the sad thing). Every spectator can identify with the brilliance of play, can have their favourites, can have their own opinion.
We are chief pundits for at least 90 minutes, or at least at half time. And for the rest of the week.
There lies the true ownership and democracy of the game. All the other aspects of rivalry into which many of us were born are ancillary to that. And the soap opera of what happens in between games and all the socialising that makes up supporters' lives can never be seized by oligarchs or millionaires.
I used to watch City reserves every other week, along with about 1000 other fans. It's true, I am sure, as Anthony Sanchez writes, that many of the friendships and social groupings of fans on match days were destroyed when the club moved to Eastlands. But it had to happen.
When they bulldozed Moss Side and relocated the community all over the place, they destroyed the same thing. It was far more important than football and wrecked people's lives. I remember a man whose mother had had her house bought under a compulsory purchase order by the Council for £50. It was her pride and joy, well maintained, and she was devastated.
Maine Road was a depressing ground in many ways, rooted in the uninspiring environment of Moss Side. The school I went to in Moss Side is still there and physically, it must be one of the the most impoverished schools, visually speaking, in the whole of Manchester. It's on Princess Road.
It was the games and the play that lifted the faithful supporters, not the bricks of Maine Road. It's the genius of individuals which is always unpredictable—that genius which inspires young children to dream, to aspire, and to achieve. There were great days in the late 60s, with Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison and an unremitting attacking style of play.
So do not mourn the move from Maine Road. It's what happened there that is memorable and untouchable for those who witnessed it. Remember, if you can, too, that this is football. It's always been a plaything of those with power and money. Now it's more so. But they can't own your dreams.
If the very best players in the world are going to be brought to Manchester City, then celebrate it. If new supporters of the club emerge from all over the place, does it matter?
I will still know that I was at Maine Road when there was the lowest attendance ever in the 1960s. And other fans will have their own memories they treasure and re-tell to their friends and family. But it is just a game, just a form of entertainment.
We have struck lucky for now, it would be perverse and curmudgeonly not to enjoy it. No investor in their right mind would invest in football. Chelsea FC is effectively an insolvent business, it's just that they get a massive cash injection to balance their losses, from the man who got his hands on all the wealth created by the power industry workers in the old Soviet Union.
None of club ownership is fair, little of it may be honourable.
Fans invent reasons for their allegiance. Much of it is not rational, but it is all human. The dream of Maine Road, Platt Lane the Kippax will live on as long as there are those who remember them. Who would have thought in the dismal and dark days when City dropped out of the old "Second Division", that the club would one day play in a massive new stadium?
Who would have thought that greatest players in the world might put on the sky blue shirts (not quite sky blue, I know)? And the club badge isn't worth going to the stake for. Three stars are OK, and I would not mind too much if there was a camel hump in it sometime in the future. We could always put a fibreglass camel in Alexandra Park or in Eastlands for the kids to play on. And it can always come out.
It's not selling out, it's facing the fact that if you want "real honest football", then best go to the semi-professional leagues, or even the local park—it has gone from the modern professional game. But don't let them take away your dreams, for they should run true under the madness of the modern game.
It seems to me, from a very prejudiced point of view, that at least in respect of Manchester United, the playing field has become a little more level at last. And if it tips a little in the blue direction, isn't it about time?
As my parents lie serenely in Southern Cemetery, I think they will be quietly smiling at last.
Actually, no—my mum will be roaring with laughter.
23 comments Last one added 7 months ago — Leave a Comment
Anthony Sanchez 9 months ago
Fantastic Tom I've put a link to this article into my article. I hope it gets the readership it deserves!!
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Tom J 8 months ago
Thanks Anthony.
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Steven Ho 9 months ago
Great article. Loved the pace and personal touch of it. Keep it up!
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Tom J 8 months ago
Thanks Steven. Not sure when I'll post another.
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tom white 9 months ago
first class article
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Tom J 8 months ago
Thanks for reading it.
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Jon Marum 9 months ago
Fantastic, I read it first as a comment, but It's even better as an article in its own right.
Great read, and that's from a utd fan. As you said, you have your memories and dreams so Im sure you will never forget the last ever derby at Maine Rd!
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Tom J 8 months ago
That's a generous comment, Jon. I don't mind the compulsory reminder - every City fan grew up on them.
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illya mclellan 9 months ago
great piece tom, good to hear it from the horses mouth, perhaps you should consider writing some sort of fans memoir, as a book type project I mean, you don't see enough of that sort of thing around. thanks for the telling the story of a fan who was there through it all, its wonderful to gain the insight.
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Tom J 8 months ago
Thank you for the encouragement, illya. I sometimes worry that people get so obsessed by football that they can't see other things in life which are really important in their true perspective. I don't buy the "It's more important than life and death" argument. It's not. But it's great fun and I hate to see honest people being exploited by people who just care about money. I was trying to say in my article that there are aspects of football that can never be owned by anyone but the true fan.
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Scott Pusich 9 months ago
Thanks for posting this as its own article, Tom. Good work.
"I remember a man whose mother had had her house bought under a compulsory purchase order by the Council for £50. It was her pride and joy, well maintained, and she was devastated."
FIFTY? Only 50 effin quid? That's just criminal, there's no other word for it. I'm sure that here in the US the cities that have built new stadiums for baseball and American football have done the same sort of thing, I don't think the act itself was unusual, but to give her that pittance of fifty pounds for her home, shows disrespect, if not contempt.
In the US, there only two baseball stadiums that are old enough to harken back to the "golden era": Fenway Park in Boston (home of the Red Sox) and Wrigley Field in Chicago (home of the Cubs). Though I never got to visit it, I imagine that Maine Road was such a place, and it seems that the "arms race" between the Premier League clubs to build new stadiums will result in more such historical stadia being lost.
Great writing, I look forward to future articles.
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Tom J 8 months ago
Hello Scott. Thanks for taking the time to write. It was a long time ago that £50 was the sum given for a compulsory purchase. I don't think that Maine Road was a place worth preserving, to be honest. It had a flat brick facade...
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Biggus Dickus 9 months ago
Good stuff Tom - fantastic memories I have from days of yore singing my heart out in The Kippax.
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Tom J 8 months ago
Absolutely. They'll never die.
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illya mclellan 8 months ago
what's so funny about biggus dickus?
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Ziggy Mends 9 months ago
Oh my word!!!!! After reading Sanchez's article I decide to follow it up with this and lord, I'm so grateful to you two for such great pieces. Wonderful job, man!!!!!
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Tom J 8 months ago
I am glad that you enjoyed reading it. It's good of you to post a comment. One point I never did make in the article was the sheer diversity of fans that you would meet, from every strata of society, yet everyone was equal, wherever they might be watching from.
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Peter Wright 9 months ago
Brilliant writing! You are totally right about Maine Road. As much as it brought the supporters together, the structure of the building was not sound and City needed a new home. Its the reality of football now. City are on the way up and Im proud to be a blue through it all. Ever since the dark days of division 2...now we have arrived at this point....simly an amazing feeling.
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Tom J 8 months ago
I am not sure how old you are Peter. But I wonder if younger fans who have never really seen City succeed at the highest level and who have developed a very dry, not to say bizarre, sense of humour, perhaps as a defence mechanism against failure, will be able to let go of it when City start to win consistently. It won't seem quite the same, will it? :-)
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Baris Gerceker 8 months ago
Lovely article, bold, strong, solid, heartbreaking but nakedly true and real.
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Tom J 8 months ago
Thanks Baris. Do you remember that Man City once played Fenerbace in the 1970's when they had got into Europe? It's amazing that a person like yourself who supports a team in another country should show an interest in Man City! Your comments are much appreciated. I had no idea when I wrote my ideas that they would strike a chord with other fans.
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Baris Gerceker 8 months ago
I am only 29 years old but certainly I heard of those matches. As you may know, Fenerbahçe's European Cup tally was not at all impressive until recently and that Manchester City match up was one of the few victories we ever had. That one, the one that we eliminated Bordeaux was the only two that I heard when I was a kid. Only those two :) Of course in our older history, there are more important games, one of which is again against an English team, during the course of our Independence War, The Harrington Cup (this now brings up an idea to write about that cup, I hope to do it today.)
Then came our 1-0 victory against Manchester United in 1996 or 1997 I guess, where we ended their undefeted streak at Old Trafford. And the past 4-5 years saw more than a couple of important victories in European cups, not to mention the quarter final in the Champions League last season.
I really am enjoying my time in B/R right now, and it appears I am the only one representing my country so I am more than willing to share, to make better impressions on people from other countries, as you know, we are not really welcome as a nation in many occasions :)
...And, that article up there would touch the chords on anyone who considers themselves as "fans", don't worry :)
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Blue Mooning Moonchester 7 months ago
Great article and this is writing that everyone should get to read. Well balanced, fair and a real fans view. As my son was born in Withington Hospital across the road from Southern Cemetry its good to know that as one City fan sheds the mortal coil another joins it.
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