So, in about October time, I was sitting at my computer, probably wasting time doing something unimportant, when I logged into my email and discovered an intriguing note from a man at Manchester City.
Since the re-launch of the City website, I’ve noticed that the club has been very keen on promoting and working with various aspects of social media – there’s a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account, for example – and one of the things that the club have been very keen on doing is directing traffic towards City-related blogs.
If you don’t know, I write match reports on every single competitive game that City play for my blog called Blues Reviews. I submitted that blog to the official website, asking for it to be linked to in the Fan Sites section, thinking nothing more would come of it but maybe twenty or thirty more hits a week.
But it seems I was wrong, because City have been monitoring the blogs and recently contacted the ten most frequent bloggers, asking if they would like to write a column in the matchday programme for the final ten league games of the season. One of them was me.
I said yes, obviously, but having heard nothing more at Christmas, I assumed it was an idea that had been shelved for whatever reason. Then I spotted a Blue Bloggers column in one of the programmes – Portsmouth, I think – and saw that it clearly wasn’t shelved and, a few days later, I was asked for my column for the Liverpool match.
If you know me, and given that you’re reading this there’s a fair chance you do, you’ll know that I’ve just finished a journalism degree. Part of that degree was a law module, so I have some understanding of what I can and can’t write, but City weren’t to know that and I can only assume that’s why I was asked to submit it last Monday, so that various people could read it and send it to the legal people just in case. Especially since the programme wouldn’t be going to press until well after the Stoke league game.
I didn’t make a big thing of it, because, knowing my luck, something would have gone wrong and it wouldn’t have been printed if I did. If you follow me on Twitter, the first time I said anything about it was Friday evening and once again yesterday because, well… I’m not an idiot and I want some people to read my stuff.
Having read the previous Blue Bloggers columns, I knew I had to be good. I had to write well, in a distinctive style and try to be a bit funny, which is something I always aim to do.
Anyway, it was printed in the Liverpool programme and, if you didn’t manage to get to the game or get a programme, I’ve copied it here, as well.
I hope you like it…
I often wonder if coroners in the Manchester area can cite ‘Manchester City FC’ as the cause of death on a person’s death certificate. If they can’t, then I think the time is right to make it legal. To say City never do things the easy way is a bit like saying Pol Pot was a tad naughty.
Before I make any more links between City and totalitarianism, I should probably introduce who I am. I’m David Mooney and I write match reports of every competitive City game for my blog, Blues Reviews. I’ve been doing it since the start of the 2008/09 season and I’ve not yet decided if writing about every game is a blessing or a curse. I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
It wasn’t my first game, but one of my earliest City memories is sitting in the Platt Lane Stand wearing a black bin liner, generously donated to me by the lady on the row in front to keep out the full force of one of Manchester’s finest rainstorms, while Mark Robbins scored a 69th minute winner for Leicester. If we’re being honest, so far it’s not been the success story that that seven year old boy was hoping for.
The match that gets the honour of having made me the wettest, however, has to go to the abandoned Worthington Cup tie with Ipswich; a game that followed my mother’s infamous words, with regards to the delightful downpour, “it’ll pass.”
Then there’s always the Wembley playoff final that, thanks to an ill timed school trip, resulted in an 815 mile round trip for my father, who was able to enjoy the British countryside from various angles as he drove from Manchester to Anglesey to Wembley and several combinations thereof.
While leaving it until five minutes before the end of the season to score the two goals necessary to set us up for promotion is a good example of City’s nature, I think what best sums the club up are the yo-yo years. Most clubs flirt with relegation and promotion over two divisions, but City went for the less conventional three. It took seven years for me to have a season ticket and watch the team in the same division in consecutive seasons.
Now, though, there’s potential that that damp seven year old can get excited about. He may have had to endure relegations, the taunts of those who supported other clubs, and the fact that he once wore a black bin liner at a football match, but now the skies ahead are clear. Not totally, obviously; I’d always advise taking a brolly with you to matches, on the off chance that Manchester convinces you the weather might be good before presenting you with a storm that would make even Noah go “ooh, steady on.”
We have come close to a cup final once this season and, though the manner of the defeat and the opposition was a bitter pill to swallow, it’s a mark of how far City have come. United’s previous team selections told of their thoughts towards the League Cup, so to suddenly play their first team against us tells you how much the mood has changed.
I mean, so what City didn’t get to the League Cup final? So what the FA Cup run will need a tough replay against Stoke and a visit to Stamford Bridge before thoughts of Wembley re-enter our heads? Talk of actually winning the FA Cup is a bit premature, but why can’t we have a right good go at it? And if it doesn’t happen this season, then I’ve gone 22 years not winning anything, I’ll survive another one… Especially with what we’ve got on the horizon – we can finish fourth.
Of course it won’t be easy, and, this being City, it’s going to be done the hard way. But what other way would we have it? It’s going to be a lot of fun between now and May. And, of course, I’ll be writing match reports every step of the way.
This club has been the life of me. I can only assume it will be the death of me, as well
