Neil Bundy

Why Blue?

I never used to be interested in football. In Stockport, most were either Rags or City fans, with some Stockport County, and a few Scouse sympathisers. I never really bothered.

I only remember 2 Cup Finals from being a kid, one was 1977, where the Rags beat the ‘Pool 2-1, the other was in 1981 when I was 11, and I couldn’t believe City’s bad luck with the “one at each end” final.

I remember a few years later when City got relegated.
I also remember when they came back up.
I don’t remember how many managers – I lost count.

I had never actually been to a football match (except an FA Youth Cup game) until the age of 21, and I went to Tranmere Rovers quite often for a couple of years from then on – that was my girlfriend Lisa’s local team – another club “in the shadow of…”. Not very inspiring, but at least they tried to play proper football.

After that, we went not so regularly to Stockport County for a couple of seasons. The cup runs were interesting, but not as good football.

Neither Stockport nor Tranmere seemed to generate a sense of belonging. You went along, watched the match, went home, forgot all about it.

I suppose although Lisa and I both had a soft spot for City for a fair while (i.e. favourite big club, looked out for results), it wasn’t until a certain little Georgian came over that we actually started taking a real interest in Maine Road. Gio Kinkladze seemed to make the place alive (shame the rest of the team often stood around and watched instead of joining in, but that’s another epic story…). In fact we actually only went to Maine Road for the first time in the 1996/7 season, after we had been relegated from the Premiership. We saw Port Vale, Tranmere Rovers and Reading that season.

After those few games at Maine Road and we were hooked – we felt like we belonged at City, and we got season tickets in the Main Stand Block F for 1997/8. We went to all the home matches and 7 or 8 away matches that season, and despite getting relegated, we still renewed for 1998/9, and went to slightly more away games than the previous season, despite 2nd Division capacities meaning it was a little more awkward.

We renewed for 1999/2000 in March, knowing that we would still want to come even if it did mean another season in the 2nd Division – happily we recovered enough to get a good play-off spot, and the rest is now carved in history (never have I been to a football match that had so much emotion as that day at Wembley).

Another element of this “Why Blue” actually involves a small teddy bear (a City Bear bought for Lisa at Christmas 1997).

Named after Gio Kinkadze, Teddy Gio goes with Lisa and I to every game we attend (he was dropped – left at home – once, vs. Ipswich, after threats of being a bad omen, but has been with us ever since).

He has actually had the back of his shirt signed by the Georgian Maestro, and regularly gets kisses and hugs from a number of people in block F – he certainly got appreciated at Wembley too, where one lad gave him a good luck pat for his dad who usually sees us at each game.

* One bloke even saw us at a service station, half recognised us, and asked Lisa “Are you the bear lady?” – that reads less ambiguous than it sounds!

** When Moonchester sees us he always asks if we’ve got him with us.

*** One alien disguised as a human driving along Lloyd Street past the chippy we were in was even head to shout to Lisa “I hope you’ve brought your Teddy”.

**** On average, about 15-20 people say hello to Teddy Gio or ask if we’ve got him with us at each home match.

In short – Why Blue? Because if we weren’t CTID, Blue, and proud of it, about 50 people would lynch us for not taking a certain little teddy bear called Gio to the games!

PS If anyone knows her, hi to Liz from the Main Stand who somehow managed to get on the Wembley footage of “City are Back!” – there’s no need to cry – we won in the end!

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #517 on