Clara Suess

Why Blue?

Like many other Blues, I suppose I’ve got my family to thank for my allegiance to City. Though in my case it was a rather different chain of events which led in my becoming a Blue.

My grandfather’s from Austria and felt that being under Hitler’s regime wasn’t the greatest of fun when you’re part Jewish. Fortunately he sussed things out before the start of the deportation to camps and himself and the rest of his family escaped to England due to knowing friends and family over here.

Since my grandfather moved to Chigwell, Essex, I suppose it would make more sense for me to be writing about my deep devotion to Leyton Orient FC, which was also to be my dad’s team. However, things didn’t really occur like that.

The rest of the family moved to Manchester, where they set up businesses and married. One of the shops, which sadly doesn’t exist anymore, was situated in Moss Side and sold ‘fancy goods’ (I’d love to hear from anyone who remembers it!). Obviously they were to support City over the Rags, though apparently some nutter who married into the family had both City and Un*ted season tickets!

I’ve read before that most of the Jewish community in Manchester support City and from the experiences of my family I’d say that was pretty accurate. Though why did I, a non-Jewish girl from Edinburgh of all places decide to support Manchester City FC?

From what I remember, I’d always had a longing to belong to a set of fans. I’ve never really been interested in the events of the Edinburgh sides and their tame derbies, probably due to the fact that as a kid I was never taken to matches due to my gender and nobody in my family supported them. I couldn’t support a team just randomly which had no importance to my family like most do when they support the Rags.

I grew up hearing of stories about the greats and clearly I don’t need to mention who they might have been for someone my age (Bell, Lee and Summerbee) with a constant longing that this great club would become great again.

I was born the year that City last reached an FA Cup final. I have never seen them win any proper trophies. In fact, due to geographical reason, I have never seen them play in the top flight. My proudest day as a Blue so far would have to have been May 30th 1999. I even met my current boyfriend through City (in fact it was through a message I posted up on here about Blues from Edinburgh) and loads of great people. Like me, I hope that I will have many other tales about City to tell my children and grandchildren, Though there is certainly no danger of me getting a Un*ted season ticket as well as a City one when I finish my degree and (hopefully) move down to Manchester!

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #561 on