Matt Dye

Why Blue?

Well, I became a City supporter in a not very straightforward way. When I started to take an interest in English football, I just knew the big clubs, like Liverpool, United, Arsenal – and strangely enough Torquay United (sadly not a big club, I know). After seeing a TV-report about United on German telly and learning that they are called ‘Red Devils’ (my club Kaiserslautern are ‘Die Roten Teufel’) I decided to support Man Utd (I hate to admit it). But pretty soon that started to change. Following them I couldn’t help but notice how very similar that club is to my most hated team Bayern: arrogant, blaming defeat on the colour of their away strip of all things, the referee and everything but their own performance, their glory-hunting fans who start whining whenever their team doesn’t win every single trophy around and in addition to all that a berserk player like kung-fu-man.

To make it short, I stopped supporting ‘Moan U’ and started wondering whether there wasn’t any other team around in Manchester and only then I found out about City (no e-mail access then, and no TV coverage on English football in Germany, mind you). But my interest was really awakened when Gio Kinkladze, who used to play for my hometown’s 1.FC Saarbrucken – now Division 3 – signed for City, and when Rösler, Frontzeck and Immel went to Manchester as well I started to follow the club more intensely. Oh, and of course there was Oasis, one of my favourite groups.

But I really came to support the Blues last season, because of all the similarities between my club and City: both playing decent enough football, both being let down by their strikers, both being threatened by relegation, both teams ‘too good to go down’ (the usual TV-commentary) and both teams having the chance to stay in Premier football if only they could have won their final game, Kaiserslautern drawing 1-1 after being 1-0 up in Leverkusen, Man City drawing 2-2 with Liverpool, after being 0-2 down.

So unfortunately both teams went down and I became a City supporter, because I could relate to the feelings of the fans and because we had a common cause: winning instant promotion. Besides, I got a feeling City fans support their team because they love the club and football in general, and not (only) because of fame and glory and success.

Anyway, if your Nationwide Division One is only half as gruesome as our Bundesliga 2, you’ve got my deepest sympathy and one word to cheer you up: in a crap division like that it’s never impossible to win a play-off place, even if you are 6 points behind, a series of 5 wins in a row will take you right up to the top again, and the season really has just started.

Keep smiling, and up the Blues.

Why Blue?

As long as I can remember I have always been a Manchester City fan. I’ve followed them nearly all of my life (I’m 21!), through the ups (have there been any??) and the downs.

The thing I enjoy the most is that everyone knows who you are when you tell them you’re a Man City fan. They won’t remember your name but they will say, “look there’s the sad bloke that supports Manchester City FC.” I enjoy it, when you find out that they support them, and yet they have never even set foot in Manchester.

I asked one bloke at university (who was a fan of them), and asked him where Manchester was, and he said “Oh it’s near Newcastle”! (that’s true).

My dad’s family is from Manchester (Blackley), and I’m the only Blue! So you can imagine the arguments that happen when I go up there to go to the Academy. But you can’t beat the sound of a home game at the Academy in full song, and my family are jealous!

Living in Huntingdon (near Cambridge), you don’t find many City fans, but at least this year, some of the away games are a lot closer!

Why Blue?

Blue Irony — A City Fan Who’s Not From Manchester

Why Blue? Damned good question isn’t it? And a hard one to answer. Let’s start from my childhood in that county of footballing tradition … Lincolnshire. No – I’m not and never have been a Lincoln City fan, OK! I’ve not even a passing interest in how they get on. As a child, I was a Peterborough United fan. There we go … I said it. The Cambridgeshire Blues … The Posh … Barry Fry’s Blue and White Army. PUFC is probably the only club in Britain where they arrange for an old man in dodgy top hat and tails to go around giving sweeties to little children. The fooball was never spectacular, and the highlight of all my years there was seeing Mr Blobby ambushed and kidnapped by the away fans from Oxford United.

So what changed my tenuous allegiance to the club of my youth? Simple, really. I went to see City play. I was fortunate enough to get a place at Manchester Poly (as it was then) in 1989 … when things were buzzing in Manchester, and you only got burgled four times a year on average. Ah! The good ole days! My girlfriend lived down Claremont Road, so the cheers from the Academy used to rouse me whenever I stayed over the night … OK, so I like my lie-ins!

Eventually, I got up the guts to go see a game. Don’t remember the opposition, don’t remember the score … I just remeber seeing quality football live for the first time in my life. Amazing to think how much has changed in just seven years. There was also the intense loyalty of the City fans, the pride when we finished above United that year, and the determination to never let them think that they’re better than us. The lack of violence surprised me too. In Rusholme and Withington pubs, a red shirt would produce a momentary silence and a few nervous glances, but no more. Great! You’d be surprised hoe Peterborough and Cambridge fans go at each other!

Wherever I’ve travelled and lived over the past four years, I’ve met few City fans and many United ones. The trend seems to increase the further you go from Manchester! But most United fans have been gracious. Some good Rag friends have always teased me, but always wanted City to do well. At the end of last season, several United fans came up to me in the pub to say how sorry they were, before going on to celebrate their Championship triumph. I wonder how many other derby towns you can say that for. Admittedly, most of those Rag fans were from the South Coast!

I’m proud to be a City fan, even when we lose to Barnsley. I hold my head up high. On the 16th of November, I’m going to go and see City play for the first time in over four years. When the tickets arrived I was ecstatic. It only reconfirmed by devotion to the Blues. And I’ll be dragging along an Ajax and a Newcastle fan – we need the extra revenue!

P.S. Does anyone on the list know of a good pub near Fratton Park that welcomes away fans? Are any McVitee subscribers going along? If so, then please let me know … and here’s to a rare away win (the Blues won the last time I saw them in 1992 — perhaps they’re missing me?! :-)).

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #244 on