N.R.Wentland

Why Blue?

I was born in 1976 and my dad put me into the Junior Blues straight away, so I suppose I never had a choice of which football team to support. Though from memory, I can’t remember there being even one United fan near where I grew up.

The first match I remember in great detail was the Charlton match in the 1985. If we never win one thing while I’m alive I’ll still be able to think of that match and imagine what winning a trophy must feel like. There were around 50,000 at the match and as the goals started to go in one after another it was one of the happiest days of my life. For an 8-year-old kid it was a marvellous experience – the noise of the crowd, the sheer elation of the City fans. The Kippax was a sea of a blue as all the scarves were held aloft as they sang “You’ll never walk alone”. Absolute magic.

It’s moments like these that make you remember why being a City fan is something special and a thing to be proud off. At the moment it just seems these special times are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on. My family left Manchester while I was young and moved to Bristol; if anything, this made me even more of a City fan as I had to defend them all the time and going to Maine Road became even more of a special experience. Going back to Manchester was great, seeing the gorgeous green pitch again with the huge swaying Kippax behind it and with my heroes on the pitch in front of them. There always seemed to be a good atmosphere at those games but now, like the Kippax, it seems to have gone. I moved back to Manchester three years ago and it’s good to be back, though I feel sorry for my dad who now has to do the 300-mile round trip on his own. It’s great to be able to talk to City fans and go to Supporters’ Club meeting (I am a member of the Prestwich and Whitefield branch of the C.S.A.). I’ve even gone to see them train (I’m a student at Salford).

Anyway that’s why I support them and like somebody else wrote, City get in your blood and you can’t help but love ’em.

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #348 on