Newsletter #288

Some of my last mails seemed screwed up somewhat. I have kept the line length down a bit and hope that this shows up on your tube better. If it doesn’t, let me know and I will change it. Thanks for the results and league table.

News this issue is that Billy Bragg is to sing about City. A couple of Why Blues, more Gio news (move/not move). Keep the articles coming. Grimbsy next mountain to climb. Anyone fancy doing a mathematical excercise on our chances of making play-offs?

WHY I LOVE CITY

Corrigan
Book
Pardoe
Doyle
Booth
Oakes
Summerbee
Bell
Lee
Young
Bowyer

City 4 United 0
United 1 City 4
City vs. United League Cup semis: 2-1 and 2-2
City 2 Gornick 0 (agg 2-2) – play-off 3-1

Heady days, all out attack, the best forward line ever. 54,000 crowds and magical dark smoke-filled klaxon nights of european adventure.

City 3 Athletico Bilbao 0

And the mighty night against Schalke with the 5-1 dream win and the greatest noise ever heard in that stadium. Coming back from 1-3 down to win 4-3 against Wolves in the League Cup with 3 goals in 7 minutes. Crying tears as United knocked us out of the Cup in 1970 at O.T.

And through it all my dad smiling and knowing that he had the happiest eleven year old in the world…

It was the best of times.

WHY BLUE?

Manchester City. whatta team. I’ve decided to contribute some way in trying to describe how I ended up probably being the only Bruneian supporting the Blues. Well, I was born and raised in Brunei which is a tiny oil-rich country on the north-west coast of Borneo, perhaps mostly famed for the wealth of its Sultan, allegedly the richest man in the world. My father is Bruneian and my mother Mancunian. They met whilst he was studying in Salford. We made regular trips to England to visit my mother’s family which is where I got tied in with the Blues. My grandfather and my mum’s brother were die-hard Blues then and they used to take me to a few games. Back then however I had no idea what my first game was but it was apparently when I was 3 or 4 sometime over Christmas. My grandad has passed away since and my uncle has disappeared in Spain. I still remember most of the stories my grandad used to tell me, as he used to attend the games throughout City’s “golden-era”.

Anyway, I finally came to live in England when I was fifteen, met some kids and started watching City week in week out. As most of these games are relatively recent they’re not that impressive, but the first one of them I went to was the 2-0 over Norwich at home. I watched most of the games in the 94/95 season and I suppose the one that really stood out was the 3-2 over Blackburn where Filtcroft played a blinder. Despite our struggles it was an electric season for me being part of the atmosphere, especially at away games. Beating Newcastle at St. James’ was super as we were standing in terraces and I guess the one thing City fans have is this natural sense of pride of where there from and get a lot of respect from a lot of clubs for turning out in force the way they do. Alas, I’ve since had to move down to London where I’m doing a degree yet catch all the games I can including that cup-tie against the Rags.

It’d be great if the Sultan threw something City’s way, but he doesn’t like football. His son however is a big fan and I’ve met Kev Keegan.

FITNESS PLANS FOR CITY

A hard summer is in store for City’s players as Frank Clark seeks to improve their fitness levels. Although there has been an improvement since his arrival in the new year, Clark says his players will need to be “super-fit” to play the “high-tempo passing game” that he wants City to adopt.

Clark was at the Scottish F.A. Cup Semi-Final between Kilmarnock and Dundee United on Monday night; not sure who he was watching but from what I saw of the game, nobody particularly impressed.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’

WEST BROMWICH ALBION vs. MANCHESTER CITY, Saturday 12th April 1997

It’s a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon in April, City have what amounts to a meaningless match in the midlands against West Brom and yet nearly 5,000 Blues made their way to The Hawthorns for this game. Why? Maybe to see Gio Kinkladze make one of his last appearances for City? Whatever, the match (and especially the first half) was a treat for us all as City played some of their best football of the season. We had a nice, new stand to watch the game from too; the last time I was at the Hawthorns a couple of years ago, the end we were in was an open terrace.

City reverted to the more usual 3-5-2 formation, with Atkinson returning in place of Ingram. Tommy Wright had tendonitis in his knee, so Martyn Margetson deputised. City’s line up was thus:

                       Margetson

        Brightwell     Kernaghan     Symons

                       McGoldrick

      Summerbee         Brannan       Horlock

                       Kinkladze

                   R