Newsletter #774

We enter the New Year top of the division thanks to our 3-1 victory over Sheffield United.

Tonight’s issue sees Don’s news, match report, plenty of opinion and requests.

We also have the last instalment of Ken’s City Diary. Many thanks to Ken for this mammoth task over the past 12 months, I am sure it has brought back memories for many.

NEWS SUMMARY

General News

Facelift for Changing Rooms: Kevin Keegan has ordered a complete refurbishment of the facilities at Maine Road. KK said “We have spent money changing a lot of things here that fans don’t always see on the pitch. The changing rooms, for example, weren’t very good when I got here. They looked like something out of the 1970s and needed a complete overhaul. My feeling is, if I am going to ask players to improve their standards, I am not going to give them any excuses. The day I first walked into the dressing-room it was depressing. There is a sauna that I know for a fact has been there for 40 years! The same with the baths, it shocked me. The club is moving ground in two years time and maybe they thought there was no point spending the money. But we still have probably 50 home games in those two seasons, during which we are expected to take this club forward.” In a further attempt to upgrade the players’ facilities, coach operators Finglands have announced that City are to have a top of the range coach for future away travel. The vehicle boasts airline-style seats, and individual connections for our heroes’ gameboys. One interesting feature is a card table that doubles as a treatment table. There is no mention of facilities to treat Deep Vein Thrombosis unfortunately.

Change for Coventry Fixture: Once again City fans have had a fixture date changed for the benefit of TV. The home game with Coventry has been switched to Sunday March 3, and will be shown on ITV’s Central and Granada regions. Note that Sky digital viewers will be able to view this game; instructions on how to tune your Sky digital box have recently appeared in MCIVTA.

Arise, Sir Alex! Well… almost. Former City ‘keeper Alex Williams has been honoured in 2002’s New Year’s Honours List. He has been rewarded with an MBE for his work on City’s community development scheme. The scheme focuses on the development of health, education, numeracy and literacy in the youngsters of the Moss Side district. Congratulations to Alex on the award, which has been made to a really nice guy, if my Mum’s encounter with the former City star in a shop in Northenden is anything to go by. She was very impressed by the civility and humility of the guy, who at the time of the meeting was a City regular.

Transfer News and Gossip

Full Backs Out: The new year sales have begun at Maine Road, and according to reports, full backs are the assets up for sale. Danny Granville has completed his £650,000 move to Crystal Palace, and two other fringe players are also supposed to be on their way, namely Laurent Charvet and Simon Colosimo. Boss Kev paid £200,000 for the Australian, who has failed to impress so far. Colosimo’s City career has consisted of six substitute appearances and one full game in the Worthington Cup. Charvet looked to have earned himself a career under Kev following his perfomance against Watford in the opening game of the season, but following an injury in the next game has hardly featured in the first team. Granville’s transfer will net the Blues a further £250,000 should Palace somehow gain promotion.

Day Breaks for Blackpool: Teenager Rhys Day has joined Blackpool on loan until the end of the season. Blackpool would like to make the deal a permanent one, although City have shown no signs of agreeing to this proviso. Day is a Welsh under-21 international who has captained his country. Kevin Keegan mentioned Day as a potential star of the future, but has not bestowed a squad number on the Bridgend born teenager.

Quelle Surprise! Believe it or not, Reds’ reserve Andy Cole chose to join Blackburn Rovers on Saturday in an £8 million deal, rather than City as the Daily Star would have us believe.

Keegan Ponders Loan Deal: Kevin Keegan is facing up to at least a month without two of his current defensive trio. Lucien Mettomo is away on African Nations’ Cup duty, while Gerard Wiekens is injured. “I might go and have a look around this week and see if I can bring a player in on loan”, said Kevin Keegan. “It would be a Premiership player and he would come in as an insurance policy. It might have to be a player who is not desperately, desperately wanting to play all the time.”

City Linked to Owls’ Youngster: A new player has been mentioned in today’s reports as a possible City target. Kevin Keegan is supposed to be interested in Sheffield Wednesday’s young centre-back Leigh Bromby. The player is said to be worth £2.5 million, a fee which would help reduce the Owls’ crippling debt and give manager Terry Yorath some spending money. City are in competition from Liverpool, Spurs, Southampton and Middlesbrough for Bromby.

Ex-Blues’ News

Kinky Thoughts on Survival: Former City hero Georgi Kinkladze believes that Derby County have the spirit to survive their Premiership relegation battle. He also gave an insight into life at City. The Georgian, who has taken to getting his lawyer to get him a first team place (clearly a good influence in the dressing room then), compared life at Derby to his time at City. He said: “The mood in our changing room is very good, much better than when I was at Manchester City and they were relegated.”

Nicky in at Forest? Kinky’s former partner in car racing Nicky Summerbee had a mixed day at work at the weekend. Summerbee scored Forest’s winner last Saturday, then contrived to have himself sent off. Despite this setback, manager Paul Hart has been impressed by Nicky, who spent a couple of months at City earlier in the season. “Some people may have thought we were taking a risk by bringing Nicky Summerbee to the club but there was no risk involved as far as I’m concerned. He’s a great influence in the dressing room. Our young players look up to him.” Forest are keen to sign Nicky on a permanent basis, but cannot afford to in their current financial crisis.

Reactions and Comments

Keegan Praise for Wanchope: Following City’s 5-1 demolition of League leaders Burnley, Kevin Keegan was full of praise for match-winner Paulo Wanchope after his first-half hat-trick. “Paulo is a very good player, better than I ever thought he was. He’s been out for two months and played 90 minutes only three days ago. But here he made a terrific contribution,” Keegan said. “He’s only 25 and still improving and his finishing was great. Shaun Goater has got an incredible amount of goals so early this season and he’s bound to have a dry patch so it’s great to have Paulo back now.” KK was very pleased with the Burnley result, but had a realistic appraisal of the performance. He said: “I’m really pleased with that, though I thought the scoreline probably flattered us as for 15-20 minutes they outplayed us and it looked like it was going to be a tough day. Perhaps I’m nit-picking a bit, but I felt we just lacked the quality to turn it from a really good performance into a great performance. However, I was delighted that Darren grabbed a goal late on and it sent the fans home happy, knowing they’d got value for money this afternoon, which is important.” On the longer term prospects of the team, Keegan commented “I’m an optimistic person by nature,” said Keegan. “I look at every new year the same. But I do feel we have got everything here to get out of this division. What we have now got to do is apply ourselves properly and put in the hard work. And we have got to do that on a regular basis from now until the end of the season.”

Shut up Darren! Darren Huckerby has made a New Year resolution to keep quiet on the pitch and not argue with officials. Huckerby’s run of 16 games and 13 goals was ended by a one match ban, missing the West Brom game. “I’ve served my ban and now I’m just concentrating on getting back into the first team,” said Huckerby. “Once I’m back there it’s up to me to keep my mouth shut. I feel that I have been a bit unlucky. I’ve had goals disallowed which I thought were legitimate and then remonstrated with the referee and his assistants, only to find myself booked.”

Two Into Three Will Go: City are the country’s leading goalscorers this season, and Boss Kev rather likes having three strikers in top goal scoring form. “Having three prolific goalscorers is a major problem – for other people,” quipped the Bard of Scunthorpe. “It is great for me. I have got to just get it right when I select them as a pair. I very nearly played all three on Saturday [against Burnley] because I felt that I should not leave anyone out. I told Darren I would get him on and that he only missed out because he was suspended for the last match in which we had played well.”

Keegan Delight: Kevin Keegan was delighted with Manchester City’s 3-1 win at Sheffield United, which took them to top spot in the Division. Keegan said: “It’s a tough place to come – a number of teams around us still have to come here and they won’t fare as well as we have. We look like we have plenty of goals in the side and I believe that we are the top scorers in the country. And today I felt the best means of defence was attack.” He also added his familiar mantra. “It’s important to be top of the table on April 21 and that’s when I want to be there and that’s what the chairman, the supporters and the board want. But we have put together a bit of a run and we’ve shown that we can score goals and we’re not leaking as many.”

Shaun The Tops: Boss Kev waxed lyrical about the performance of Shaun Wright-Phillips at Bramall Lane on New Year’s Day. The City boss moved Wright-Phillips into the centre of midfield to deputise for the injured Ali Benarbia and he rose to the challenge superbly, capping a man-of-the-match performance with the clinching goal in the final minute. Kev reckons that SWP “is a wonderful talent. It was the third or fourth different position I have played him in this season. You play him wing back and he shows he has the courage, you play him as a winger and he will go past people, and you play him up front and he shows he has an eye for goal. In midfield at Bramall Lane, with Eyal (Berkovic) man-to-man marked, he started to run the game for us in the second half. At his age that bodes well for the future.”

Squad News

Mixed News for Defenders: Bad news for Gerard Wiekens. Having forced his way back into the first team, Wiekens will now be out of action for around a month. The Dutchman damaged a hamstring when conceding a penalty in the Burnley match. The balance to this news is that Stuart Pearce has made rapid progress from his thigh injury, and should be in the squad for the Swindon game on Saturday. “Stuart Pearce will come back into the squad for the Cup tie with Swindon,” Special K confirmed, “so that strengthens my options. He has come back to action in four weeks after an injury that should have taken six weeks to heal.” Hardman Pearce commented “Once you have come back from two broken legs at thirty seven, anything is possible. I just have a minor muscle strain. The physio at this club is very good and after three days he told me I was okay to go out jogging.” Ali Benarbia, meanwhile, who missed the Sheffield United game with a thigh strain, is also expected to return to the squad for Saturday.

Etuhu Stalemate: There appears to have been little progress this week in Dickson Etuhu’s contract negotiations. Since January 1 Etuhu has been free to sign a pre-contract agreement with any club. The player could then leave for nothing in the summer. Premiership clubs such as Bolton, Sunderland and Spurs are understood to be monitoring events.

Mettomo Staying Put? Arsenal are about to launch an appeal to FIFA over the loss of their stars to the Africa Nations’ Cup nearly three weeks before the tournament starts. This will be of interest to City, who are facing up to the loss of Lucien Mettomo for this period. KK has said “I am pleased Lucien is an international, but this is not ideal timing and we could lose him for seven or eight games if they go all the way. I know Arsenal have similar problems and are asking to keep their players for an extra game or two. I will be interested to see if the Premiership club is told they can have their players for longer. If they do, I will insist on Lucien staying.”

CITY DIARY: 24 to 31 DECEMBER

24 December:
City last played a Christmas Eve game in 1960, beating Fulham 3-2 at Maine Road with goals from Gerry Baker (2) and Clive Colbridge. They drew 2-2 against Wolves in 1955 (Billy Spurdle & Joe Hayes), beat Charlton Athletic 2-0 in 1949 (Black & Clarke), lost 2-0 at Swansea Town in 1938, beat Huddersfield 3-0 in 1932 (Tilson, Toseland, & Brook), and won 3-1 vs. Notts County in 1927 (Broadhurst 2 & Hicks).

Christmas Day:
Frank Swift made his début in goal at Derby County in 1933, where City lost 4-1. City have not had a Christmas Day game since 1957 when they lost 2-1 at Burnley, Paddy Fagan scoring. They played their first one in 1891, beating Grimsby 3-1. In between they’ve beaten U****d on this day 2-1 in 1915, and drawn 1-1 with them in 1902. There was a 6-5 defeat at Bury in front of 25,000 spectators in 1925. The 5-3 defeat at Grimsby in 1936 was the last match they lost in the league that season, after which a 22 match unbeaten run took them to the championship. And there were some long trips in the days when teams played each other home & away on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, probably both teams travelling back together – as when City entertained Plymouth in 1946 and then went down to Devon that same night. City won both games, 4-3 and 3-2. Fifty years ago City were beating Chelsea in both holiday fixtures.

Boxing Day:
Frank Swift was born on this day in 1913. He played his second match in the Boxing Day return with Derby in 1933, keeping a clean sheet as City won 2-0, and he was in goal on each of his next several birthdays, including a 9-3 victory at Tranmere in 1938 with Milsom scoring four (does anyone know whether Frank Swift ever played against his brother [Fred?] when the latter was with Bolton?). City beat Newton Heath 4-0 on Boxing Day of 1898. They lost 8-0 at Burton Swifts in 1894 and 5-0 at Burton Wanderers in 1896. They won 8-1 at home to Scunthorpe in 1963 with Murray scoring his second hat-trick in consecutive games. City lost 3-2 away to West Brom in 1967 – Albion were the only team to do the double over them that season, but the season ended with City as league champions. In 1988 12,000 fans in fancy dress and waving inflatables went to Stoke to see a 3-1 defeat, and Stoke was where Ian Mellor had scored his last goal for City in a 1-1 draw in 1972. In 1998 the climb out of Division Three began with the 1-0 win at Wrexham, Nicky Weaver’s saves preserving the lead that Gerard Wiekens’s goal had given them. But the most famous of City’s Boxing Day matches is the one against Newcastle in 1977, which would have been notable enough either for the 4-0 win or for Dennis Tueart’s hat-trick against his fellow Geordies, but is especially remembered for Colin Bell’s return from injury, coming onto the field from the substitutes’ bench and being applauded by the Newcastle team and rousingly welcomed by the 45,000 in the stands.

27 December:
Roy Paul scored in City’s 2-0 win at home to Bolton in 1955, and another full-back & captain Tony Book got a rare goal in the 3-1 win at Stoke in 1971. Milsom’s hat-trick made it seven goals in two days for him against Tranmere in 1938, City winning this time 5-2.

28 December:
In 1998 there was a come from behind 2-1 win against league-leaders Stoke, and City were on the way that led to Wembley, Gillingham, and promotion. The 2-1 win at home to Wolves in 1981 put City briefly at the top of Division One (they finished tenth). In 1996 the 2-0 defeat at Barnsley ended Phil Neal’s term as manager. In 1957 City and United drew 2-2 in the last Manchester derby before the Munich air disaster.

29 December:
Denis Law scored at Norwich in a 1-1 draw in 1974. Niall Quinn scored twice as City won at Nottingham Forest 3-1 in 1990.

30 December:
City 8 Blackburn 0 in a wartime fixture in1916, five goals from someone called Capper. They drew 1-1 at Norwich in 1972, goal from Tony Towers. City beat Millwall 2-0 in 1989 when the team no one likes had one of their only two seasons in the old First Division; David White scored twice.

31 December:
City beat Bradford Park Avenue 5-1 in 1938, and won 2-1 at Swindon (Gayle & Beckford) in 1988. City have played U****d several times to end the year, but have never had the satisfaction of seeing in the new year with a win against them.

Anyway, let’s end the diary on a suitably cheery and exciting note, this being City: in 1898 just 300 people saw an away match with Grimsby abandoned with the score 0-0.

That’s it – the diary’s being going in MCIVTA for a year so if you want to know what happened in January you can read the back issues, or go and look it up yourself, or ask some of the old sods in the Main Stand!

P.S. looking ahead: predictions for 2002:
City will be promoted as champions (when they won the Second Division title in 1947 Burnley were in second place).
City will have a good run in the FA Cup to the sixth round, and knock U****d out along the way.

MATCH REPORT: SHEFFIELD UNITED 1 – MCFC 3

I’ve begun to look forward to the New Year game – a combination of festive good cheer, optimism and a perverse sense of enjoyment in making the effort to get to a game when family and friends are recovering from the night before and look at you as though you’re mad.

We made the trip over the hills, suffice to say that there was more snow and ice in Tameside than the Snake & Woodhead Passes put together. Our customary greeting to South Yorkshire from their fine police force ensued when we were brought to a standstill on the motorway exit and escorted to the ground. One of their officers then boarded our coach with a “Welcome to Sheffield. If you’ve got tickets, then your turnstiles are this way. If not, then the ticket booth is around the corner where tickets are on open sale (!). If any of you want a drink then you’re welcome to use any of the pubs except The Cricketers, which is for home fans. Have a good game.” We sat there agog – obviously some serious customer relations course going on at SYPF.

City lined up in familiar 5-3-2 formation: Nash, Dunne, Howey, Mettomo, Edghill, Tiatto, Horlock, Berkovic, SWP, Goater, Wanchope. Into the ground and their quaint wooden seats which make a wonderful clattering noise as you leap up and down. Not that there was much of that to keep us warm in the first half. Nothing to compare to that performance against Burnley, but to say the Blades matched us is perhaps harsh. They had a reasonable attempt on goal which Nash saved, Brown was being his usual petulant self and plenty of argy-bargy going on to the annoyance of most City fans, SWP forced their ‘keeper to make a save, Tiatto received a resounding ‘boo’ from their fans every time he got the ball, which spurred him on more. We did score twice, but it was down at the far end and both were disallowed, one for an offside but we couldn’t fathom the other one.

Onto the second half, which was far more entertaining and City had obviously received the wake-up call they needed. Plus they were playing towards the away fans which gave them a 12th man as our manager might say. On 54 minutes we were awarded a free-kick, Horlock to take as Benarbia wasn’t playing. He swung the kick in, we stood, Wanchope leapt, headed the ball down and Goater jabbed it into the net from close range. After this we continued to press forwards and about 12 minutes later when Dunne picked the ball up and charged down the right flank with us willing him on and, leaving their defenders standing, he crossed the ball into the box where an unmarked Berkovic had slipped into the area and slotted the ball neatly into the net. Superb football and a fantastic goal should you get the highlights.

We dominated for the next 15-20 minutes. Tiatto was replaced by Ritchie, Berkovic by Haaland and Goater by Huckerby. Chants of ‘we are top of the league’ began to ring out, until predictably enough we had some sloppy defending and Brown scored from a corner to bring them back into the game as full-time approached. Four minutes had been added on, they nearly came close again but Mettomo cleared as we held our breath. The ball was cleared out of the area, SWP picked it up on the halfway line, left everyone standing, ran towards goal, a quick one-two and SWP confidently made it 3-1, again a lovely bit of football to see albeit through blue-tinted glasses. Now we could rightfully claim to be ‘top of the league’ with 63 goals scored, 52 points and 4 months to go.

KK was suitably impressed, as was Mr Warnock who stated ‘“they’ll finish 10 to 12 points clear of everyone else”. Man of the Match for me a draw between SWP who never stopped trying in the second half and Dunne who is continuing to put in solid performances and make the running where necessary. As for the ref, well I’d better not get started on that with two petty yellows for Edghill who’d obviously had a bellyful of Brown’s antics and Wanchope.

OPINION: CURRENT FORM

Whilst in the UK, I saw two City games, against Wolves and Bradford City. City, as we all know, won their games, but to make things even sweeter the Rags were losing their games. So I really had a fantastic time, can’t wait to do it again.

Kevin Keegan is doing a great job and you can see the players are playing for one another; this is a real team effort. In the League it is early days, and any 3 of 6 clubs could be there at the end of the season. Let’s not count our chickens before they are hatched.

What’s great about City right now is we have depth, in case of injuries, or suspended players (we all know what some refs are like). The future certainly looks bright going into the new year.

Thanks to all my friends at the Supporters’ Club, and may I wish all City fans a happy Blue new year (in the Premier League).

OPINION: ATMOSPHERE AT MAINE ROAD

On the pitch things couldn’t be going much better; 2nd in the league, just 1 point behind Burnley, fantastic attacking, skilful, flowing football and goals galore. Yet it seems that the crowd can’t get up for the games of late!

All through the bad years we’ve been renowned for our undying and sometimes perverse support of the boys in blue; remember revelling in such classics as – ‘were sh*t and we know we are’, or in response to ‘going down, going down, going down’ – ‘so are we, so are we, so are we’, plus others too numerous to mention.

Yet the last few games at MR have been distinctly flat, until that is City have managed to turn their dominance into goals. Why should this be?

Is it that we all truly have a masochistic streak and that we are only truly happy when were deep in the mire?

Is all the attacking fare we’ve been fed just lately turning us into the proverbial prawn sandwich eating t*ssers who expect to be entertained and won’t get involved until we’ve been fed at least one goal (please God no)? Would small, well-controlled standing areas help?

Or is it that nerves are a major factor? You can’t have been a City follower for as long as I have without feeling that disaster is just around the corner, or without knowing that City have an almost uncanny knack of shooting themselves in the foot (witness Crystal Palace where apparently we dominated but left empty handed). But we know that we can’t win every game, I feel we probably have the strongest team and squad in the division (if the strength of the bench is anything to go by: Weaver, Dunne, Huckerby, Haaland, SWP against Burnley).

My own theory is that there are too many distractions nowadays; the tannoy system irritatingly plays load music for our pre-match entertainment, the bars are relatively warm (certainly warmer than on the stands) and we get to watch re-runs of old City games there, our new announcer is quite frankly sh*te (I keep waiting for him to let slip “let’s get ready to rrrruuumble!”). If you do get to your seat early, you get the delights of Moonchester and the away mascot trying to not save penalties from a selection of younger fans (why do they do this in front of the Kippax when my guess is that only the younger section of our support are remotely interested – switch this to in front of the family stand if it must continue). All this when traditionally we’ve been building up a (vocal) head of steam prior to kick-off.

So what can we do?

Well radical suggestions might be:

Introduce small, well-controlled standing areas like the small paddocks that used to be at the front of stands at ground like Burnley (I didn’t get to the game there this year, are they still there? What is the situation with terracing – I thought they were illegal but I still see standing at 2nd and 3rd division games)? Is this an option for the new ground or do we need to lobby to get the law changed first? Hopefully any ensuing debate won’t be totally myopic and focus only on this point.

A less radical alternative might be to designate singing areas in each stand, where the less vociferous can avoid, perhaps encourage, rival singing (main stand, main stand give us a song).

Close the bars 15 minutes before kick-off (I’m not sure that one will go down too well).

Ditch the new announcer, Moonchester et al.

Suggestions please.

OPINION: STAN GIBSON

It was with great sadness that I heard about Stan’s unfortunate passing through this news site.

As a past player, I think I speak for all in saying what a wonderful person Stan was and what an extremely good job he did with his beloved Maine Road pitch. How strange that it will not be long before City move to newer pastures!

I can still picture Stan stood in his gumboots, holding his pitch fork and woe betide any player who went on the pitch when Stan had indicated that there should be no training on the main pitch!

During my brief time at City he was certainly larger than life and I certainly hope that the club arrange a suitable memorial for him. Deepest sympathy to Janice and Stuart.

OPINION: GEIST INDEX

My trials and tribulations with broadband have me almost thinking fondly of my dial up days. Oh and the scanner I got for Christmas doesn’t have software that works – thank you Canon… Been a fun couple of days and haven’t even got to watch the football on the box.

Meanwhile City go top, although you all knew that from the Index – right. Teams starting to sort themselves out and of course as the season goes on less and less conjecture with upcoming results and instead hard numbers added in. Still the overall totals are very low so anyone with a good run (Preston?) has a chance of crashing the party. Birmingham did that with a couple of away victories.

Hate to say “I told you so” when it comes to Crystal Palace, but that’s the whole point of the Index. Let’s you know who is truly a contender. Meanwhile at the bottom it is starting to look grim for Walsall even though Grimsby and Sheffield Wednesday are below them in the actual table. Once Walsall dip below projected 46 points they’ll join Stockport on the relegation list.

Projected Final Positions results through Tuesday January 01 2002, followed by projected total points. The number in parentheses is their current league position.

 1 82 Manchester City (01)
 2 80 Burnley (02)
 3 76 Wolverhampton (03)
 4 76 Birmingham (07)
 5 76 Norwich (04)
 6 75 West Brom (06)
 7 75 Coventry (08)
 8 74 Preston (10)
 9 72 Millwall (05)
10 66 Watford (11)
11 66 Gillingham (12)
12 65 Crystal Palace (09)
13 65 Nottingham Forest (13)
14 65 Wimbledon (15)
15 64 Portsmouth (14)
16 62 Sheffield Utd (16)
17 62 Bradford (17)
18 62 Crewe (20)
19 57 Barnsley (19)
20 54 Rotherham (18)
21 53 Grimsby (22)
22 51 Sheffield Wednesday (23)
23 48 Walsall (21)
24 30 Stockport (24)

OPINION: ANORAK’S CORNER

Interesting statistical thought on City’s form:

            Played  Won    Drawn   Lost  For   Against    Pts
GAMES  1-10 10      6       0      4      27      20       18
GAMES 11-20 10      5       3      2      20       8       18
GAMES 21-27  7      5       1      1      16       7       16

If you can draw any conclusions the facts suggest we are improving, particularly defensively. Maintain this level of form and things should look good.

OPINION: NUMBER PLATES ABROAD

My brother in New Zealand tells me that his family gave him a personalised number plate for Xmas/birthday present this year. In New Zealand one can have up to 6 characters – so his is MANCTY. He tells me that English soccer team plates are quite common (he mentioned MCFC, EVERTN and SPURS). He’s chuffed as anything with his new registration even though did see the Blues against Palace and Coventry this season. I’ve banned him from coming back here to watch any more games until we are promoted!

OPINION: GREETINGS

Thanks for all the City newsletters, they really make my day! Let’s see City go all the way in 2002!

Happy new year to all City fans around Europe from a City fan in Trondheim, Norway!

REQUEST: AUSTRALIAN BLUES / CHRIS GEE, VANCOUVER

Although I have plenty of stories about City over the years and will endeavour to share a couple, I’m contacting you to see if you can help me track someone down. The person is a Christopher Gee who submitted a story to you. He has lived in Vancouver for a number of years and that is where he submitted his story from. I am one of his friends who lived under the shadows of City’s floodlights that he mentioned and shared many a game with Chris. We have lost contact a number of times over the years as whilst he has been in Canada I have been back and forward from Australia. I have now been in Perth 3 months and have been trying to contact Chris.

On a bright point there is a recently formed supporters’ club here in Perth, which is currently based at the Boathouse Brewery up in Joondalup near Perth and while I have been here have met a great bunch of Blues. We get together once a month, watch a video if we have a recent one, have a beer and generally chat about City and any other news. There are a lot of City fans over here and hopefully we can arrange something more central to Perth as we know there are a lot who live south of Perth as well. We are 30 minutes north.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who may be interested in the Perth Blues or knows of Chris Gee!

REQUEST: TV COVERAGE IN IRELAND

Does anyone out there know of any pubs etc. in the Dublin area that show the live City games? Any info greatly appreciated.

REQUEST: MILLWALL LIFT

After the Millwall match (30 Jan), is anyone driving back to near London able to offer a lift and somewhere to crash? I’ve got a meeting in London next day and I can’t go day before because of the match and the train fares are exorbitant in the morning…

REQUEST: COLOSIMO

Anyone know if our Simon is related to actor Vince Colosimo? They sure look alike.

REQUEST: GENEVA BLUES

I will be moving to the Geneva area in early January 2002; are there any exiled Blues living around Ferney-Voltaire/Geneva? If so, can we meet up, hopefully to watch a game on TV (is this possible?).

Please email me.

REQUEST: WE ARE NOT…

It’s taken me some time to pluck up the courage to write and ask you all this, so here goes.

What are the origins of (and, while we’re at it, words for) the “We’re not really here” song? Although I’m a season ticket holder in the North Stand, I’ve no idea where this song came from… and it’s really bugging me now!

I’m sorry if this has been covered previously – e-mail me away from the Newsletter if you like – but any light shed on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

REQUEST: TICKET COLLECTIONS

Hi, I’m looking for supporters around the world. I collect tickets (used or not) of football and I try to have more friends who could help me and keep their tickets. Thanks to answer to this message.