Matt Varley

Why Blue?

The taunt often used against Rags that “hardly any of your fans are Mancs” leaves me in a somewhat difficult position, being a Blue born and bred in the Home Counties (it took a lot to admit that last bit – please be gentle with me!).

Unfortunately, I can’t even claim that it has been anything as grand as a twenty-year love affair. Football (and generally all sport) was given short shrift in my family, and I was weedy enough at school to be the last left in the line when teams were chosen (I’m thinking of setting up a group therapy homepage on the WWW for people who have experienced similar traumas).

I have a vague memory of Ricky Villa’s dazzling run and glorious goal (i.e. an exhibition of truly abominable defending), but my first real interest in football was aroused by the 1984 European Championships, mainly because the friends I’d invited round for my 14th birthday wanted to watch it. Of course, England were not even there. Little did I know how much more both bad City defending and the absence of England were to come to mean to me in later years.

For a few years after that, I went occassionally to watch my home team (St. Albans City, Diadora Premier). Then I moved to Manchester (to do a degree) and spent the period of my first year exams glued to the World Cup – Football Fever had me.

Surrounded by Rags and their strange personality traits, I began to follow the fortunes of City with half an eye. I moved to Rusholme, and the weekly results prediction game in my house saw me going for City wins every time. Needless to say, I didn’t win – but City did OK, finishing fifth. I then moved to a house on the corner of one street and Maine Road. I can see the ground from my bedroom window. Great, I thought.

I went to my first game, by myself, and suddenly football became 3-D, noisy and emotional. I started going more often. Last season, I only missed three home games.

How did this happen? In little over ten years, I’ve gone from football ignoramus to football zealot. I can’t even contemplate moving, because it would mean leaving my view of the ground. I hate the Rags, irrationally. I have no control over my emotions for hours at a time. The thought of a goalkeeper playing on with a broken neck fills me with pride, even though it happened long before my time (my time as a football fan, rather than as a live human being). I come out with ridiculous statements like the one I just made.

Why Blue? I can trace the history of the development of my interest in football and in City, but where is the real answer? You may as well just ask “why?”

Why Blue? How could I be anything else?

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #107 on