Richard Allen

Why Blue?

Born in April 1977, people could be forgiven for wondering why on earth I became a City fan. At the present moment the club has not won anything in my lifetime, although I hope that times are changing for the better now. I was born and brought up in Cardiff, where I attended my first football match in 1983, although I have to say that I can never really recall being a Cardiff City fan. The only thing I can remember from those days is my dad refusing to take me to see Cardiff play Swansea. I think I was taken to football matches when I was young as my dad wanted to go and I was the excuse he needed. Anyway, I digress.

Moving to South Manchester in early 1985, I arrived in school to be asked what football team I supported. I had never really thought about this, and as I only knew a couple of lads in school by then and they were both Rags, I replied that I was a Red. This awful frame of mind only lasted a few weeks though, and having persuaded my dad to take me to the Swamp to see the Rags play, I had realised the error of my ways and I remember crying as the Rags came from behind (possibly twice) to beat Oxford 3-2. The reason I became a Blue was that, of the friends I had developed at school, my two best friends were committed Junior Blues and they introduced me to the Tuesday night training sessions at Platt Lane, where I had the good fortune to meet Alex Williams (ex-City goalkeeper, retired due to injury), who has stayed in my mind as being one of the nicest people I have ever met.

The first City game I ever went to see was to see City stuff Arsenal 3-0 after we had already been relegated, although my memories of that match are somewhat foggy, and the first City game I can really remember was seeing our Youth side beat the Rags’ youth side 2-0 at Maine Road in the FA Youth Cup final for a 3-1 aggregate win. This was the moment that I knew that I was a True Blue, and that nothing was going to be able to take that away from me, no matter where I was or what I was doing. I think the reason that this game has stayed in my mind for so long is the memory of so many youth players going on to play for the first team whilst we were in the second division (1987-1989), such as Paul Lake, Andy Hinchcliffe, David White, Paul Moulden, Paul Simpson, Ian Brightwell and others. Since that day, I have been a dedicated City fan and have probably been to the Academy around eighty times as well as having had a birthday party there when I was about ten (I think the club still does these if anyone is interested).

Now at University in Newcastle, I have lost none of the pride and honour I have always had walking around in my blue shirt, which the majority of Geordies respect as they haven’t won anything for far longer than us, although I hope this will change in the next few weeks. In the eleven years that I have now been a Blue, there are two things that have got me down far more than the threat of relegation, and even being relegated, or seeing the Rags go on and win the double. My worst memories as a City fan have come when Howard Kendall sold Andy Hinchcliffe to Everton, and then Hinchcliffe went on record as saying he “was glad to have moved to a big club with a chance of winning things”, and in January 1996 when I heard the news that my boyhood hero (and probably the best player I have ever seen live wearing a City shirt excluding Gio) Paul Lake had been forced to retire due to his knee injury. As an afterthought, does anyone know if the Oasis gigs at Maine Road are as a testimonial for Paul Lake as they said they would do one for him if the club wanted them to? If not, does anyone have details of a testimonial for Paul, which I would really like to attend?

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #176 on