David Buxton

Why Blue?

I’ve just returned from a holiday in Hungary – not the most obvious destination for a week away, but very interesting and very cheap.

Early in the week I had spoken to a fellow traveller who told me he lived in the North of Scotland. It never occurred to me when I binned all the McVitee’s I’d taken with me to read on the coach that anyone else might have been interested in them. However, later in the week David Buxton opened another conversation with the line “I’ve been told you are a City fan.”

On returning to England I sent off a selection of McVittees to supplement the answers I had given to questions about Francis Lee, Gio and Joe Royle, Frank Clark’s demise and all the other events that kept us enthralled last year.

David was born about three miles from City’s old ground at Hyde Road, although it’s only fair to say City had moved from there many (well, some) years earlier. He doesn’t have access to the Web and email, but has sent me the following contribution. I suspect it won’t be his last.

Why Blue?

I haven’t been supporting City for 111 years – it just feels like it sometimes. Like many of you I started when my dad took me along to the Holy of Holies. In my case that was in 1945, so I’ve been suffering, with brief uplifting interludes, for almost half the club’s history!

In 1948, my three best friends (friends?) transferred their affections to that other team, who had by some fluke won the F.A. Cup. The fact that I stayed with City will tell you something about me (mad? – no, the word I had in mind is “loyal”). What will surprise many of you and possibly cause you to stop reading at this point, is that I haven’t watched City in the flesh for over 20 years! Nevertheless, I can tell you that their two recent relegations have hurt me every bit as much as they have obviously hurt those of you with season tickets.

For the past 23 years I have been living in the north of Scotland, a season ticket holder watching Forres Mechanics in the Highland League (if the present trend continues, do you think you could arrange for City to move to the Highland League next year, rather than the Vauxhall Conference? It would make things so much easier for me …).

From afar I have the impression that City have been a bag of nerves during season 1997-8, and if certain names are booed when the team sheet is being read out, I’m not all that surprised! For many of the teams in Division 1 (2), visiting Maine Road evidently provided the sort of challenge relished by non-league clubs drawn against league opposition in the Cup. I fear that in Division 2 (3) this will be even more noticeable.

As an armchair supporter of City I have been reduced on many occasions this season to sitting in front of the telly with the text on the screen, just waiting for the inevitable late goal against them appearing long after all the other results are in! In the case of Birmingham City it happened twice!

At least the appointment of the new chairman augurs well. Wasn’t it Bernstein who wrote: “Something’s coming, something good” and “There’s a place for us”?

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #408 on