Bob Price

Why Blue?

I cannot remember anything else other then being born Blue. My dad came up from Cardiff to work on the newspapers in Manchester, started supporting City and that was passed on to my mother, my brother and me. I was brought up in Prestwich around the same area as Colin Schindler and went to the same school, Parkview Primary, not Cambridge. I was taken to my first game by my dad when I was around seven or eight, to see Bury-Cardiff at Gigg Lane. I had been pestering him to see proper football as I was getting fed up with Prestwich Heys. He decided the big crowds at Maine Road would not be suitable for small boys and I would have to wait until I grew a little. We eventually went to see City together for the first time against Aston Villa, was it ’59, there about anyway, a 1-1 draw. Bert Trautmann in goal, and, from that day on there has only been City.

A few seasons after I started going regular we won (not they, we) the Second Division championship and we have been rockin’ & rollin’ ever since. Left England in 1977 and had to follow City’s (mis)fortunes when in New Zealand and Australia via three months old copies of whatever soccer magazines the news agents had imported from the U.K. Never lost the passion, never thought of giving up and there are times we all know about when it maybe would have made sense. Now living in Amsterdam, sharing the good and the bad times with a growing number of Dutch Blues, the opportunities to watch City present themselves a bit more than when I was down under. I am only three hours from home to Parkside and Sky show us rather frequently on the box when quite a few Dutch Blues will find their way to the Blarney Stone pub on the Korte Nieuwedijk. I do not expect the coming season to be any different from any other and somehow, I hope it is not. Look, that is why we support them anyway

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First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #524 on