John and Katy Roughton

Why Blue?

Because I was born into a family that is Blue.

Because I can still remember the first time I climbed the steps in Maine Road and saw the ground, floodlit in a November night: breath frozen in the evening air, a crescendo of cheering as I entered the stand at the same time the team ran on to the pitch.

Because team posters hung on my bedroom wall in competition with Starsky and Hutch, but I still have the City ones.

Because wherever I go in the world and I mention Manchester, I still get a thrill when I tell people I am not a Utd fan.

Because I worked in Stretford for four years – a Blue island in a blood-red sea of baloney.

Because a football team is for life, not just for successful times.

Why Blue?

Really this should be my 5-year-old daughter’s Why Blue, but I hope she’ll come up with her own in due course. However, after much questioning and persistance on her part I agreed to take her to the Crystal Palace game – her first live football match – I think she was just interested to see what it was all about. For some context to my own City supporting background, please see the Why Blue in MCIVTA 323 on the web site. I had not taken her before, as we live a couple of hours away, I didn’t think she had the concentration span to cope with 90 minutes, and frankly, that she would spoil my own enjoyment of the game. But on parking the car and walking with her to the ground, I felt a range of emotions, some nerves, fearing that she would hate the experience, a sense of pride, which I think is just about having a kid and them wanting to do things with you, and a strange sense of history, another generation coming to Maine Road, all that time having passed from my own childhood memories of coming to watch City in the early ’70’s with my dad.

Of course I went over the top in the City Store, and she is still sleeping with ‘Citybear’ although she has long since eaten the chocolate football that came with it. I got her a City polo shirt, which she had to put on there and then, and we went into the ground. I bought a programme that I knew I would always keep, and we went to our seats. It was just before kick off, and the noise was growing as we took our seats behind the goal in the North Stand. I thought she might be frightened or overawed by the noise or the number of people, but not at all. She just took it all in and it was as though she had been going for years. OK, she liked seeing Moonchester best, but walking away from the ground and back to the car after we had come back from 0-1 down to win 2-1, she decided that the best bits were when City scored (and shaking Moonchester’s hand at half time), and all the singing. As it started to rain, she wanted to know when we were coming again.

The following day, I was in the kitchen and she was in her bedroom. I could hear her singing ‘City (clap – clap – clap) City (clap – clap – clap)’ etc, and later came down to sing her version of Blue Moon (which involved repeating the first line indefinitely). She was telling her grandma (my mother in law) about the game, who told her that she supported Man Utd (news to me). Katy just cut her dead; ‘I support Manchester City’ – proud as you like. The clincher though was at school the following week. I was reading one of her work books. On Mondays the kids have to write a diary entry – what they did at the weekend. They dictate it to the teacher, who writes it out, and the kids copy it to practice their writing. Katy had written ‘I went to see Manchester City and we won’. Not they won, or City won – we won. I’m sure supporters of other clubs must feel the same sense of belonging as we do, but that’s the point – we don’t care, because we are City ’til we die.

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #545 on