Chris Wiseman

Why Blue?

From that day onward, my father and I were City to the core, going to every match, getting to know those who often sat near us, though once or twice my dad splurged and took us into the four shilling seats, lower down, close to the reporters and their black telephones and the directors’ boxes, where, after Christmas each year, the cigars would be brought out. I’d never seen anyone smoke a cigar before. Occasionally you’d see a dressed-up woman in the boxes – very rarely anywhere else in the ground.

We also, though this is now harder for today’s fans to understand, went every other Saturday to see Un*ted play at Maine Road, after Uwe’s granddad had made OT fit only for the reserve teams of each club. They were a good team then – exciting, Manchester-based – and the rivalry was mostly friendly. Most City fans I knew at school and elsewhere were pleased when they won the Cup in 1948. But, in spite of some overlap, there was always a difference between the crowds for City and Un*ted. There was passion for both, but there was a friendlier, more human side to the City fans – a sardonic, resigned humour; a peculiar kind of wit; more generosity to opponents. And Un*ted had no Frank Swift, bantering with the crowd. For I already had my first major hero! United crowds grew impatient more quickly, were more intent on winning, and I never “felt” their results the way I did with City. Two incidents confirmed my allegiance.

Once I went alone to a Un*ted vs. Bradford cup tie, and there were, if I recall, nearly 82,000 people there (anyone confirm this – my memory may be playing tricks). I was still young and found myself standing at the very back of the Platt Lane Stand, unable to see. A couple of men tried to help me by lifting me up onto a barrier a bit further down, but two Un*ted supporters (rosettes) pulled me off it and told me to f#ck off. This was the first nastiness I’d ever experienced at MR. Then, in another match, I saw Jack Rowley, Un*ted’s centre-forward, charge a defender over and while the man (Huddersfield Town?) was still on the ground, deliberately kicked him hard in the belly. Again, I’d never seen anything like that, and knew that Alex Herd or George Smith or Andy Black would never have done such a thing. The City team and crowd were simply more generous of spirit.

Sometimes my dad and I went to OT, and later MR, to watch the reserves. There were always several thousand there, and you could stand or sit where you wanted. Back then, too, there were no barriers at all outside the Main Stand, even for first-team matches so, if my dad couldn’t go, I’d stand behind Swifty’s goal in the first half and walk round to the other goal for the second. I was, very soon, because of my hero-worship for Big Frank, a goalie at school, and played against other schools. St. Bede’s was my first “international!” I was always a goalie after that – at school, in the RAF, and at University. I watched my idols – Swift, and later, and to an even greater degree, Bert Trautmann, like a hawk, looking at what they did, for there was no coaching for goalies back then. The day Swifty ruffled my hair is another memory I’ll never forget, as is Bert’s signing a photo for me.

The crowds were huge in those days, but there was little violence on or off the pitch. When a player “had his name taken,” it was a very big deal, and not at all common. A sending-off was extremely rare. Cynicism hadn’t invaded the game the way it has now, perhaps because the players were on ten quid a week (12 for a win) and not prima donnas, and, in society in general, reeling after the violence of the war, sportsmanship was not wimpy or a joke. A Roy Keane would have been banned for life. When West Ham, Newcastle and Portsmouth came to MR, the City crowed would always applaud the (exotic to us) singing of “Blowing Bubbles,” “Blaydon Races,” and the Pompey chimes from the few visiting fans. The only real unpleasantness resided in the toilets at the ground, awash about an inch deep, hot and fetid, fag-ends floating on the warm, shoe-penetrating sea of slash. The walls round the ground had big painted signs on – “Commit No Nuisance” – which were often ignored!

When my dad couldn’t make it, I’d take my maroon Royal Enfield and leave it in one of the scores of “Cycles Stored 4d.” backyards behind the Platt Lane Stand. I’d even walk sometimes through Platt Fields. When those marvellous days of going to MR with my father stopped, in the 50s, because of his health, I abandoned the Main Stand and went to the Popular Side (with my best friend from school, David – who’s posted on MCIVTA several times and who is still a very close friend). Later, we were to play in the same team on a tour of Ireland. Today we share the joys and griefs of 55 years of City watching by e-mail or visits.

That first life-altering day in March of 1947 had been like discovering a new religion into which I poured all my emotions, hopes, dedication and loyalty. It remains one of the clearest memories of my life. Little did I know that, once hooked, I was to stay hooked and, to mix a metaphor, condemn myself to a ride bumpier than I could have imagined, for the rest of my life. I was lucky, though, because, in the 1940s and 50s, City had, for all their mixed results, a top team and some great players. It was one of their two golden ages since the war. For me, Bert Trautmann shines the brightest. He’s still the finest goalkeeper I’ve ever seen play the game, for all sorts of reasons, though it was really hard for many ex-servicemen to accept him as one of our own. Bert simply played his way past their uncertainty with his brilliance – athleticism, confidence, distribution, grace, reflexes, bravery, authority . I’d love to write 100 pages on Bert, but will just ask if any here recall his penalty save at the north end against Liverpool? Lambert took a long run and blasted it a foot above the ground heading towards the bottom corner like a rocket. In those days the goalie couldn’t move until it was kicked, but Bert not only stopped it, but got two hands to it. Perhaps you have to be a goalie to know how incredible that was. Lambert just stood and applauded. There was a photo the next day in the paper from behind the goal (remember the photogs sitting on the grass each side of the goals with their huge cameras?) and it was even more spectacular seen frozen like that. Bert saved 2 out of 3 penalties in one match at Ewood, too. We don’t have many major heroes in a life – he was, and remains, one of mine. The only ungraceful move I ever saw him make was when he threw his sweater on the ground after being sent off for dissent by a prissy referee.

In front of Swifty and Bert there are scores of players I remember for all sorts of reasons – a great goal, an awful injury, a huge mistake, an act of sportsmanship, etc. So many great Sky Blues, all part of my life, never to be forgotten. City were unique – I think Ballymena was the only other team to play in Sky Blue back then – and I worshipped them. Of course, as I grew up into teenage years, there were rivals to City in my life. David and I played hours of Subbuteo. The bike-racing on the outdoor track at Fallowfield drew me every Tuesday night – Reg Harris, world sprint champion, was, with Frank and Bert, a major hero, as were, later, Guy Mitchell, Ken Colyer and various movie stars. Saturdays, until I was 13, meant the kids’ matinee at the Regal on Stockport Road in the morning, then errands for my mother at the shops, Maine Road, the pictures in the evening in Levenshulme, Longsight, Burnage, West Didsbury, etc. And, when girls so deliciously intruded into all this, dances in Church Halls or occasionally at the Levenshulme Palais. In short, Saturdays were bloody magic!

At school we had City vs. Un*ted duels at push-penny on the master’s desk before class, as well as good-natured taunts. I was furious that the United kids chanted “Rowley passed to Mitten, Mitten passed it back. Pearson took a flying shot which knocked Big Swifty back. They laid him on a stretcher, they laid him on a bed, they took him to the hospital and this is what he said. Two black eyes and a busted nose and all my teeth knocked down my throat – no more football for me, I’ve had it, no more football for me.” That I remember it today shows its impact! And I knew no anti-Un*ted song to counteract it with. I learned the word “Rags” at school in 1951 or 1952, though the explanation I was given was less savoury than the usual “dressed in rags” definition. But the taunts soon meant little, as City put together a fine side in the mid-1950s, about which more in a minute. The names, of both great, good and sad, come back – Haddington of the thunderous free-kicks, the oddly brilliant winger “Stingray” Sambrook, who suddenly stopped being brilliant, Roy Little, once so tormented by Stanley Matthews that he feigned injury to be spared further humiliation, Sproston, Barkas, Herd, McDowell – the older pre-war veterans, Emptage of the stutter-step, Andy Black, who once scored from outside a crowded penalty-area with a header (and those leather absorbent, lace-protruding balls were incredibly heavy to head), Bobby Johnstone, Ken Barnes and Don Revie – brilliant creative midfielders- the two superb Welshmen, Roy Paul and Nobby Clarke, George Smith, his wounded arm from the war obvious, Spurdle, Hart, Fagan (Joe and Paddy), Joe Hayes, Broadis – so many. To watch them was a privilege, but it was also a privilege to see the greats in opposing teams. I think of Matthews, Tom Finney, Wilf Mannion, Freddy Steele, Raich Carter, Peter Doherty, Sam Bartram, Stan Cullis, Billy Wright, Bert Williams, Tommy Lawton, Stan Mortensen, Bobby Langton, George Hardwick, Jackie Milburn, Joe Mercer (I was at MR when the Arsenal players carried him off on their shoulders, as it was his final Arsenal match and the whole stadium roared its approval, and men round me were openly crying, Blues as well). It was a great era for soccer in Britain.

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #755 on