Mark Forsyth

Why Blue?

A bedside rug, a bedside lamp and a bed cover, what is so important about these things? Not a lot other than 30 years ago these were the objects my father used to brainwash me with before I knew any better into thinking that City were the greatest and only team in the word, for these 3 objects bore the City crest. On a side note, the rug and the bed cover I still have somewhere and when the wife’s not looking they shall be passed to my son as honoured and revered family heirlooms that one day he may pass to his son, though with our new found wealth and stature in the world of football, he shouldn’t have quite as much trouble convincing his son that City are the greatest as my father had. Especially as my first games at Maine Road a few years later was a 0-4 drubbing by Liverpool!

Anyway, where am I going with all this wittering you may ask? It’s fantastic that City now seem to have everything in place and in a couple of years we could be on our way to challenging for trophies year after year but I’ve found it somewhat annoying in the last couple of weeks a lot has been said about our beloved City, and most of it negative, but only it seems from the “big 4”. Everyone one seems to be questioning why Robinho came to City, and indeed why ADUG would want to buy City? Well let’s see, City have a great Academy, great ground, great support, great young manager and as seen at the start of last season when for the first 3 months of the season we were being talked of as top 6 finishers, a lot of potential. For a player, what’s not to like, especially as he can earn huge wages, and for investors who could buy the ground and maybe some of the surrounding area and develop that, what’s not to like? Huge potential that just needs to be harnessed in the right way.

It’s got to me a little more than I should have let it I suppose, all of the jealously regarding City; it seems that the big 4 don’t like the idea of having their monopoly (although you can’t really have a monopoly if you have 4, more of an oligopoly, but I’m going off at a tangent here…) of Champions’ League entry challenged by City and indeed Villa or Everton. Seven does not go into 4 and whilst City, United and Chelski can handle the financial impact of missing out of the £20 million plus TV revenue, how well can the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal? Whilst I don’t see them imploding the way Leeds did (and how I’ve loved watching that over the last couple of years), if they miss out on it for a year or three it could have a big impact on them, and then where will they be? Not in the big 6 or 7, it could go back to the big 4. Nobody seemed to mind Blackburn getting the money, or Chelski, so why mind City getting it? We seem to have them on the run and we’ve not even started flexing the financial muscles.

The final point I’d like to touch on, not that I’ve really made any points at all so far in this ramble, is this, had this been a London side, would we have had all this negativity coming out? Let’s take Tottenham, who are it seems tipped to be the team year in, year out who are going to break into the big 4, and year in, year out they fail to deliver, just like now. I’m sure they will come good at some point this season, but had they been the ones to receive the money, would Arsene Whinger, sorry Wenger really have been putting them down as much as he has City this week, or any of the rest that have come out and questioned the reasons for buying us or Robinho moving to the north? I think not. Heaven forbid that Southern clubs should play second best to Northern ones. It does make me laugh to hear people go on about how London is so much better than Manchester, ha! I’ve lived and partied in both and I’d take Manchester on a cold wet Saturday night any time. Cockneys are so far up their own backsides, if you stopped and ask them for the time of day they would probably think you were after their watch.

One final request: going to be in Seattle Redmond area for a couple of months, anyone know where I can watch City?

First printed in: MCIVTA Newsletter #1468 on