TRUE BLUE STORIES

Matt Dye

Blue Irony -- A City Fan Who's Not From Manchester

Why Blue? Damned good question isn't it? And a hard one to answer. Let's start from my childhood in that county of footballing tradition ... Lincolnshire. No - I'm not and never have been a Lincoln City fan, OK! I've not even a passing interest in how they get on. As a child, I was a Peterborough United fan. There we go ... I said it. The Cambridgeshire Blues ... The Posh ... Barry Fry's Blue and White Army. PUFC is probably the only club in Britain where they arrange for an old man in dodgy top hat and tails to go around giving sweeties to little children. The fooball was never sepctacular, and the highlight of all my years there was seeing Mr Blobby ambushed and kidnapped by the away fans from Oxford United.

So what changed my tenuous alleigance to the club of my youth? Simple, really. I went to see City play. I was fortunate enough to get a place at Manchester Poly (as it was then) in 1989 ... when things were buzzing in Manchester, and you only got burgled four times a year on average. Ah! The good ole days! My girlfriend lived down Claremont Road, so the cheers from the Academy used to rouse me whenever I stayed over the night ... OK, so I like my lie-ins!

Eventually, I got up the guts to go see a game. Don't remember the opposition, don't remember the score ... I just remember seeing quality football live for the first time in my life. Amazing to think how much has changed in just seven years. There was also the intense loyalty of the City fans, the pride when we finished above United that year, and the determination to never let them think that they're better than us. The lack of violence surprised me too. In Rusholme and Withington pubs, a red shirt would produce a momentary silence, and a few nervous glances, but no more. Great! You'd be surprised hoe Peterborough and Cambridge fans go at each other!

Wherever I've travelled and lived over the past four years, I've met few City fans and many United ones. The trend seems to increase the further you go from Manchester! But most United fans have been gracious. Some good RAG friends have always teased me, but always wanted City to do well. At the end of last season, several United fans came up to me in the pub to say how sorry they were, before going on to celebrate their Championship triumph. I wonder how many other derby towns you can say that for. Admittedly, most of those RAG fans were from the South Coast!

I'm proud to be a City fan, even when we lose to Barnsley. I hold my head up high. On the 16th of November, I'm going to go and see City play for the first time in over four years. When the tickets arrived I was ecstatic. It only reconfirmed by devotion to the Blues. And I'll be dragging along an Ajax and a Newcastle fan - we need the extra revenue!