TRUE BLUE STORIES

Chris Giles

Being brought up in Bolton and Blackpool in the late sixties and early seventies led to a general disinterest in Football. This was not aided on my 10th birthday by a present from my mother of a new Chelsea kit (Bless her). My infatuation with City began at High School when I began to notice that most of my peers pledged undying allegiance for whichever team were winning trophies, usually Liverpool. Being one of life's rebels I had to be different - hence City. These were the days of Barnes, Owen, Tueart, Bell (briefly), Channon, Power, Watson etc. - but the signing of the sadly departed Kaziu Deyna after the 78 World Cup was what actually got me travelling to games. The idol worship I gave to Deyna was ridiculed at school by the plebs and in particular by a rather rotund chap who happened to follow United. So began a loathing with a vengeance of United which has festered over the years to such an extent that sometimes I get more pleasure seeing them lose than seeing the Blues win.

I now work in Manchester and our sign company does all the sign work at Maine Road and Platt Lane. Unfortunately my partner is a red and refers to me as a "bitter blue". Greatest moments over the last few years have included seeing his face when I posted him a bar of Turkish Delight after United were knocked out of the European Cup the other year, and hearing his rather rude reaction after I left the goals commentary of the last Newcastle-Man United game on his answerphone.

On the subject of computer sims, has anybody heard of the games from Wizard software in Scotland called 1-0 95 and 2-0? There are no graphics to speak of - these are purely DOS based frighteningly addictive games of tactics which have a huge database of virtually every player in Europe. So far with City I have won the Premiership 7 seasons running, the European Cup, the FA Cup, and everything else....Oh, and I recently sold Clough for £22 million to Barcelona.

Dream on..