TRUE BLUE STORIES

WHY BLUE - Christine Haynes

Christine being presented with her prize in a raffle by Frank Sidebottom at the Prestwich and Whitefield Branch of the Supporters' Club on 1st November 1996.

I was born into a family of Blues - apart from my nanna, God bless her. For some reason she was a Red, but this was tolerated by the rest of us. In fact, I was born on 22 May 1968 (today, in fact! Same day as bloody George Best as my (armchair) Red boyfriend is so fond of pointing out) - the same day United won the European Cup. My dad had been to see me in hospital and then decided to go for a celebratory drink. Alas, upon arriving at the pub he found out United had won and had to go home to sulk!

I was aware of City from an early age; me and my older brother had City scarves and used to boo at United and shout "Up the Blues!" to my nanna. My grandad has always been a Blue: he's now 83 so he really has seen it all! He's still got a load of his old season tickets, priced about £1.50 - those were the days! The players I remember best from being a kid are Colin Bell and Asa Hartford and I always seem to remember us winning things. Surely history will repeat itself?

The first match I actually went to was pretty boring: the 0-0 against Newcastle at the end of the 94/95 season. The game itself wasn't anything to write home about, but I was completely hooked on the whole Maine Road experience! I then went to the final game of the season (the lacklustre 2-3 against QPR) and I only missed 4 home league games in the 95/96 season.

The reason I started going was I was so sick and tired of the United supporters gloating and being unbearably smug and humourless all the time. I wanted to go and support my team to try to balance out all the people who had suddenly become United fans. I had been following City's progress over the years but it never occurred to me that I could actually go to a match, so one day I just went for it and I have never looked back since.

No matter how low things get I will always be proud to be a Blue and carry on the family tradition! This is just the start of a long and beautiful relationship...