Manchester - Capital of Football

[TopDeck113]

The latest lazy cliché that seems to have suddenly slipped into the lexicon of those who broadcast about the sport is ‘Manchester is the capital of football’.

As someone who lives in the environs of the city and spends his days having to listen such bollocks, please can we have a thread putting these upstarts in their place.  If nothing else, it’ll make me feel better.

Today I had a Citeh colleague crowing that their Champions League debut tonight is only thirteen years after playing the likes of Bournemouth.  When I pointed out that we won the bloody thing ten years after playing Bournemouth, including earning the right to the ‘Champions’ epithet en route, it was dismissed as of another era.  When I then pointed out that their opponents were playing in the third-tier of Italian football seven years ago, this too was considered irrelevant. 

Arrogant, the lot of them.

Forza Napoli!

[Villanation]

So taking you are at present based around the North Western regions, and then me, speaking to people pretty much everyday in the Manchester area, don't you find it strange how just about everybody up that way seem happy to big up anything about local football, Manchester based football players and anything football to do with Manchester, they rate a player even when he's crap, despite everybody else in the country thinking the opposite, and the press eat it up, and yet by comparison the local midland's press do nothing to up the status of our players and clubs when one of the midland's clubs are doing well or we have a real starlet coming through.

I find it that way and I could easily say the same for London clubs.

[eamonn]

Manchester, so much to answer for.

[Ad@m]

Arrogant, the lot of them.

Never a truer word said.

[saunders_heroes]

We're just jealous really, but it's only natural.

[john e]

Brian Cloughs won the European cup as many times in the last 40 years as the pair of them put together

[Risso]

Arrogant, the lot of them.

Never a truer word said.

When I worked in Manchester, the City fans always used to be a decent bunch, with a sort of world-weary acceptance that they weren't, on the whole, very good.  Now they're the equivalent of a chav lottery winner.

[Clampy]

I've noticed a change in the Man City fans on the few occasions i've been up there, since they started spening silly money on players they don't need. They're becoming like their neighbours

[theleftside]

i did hear this 13 year oppenent thing on radio 5 tonight. firstly city are a big club and like us and say 6 others should be playing CL so no it's no big deal really,  secondly if man c had a achieved this without the massive spending then yes hands up massive achievement with the millions..........expected

[TopDeck113]

Both Risso and Clampy are bang on.

Not so long ago Citeh fans could be relied upon to be realistic as to their place in the overall scheme of things, indeed, to revel in their ability to cock it up.  Not for nothing did Stuart Hall call Maine Road, The Theatre of Base Comedy.

For that reason, and for that reason alone, I was happy for those friends of mine who I know have endured the long haul, when they finally won a trophy in May.

However, when you hear comments such as, In a few years time we'll be bigger than Barcelona, you know how easily they'll become insufferable.  They're going to become everything they once proclaimed to despise: they're going to become just like their neighbours.

And on that they note, they go a goal down to Napoli.  Brilliant!

[dave.woodhall]

Life's a lot easier once you accept that Manchester is the capital and/or spiritual home of everything.

[Lambert and Payne]

I never used to mind City, they were alright fans when they came down. I'd only seen 4 man city fans in my life outside football games.
Now there everywhere, loads of newbies in man city shirts, there as risso put it 'chavs who won the lottery'. There no better than their neighbours who were everything they hated...

[lovejoy]

I think the city with the best two football teams is Milan

[asgpaul]

Wouldn't exactly say I had a soft spot for Man City but like most I liked to watch them get one over on their neighbours and I remember with fondness the banner they had when visiting Villa Park towards the end of the 92/93 season along the lines of 'good luck Villa from the city of Manchester'.  However, these days I despise them so much that I'd rather see them relegated than any other club.....and that includes Liverpool!!!

[AV82EC]

I'm another one who has to live and work up here and to say it gets wearing sometimes is a bit of an understatement.  I'm fortunate the team I work with all come from the wider region so we've only got one citeh fan and one united fan on our team.  Neither of them go and tbh aren't that interested in football so the rest of us get an easy ride.  Some of the Citeh fans I know outsdie of this are pretty much still OK, and the view I seem to get is that they want to make the most of the next few years before all the glory hunters get involved mainly to rub all their United mates noses in it.  They all realise they've been very lucky and aren't overly arrogant BUT the odd comment has been made recently about how thye now expect success having just won their first trophy for 30 odd years, I've been calling them United fans with Sky Blue shirts ever since.

What really boils my piss  at the moment though is how much the BBC are bigging up the new Salford Quays place.  I don't think there's a day goes by without those ****** mentioning that this programme or that was coming from its new centre in Manchester.  Oh just fuck off I don't care where its made.