Chris Bailey's Blog

A week, so the saying goes, is a long time in politics but in football it flies by!

Whilst Prime Ministers, Presidents and Chancellors have been busy trying to get to grips with the on-going Eurozone crisis, City fans all over the world have been – with due deference to the Aborigines - getting used to footballing dreamtime!

It is a state of mind that those of us old enough to remember have experienced only once or twice before in the past half century.

Let me try to explain as best I can. My name is Chris Bailey and I am a City fan. So far so good!

For the past three years I have been City’s Head of Content, effectively the editor of this site. I was also at St James’ Park in 1968 when we were last crowned champions of England and I want to share some of the emotion of the past week so please indulge me.

My City watching days began on a cold and windy October day in 1966 under a foreboding sky in Blackpool. Two-years later, at the age of eight, I watched wide-eyed and transfixed as Mike Summerbee (whose programme column I now write) scored and the plain old Citizens became footballing royalty to all that followed them – that leaden Fylde Coast sky has been Blue ever since.

Back then it was all blur. Just travelling to Newcastle on a charabanc (a coach for those too young to know) was an Indiana Jones type adventure for a kid only half way through primary school.

I don’t know how my granddad secured tickets back in those days and couldn’t tell a W-formation from WD-40 but I knew it was exciting, I knew I was part of something special and I knew it was out of the ordinary when I saw him cry for the first time that late afternoon on Tyneside.

Time has yellowed the memory of the day itself, I remember the crush and the thrill and not being able to see anything.


...Bailey's Blog
And that is the point really. Last week’s Premier League win will, in future, not be about Sergio Aguero’s last second goal, Roberto Mancini’s best Basil Fawlty act on the touchline or even the realisation of the club's recent aspirations.

It will be all about our amazing supporters and their memories and sentiments and feelings, that utopian release of pent up passion and emotion stored over years of under-achievement and no achievement.

It will be all about the accounts we can pass on to our children and grandchildren, the shared sense of belonging to something intangible but clearly wonderful.

It will all be about finally being able to call our team champions.

May 13 around 4.50pm was a moment – a passing one I hasten to add - when you loved the people around you more than you loved your family or anything else.

It was a moment when 45,000 Blue clad fans were at one; a moment when words were superfluous, when primal screams and rivers of tears spoke eloquent and powerful volumes. Of all sports in the world only football can do this to people en masse.

On May 13 I was writing the QPR match report – some of you will have hopefully read it – it was written through a veil of tears the like of which I hadn’t experienced since watching my son being born.

I cried again when the trophy was presented as I thought of my granddad – sadly long gone to the MCFC Supporters Club (Heaven Branch) – and the tear ducts were flung wide open again when my own son, watching from the Colin Bell Stand level three, finally got a text to me.

A man in his fifties balling his eyes out over the achievements of a football team; it sounds ridiculous in the cold light of day but nothing could be further from the truth.

City fans from all over the world, some I know well, some I hardly know at all and some I have only met through touring with City in this job or my previous incarnation as the Manchester Evening News City correspondent have contacted me to say they have experienced the same inflamed sensations following the title win.

The victory parade through Manchester brought yet more emotion and the sharing of more rare moments of affectionate togetherness with the wider Manchester public – my voice has only just returned!

At intermittent and unpredictable times every day since the trophy was secured there have been occasions when I have stopped dead in my tracks, opened my arms as if demonstrating the capture of a large fish and just nodded my head; at others I have simply burst into song.

Those around me think I have gone mad but this is how it feels to be part of the City story right now. It is irrational, it is emotional, it transcends simple tribalism or rivalry - it is fantastic and something for which I thank my granddad from the bottom of my heart.

Another set of goosebumps for me Bluey.

Loved that story never a truer word spoken/written.

Just thought i'd mention what we did here in perth being so far away from the street Parade. About 60 of us from the perth supporters club met at a bar on the saturday after the game had a couple of drinks then grabbed the local open top tour bus which does a 45 min tour around the city for tourists. Sadly for them, ( the tourists) about 10 had paid their money to hear the running taped commentary on landmarks and the history of perth only to be drowned out by 60 die hard city fans of all ages male and female alike enjoying the moment, with flags banners and all sorts of city memorabillia draped on the bus.

we had the local channel nine news camera man accompanying us and we got a 30 second slot on the evening news. My daughter, the "poser" managed to get in about 3 shots. A fantastic memory that will live with me and my daughter for ever as well as the Aguero goal and celebration that followed in the supporters club.

Thanks for that topdawg my daughter is in full view in the video clip on the right of the top deck on the bus. i was 2 seats behind and did not get a look in!!!!!

That was brilliant Skyblueoz!!! Well done to you and all the Oz blues!!

Brings back many memories of when I lived in Kewdale WA!!

How long ago were you in Kewdale Blueboy?

It was a brilliant day, sun was shining everything about it was fantastic, One guy was actually out on his hols and heard a rendition of blue moon in the pub before we set off. He couldn't believe what he was hearing so he went to investigate, He just happened to have his city shirt on.

He and his missus jumped on the bus he was made up said it was his best day on holiday apart from the match.

This really does show the depth of City support.They say that the rags have 1/10th of the world supporting them,I bet none have had the fantastic feeling that we got when the final whistle blew,I live in the USA and I had tears in my eyes for the next hour.I have also cried half a dozen tomes since,and I am 75.
Personally I think that this was better than Newcastle

It was definitely better than newcastle in 68. This one was in colour!!!!