Before to many eye brows get raised, I’ll explain…….
It was August 1989 and I’d had a little bit, well a big bit of a thing for Gary Lineker!! It was silly I know but there you go…. A friend at school told me that he was going to the City game at the weekend and that they were playing Spurs. Now, I didn’t know much about football at the time, didn’t know anything about City, didn’t know much about United either (oh how I wish that was still the case!!) I did know that my dream man played for Spurs. My dad didn’t see it my way…. “Girl’s don’t go to football matches”. So, I did what every good girl did – I lied and went anyway. Sorry dad!!

I remember the walk from the bus, there were people everywhere….. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many people in one place. The colour, the smell of that chippy on the corner – it was all very odd. Walking up the stairs with the corrugated iron sides then to walk onto the Kippax, I’d like to say the hairs standing on the back of my neck were for the Blues as they do now but they weren’t…. and if they were it wasn’t for the blues. The players were warming up, City players near the North stand and Spurs players at the Platt Lane end – all the fans were at the City end but I headed straight to see him…….. I’d stood there for about 10 mins watching him, oblivious to anything else, then it happened…… the inevitable……… he slipped while sprinting side to side and fell right on his back side – all the City fans jeered and I was trying to hush them all on my own!!

The game started and my love for Gary was suddenly overtaken with a new feeling. The noise, the singing, the game – a new love was born. I remember talking about the game all the following week and pestering my school friend for the next fixture…… That’s why I’m a city fan – kind of fell into it but a love that you can’t explain or replace – It is like a marriage, for better or for worse. I often ask myself why Blue, was it the football…… is the humour……Who does come up with the chants that you’d never get at any other ground. Is it the ability to laugh at ourselves? I remember playing Arsenal at Maine Road – night game, god awful weather! Getting beat, convincingly at half time. The north stand in unison starting to sing “can we play you every week” and when the inevitable chants by the Arsenal fans – “going down, going down, going down – City fans singing “so are we, so are we, so are we”. Didn’t hear much from the gunners after that! Confusion mainly kept them quiet!! My school crush on Mr Lineker soon died…… Well mostly!

Caroline Tonge
P.S – Genius idea City……