My first city game was at Maine road, but as a Bury fan and the Shakers weren’t even playing there!
I came from a “split” family network, where brothers, parents and relatives were divided between city and Bury. However I was very much a trainspotter at the time, aged 13, but was just getting into football, partly as a result of being chosen to play for Prestwich and Whitefield boys town team at full back.
During one morning spent on the platform end at Manchester Victoria station, I struck up a conversation with fellow locomotive enthusiast, a lad from Blackpool. He said he’d arrived early for the City vs Blackpool game and was collecting numbers before going to Maine Road. then I saw the Blackpool football special run in on the far side of thr station, probably pulled by a Stanier Black 5. Home at lunchtime, I suggested to the fmaily thay my afternoon’s football fancy would be to see the City Blackpool game. Well knowing city played “in blue”, I wore my royal blue and white Bury scarf, but felt a bit self-conscious on the Kippax with everyone else in Sky blue and white attire.
For a couple more years I watched bury mostly, but also City increasingly. But when Colin Bell, my Gigg lane hero, left Bury for Maine Road, myself and my football heart went with him and I’ve never looked back.