I suppose it is quite unusual for a fan’s first City match to be away from home. However, for me, that was the case. As it happened I witnessed, what I believe to be, the greatest individual performance ever by any City player.
It was January 1961 and City had drawn Luton Town in the 4th round of the FA Cup. Luton were a decent team in those days and had made it through to the final a couple of years earlier where they were beaten by Nottingham Forest. In those days the FA Cup was really special, and my Dad, a lifelong City fan, asked if I would like to go with him on the train. I didn’t need asking twice.
Earlier that season??? City had signed a skinny 20 year old inside forward from Huddersfield Town for what was then a British record transfer fee of £55,000. His name was Denis Law.
When the day of the game came we set off from our shop on City Road, Hulme to walk to Central Station (now G-Mex). I don’t remember when it started raining but I do remember incessant rain when we arrived in Luton. I recall queuing for ages to get into the ground (this was still in the days when you simply turned up and paid at the turnstile). We had to wait that long that when we eventually got into the ground we were just in time to see Luton score their second goal to take an early 2-0 lead. I remember some of the locals “taking the mickey” and asking us where this Denis Law was.
The rain continued throughout the game, that is until approximately twenty minutes from time when the referee decided to call it off. No, the ref didn’t do us a favour, far from it, because by that time Denis had scored all City’s six goals to leave us cruising at 6-2. I clearly recall Bill Leivers City’s tough tackling full back of that era picking up a handful of mud and hurling it at the ref, so disgusted was he that the match had been abandoned.
Nearly 50 years later it doesn’t matter that the result didn’t stand or even that City went on to lose the replayed match 3-1, with Denis of course scoring our goal. What did matter was that I had seen one of our greatest ever players and from that day on what there was only one team for me.
I live in Perth, Scotland now and cannot get down to as many matches as I would like. I have a son, Calum, who was born and brought up in Scotland. I distinctly recall Calum’s first match – it was the Alan Ball relegation match against Liverpool in May 1996. Calum was just 6 then. He is now 20 and we go to matches whenever we can, we watch live matches in the pub together and chat about the blues every day.
Bill Shankly’s oft quoted comment about football “not being a matter of life and death – but much more important than that” is, of course complete nonsense. Allegiance to a club is however something that transcends generations and helps to form lifelong bonds.