I CAN REMEMBER LIKE IT WAS YESTERDAY. I WAS NEARLY FIVE YEARS OLD,WHEN MY DAD TOOK ME TO MAINE ROAD TO SEE CITY PLAY EVERTON IN THE 6TH ROUND OF THE FA CUP IN 1956. THE CROWD WAS ENORMOUS AND THE ATMOSPHERE TRULY ELECTRIC AND A LITTLE FRIGHTENING FOR SUCH A LITTLE BOY. EVERTON SCORED FIRST AND WERE LOSING AT HALF TIME. THE 2ND HALF CITY WERE ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. ABOUT 20 MINUTES INTO THE 2ND HALF JOE HAYES HEADED IN TO EQUALISE FROM A FREE KICK. AFTER ANOTHER 10 MINUTES THE RIGHT WINGER BOBBY JOHNSTONE THREW HIMSELF TO HEAD IN THE WINNER FROM A ROY CLARKE CENTRE.NO WAY WERE CITY GOING TO GIVE THE BALL BACK TO EVERTON. I DIDN’T GO TO THE FINAL BUT MY DAD DID.

March 3rd 1956 City home to Everton in the 6th round of the FA Cup.
My mate Billy Lyth and I were 9 years of age, and we decided that this was going to be our first taste of seeing the Blues. We walked to Maine Road from near Preston Street in Hulme,where we lived, and this was to become the beginning of a lifetime of watching my team.
We got to the ground at around 1230pm for the 3 o’clock kick off and there was already a buzz of excitement about the place.
In the ground we were helped by some adults on to the sloping wall of a tunnel at the scoreboard end. In our short pants with our legs astride we had a great view of the pitch and the drama of what was to come.
The gates were locked at 2.00pm with 76000 fans packed inside.
I can’t speak for Billy, but I was absolutely knocked out by the day’s events-The singing and cheering of both sets of supporters, the doors opening with 20 minutes to go when thousands more entered the ground with the score at 2-1 for city.
We held on to add Evertons scalp to that of Liverpool in the previous round, and were now one game from Wembley.
On the way home two very happy lads talked about the game and I remembered the words of the great Roy Paul the previous year in Albert Square. After losing to Newcastle at Wembley He said ‘Don’t worry we’ll be back next year to win it’
And the rest is history-
Manchester City my team for ever!

28th December 1957 the Derby match. I was 10 and stood in the Platt Lane End at the front with my brother. Bert Trautman looked so huge.The noise sticks in my mind. We drew 2-2. Of course the events of Feb. 1958 could not have been anticipated.

My second “first game” was my first visit to Eastlands. I was unprepared for the sight of the stadium when you first see the pitch. I cried, it is by far the best stadium I have seen.

It was 1955,I was 13. My uncle John had already taken me to my first game : at Old Trafford. The Reds had won 3-0 against Portsmouth, but somehow it wasn’t right.
The second was at Maine Road, against United.
What a revelation. My boyhood heroes, Trautmann, Revie and Johnstone all played. The ground itself, the magnificent uniform bowl that was the stadium’s original design, impressed me mightily, as did the huge and vociferous crowd.
City won 1-0 with little Joe Hayes getting the winner. I can still replay the goal in my mind’s eye over 50 years later.
A revelation it was and still remains.
Thanks City.

My dad took me to maine road we played Blackpool I can still recall the bright coloured shirts our blue ones and the tangerine of blackpool.

Been going ever since. I have 50 years of supporting City, my dad died shortly after the game at a very young age so I always remember the day and thank him for taking me to the best football club in the world my lads and my granchildren are city fans.

my first game – newcastle at home in the 60s. went with a friend of the family who
was a wartime refugee from guernsey who never went back and stayed in middlewich. went to watch city in a little fiat 500
and stood on the kippax. neil young scored the only goal and i was hooked. i have been going ever since and always will until the day i die.

It’s a little ironic that my first “first team” match was at Burnden Park, as I have lived in Bolton for the last 36 years.
I had been to many reserve team games at Maine Road when my father took me to this match, aged 8.
We lived in Ladybarn at the time and the coach (I’m sure it was Finglands) picked us up outside Quick’s chip shop on Mauldeth Road. I remember that we sat in the main stand and I’m pretty sure that we played in purple shirts and white shorts. I always thought that we had won 2-0, but the records show that it was 2-2. I must have ignored their goals! Unfortunately, my clearest memory of the day was being sick out of the coach window, as I always was when travelling by coach.
My first cup tie was also away, against Grimsby at Blundell Park in January 1959. This also ended 2-2.
We went by train and I remember being left outside a pub by my dad and his mates with a bottle of lemonade and a bag of chips. It was on a corner and I was frozen by the biting wind coming off the North Sea. I remember that the pitch was covered with snow, which had just been dug out as the pitch markings, and I think an orange ball was used. I can remember standing on Cleethorpes station for ages afterwards waiting for our train. I can remember spending the return journey desperate to go to the toilet, but it was a non-corridor train!
I went to the replay the following Wednesday, when we lost 2-1. Ron Cockerill scored one of their goals from about 30 yards.

For my 5th birthday my dad and granddad said that they would take me to City, but as City were away that weekend I had to wait until October 9th to see my first City game.
It was against Sheffield Wednesday and City won 2-0 with goals from Barlow and McAdams. The team that day was Savage, Leivers Little Ewing Warhurst, Hayes Johnstone Barlow McAdams & Fagan. That was it; hooked like a prize marlin! We were in the scoreboard end, later the North Stand and I was lifted across the heads of City fans so that I could get a better view. Nobody minded or moaned; it was just accepted that ‘little un’s’ were sent to the front.
Since then I have celebrated over 50 years of City matches home and away. The highs of Wembley 69, 70, 73; the visit to Newcastle where we won the league and I stood amongst Geordies swigging Brown ale after the game (even though I was only 16!), the lows of Stoke away and relegation, the trips to 3rd level grounds. It was all fun, even if we lost we had a laugh (eventually). Now my entire family is Blue, 2 daughters and a son, 6 grandaughters – all Blue

My dad told me on the Thursday night that I was going with him to the 1956 Cup Final. He had won the tickets in a raffle and we travelled to Wembley on a ‘Chara’ after meeting up with his Beyer Peacock workmates at the Gorton Brook pub. Travelling overnight with this group of working class men, safe and secure in their midst listening to their tales of who was going to score and how many City would win by. The ground was huge and the atmosphere electric, tears shed by grown men at the singing of the traditional ‘Abide With Me’ and a big sky blue and white rosette fixed to my coat..I remember the bravery of our goalie ‘Bert’ and our captain ‘Roy’ holding the cup aloft. My dad died a couple of years later. What an everlasting memory of dad and City, the team I have supported all my life. – Keith

I was 9 yrs old. It was the final game of the season (a night match) and I stood in the Scoreboard End with my Dad and elder brother. City simply had to win to have any chance of avoiding relegation. Having gone behind early in the game they stormed back to win 3-1 with goals from Billy McAdams, Joe Hayes and Ray Sambrook. With Aston Villa losing that night it was enough to keep us up. I was hooked, and still am almost 50 years later.