my first game was we played Bristol city at home the date was 11/09/1976 we won 2-1 i remember this day because it was my granddad who took me i was close to my granddad i was 16 when i went this game i was glad he took because sadly he died a month later

I was four and my dad took me to Maine road with the lure of a bar of chocolate and a can of dandelion and burdock.
33 years later and i still hold a season ticket and in the next few months will be taking my son to his first game!

Remember Dad taking me to my first game, as a 5 year old. Sat in the North stand and remember dad pointing out Big Helen. I was really excited about seeing big Joe Corrigan. I don’t remember much about the game apart from the fact it was nil/nil, but I remember the old guy beside us smoking a pipe…every now and then I walk past someone smoking that particular type of tobacco, and it takes me right back to that moment!

At the age of 14 my parents allowed me to travel from Oldham to Maine Road with schoolmates. We went to see City v QPR – Stan Bowles, Gerry Francis, Phil Parkes and strange red & black halved shirts. We were so eager that we were at the ground at 1pm and queued for the Platt Lane turnstiles to open.
We sat in the third or fourth row from the front, in order to be close to the action, and consequently could see little of play at the North Stand end!! The game was a 0-0 draw – as was the next home game (v Newcastle) but I was bitten by the City bug and was fortunate to start watching the Blues during the great 76/77 Season. If only we’d won on my first game then we’d have won the title…..

Well, it all began on the 21st January 1976, MCFC V Middlesbrough in the League Cup semi-final, 2nd leg.

A mid-week night game and I was squashed into the Kippax stand with some of the other members of the Openshaw branch of the city supporters club and many thousands of fellow blues. The atmosphere that night was incredible and if I’m honest I didn’t actually SEE much of the game BUT the result? 4 – 0!

We all know the consequences of that excellent evening. A Wembley final!!

A night that changed my life forever!

The League Cup final at Wembley, Newcastle United and Dennis Tueart’s unforgettable over head kick goal!! Result 2 – 1….!!!!!!!

(24 years later he signed the Wembley ‘76 programme I kept, where his photograph has slightly more hair, his words!!)

Thanks for that memory and autograph. City has been in my blood, blue blood, ever since!
I can’t explain why but I love Manchester City, I do! It’s the supporters and the atmosphere; I need that buzz, the fix!

I am hoping that excitement is recreated at The COMS but it seems lacking these days….it will come I’m sure.

I will support Manchester City for the rest of my life because I am a proper manc!

32 yrs of MCFC, the highs the lows! I will also remember the Play off final Wembley ’99 Gillingham, Blackburn (2000) 4-1, Charlton (‘85) 5-1, MUFC (’89) 5-1, last years “double” over United and many more to come……

I cannot remember my first game I was so young. But I do remember my Dad going down to London for the cup final in 1976, when I was 5. He must have arrived home in the middle of the night, but when i woke there was a brand new City scarf drapped over our sofa. 32 years later that scarf is still on display around my neck.

My Dad died 3 years ago and i still choke singing Blue moon without him. My daughter went to her first game this year though, the 3-0 win over West Ham, then returned for the 3-0 win over Stoke. With this run of luck she is now being paid to attend the Derby.

I had been a few times with my dad when I was really young, but the earliest memory was a game that I listened to on the radio with the Maine Road flooodlights lighting up my bedroom. The chants and cheers of the fans as a 4-0 second leg semi-final win against Middlesbrough on 21st Jan 1976. Goose bumps as the commentator announced Wembley here we come. This was the moment that made me save every penny to sit outside and wait for the turnstiles open at every home game.

Being the son of a CITY player had it’s advantages and at the tender age of 5 years and 8 months, my first vivid memory of watching my father, Dave Watson, play for CITY was the Wembley showdown with Newcastle United in ‘76. The drive down to London was just as memorable, as once e left the M6 and joined the M1 we came across a black and white army of fans. I was instructed by my Granddad to put thumbs up to CITY fans and thumbs down to the opposition, which I carried out for the rest of the journey, receiving the same signals in return, with some fist shaking from the less hospitable of Geordies. Once we arrived at Wembley, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people, the noise and the colours! Blue and white everywhere! I could hardly see anything once we entered the stadium, I was just too small . . and when we Peter Barnes scored the first goal, I was lost under a sea of CITY fans jumping about and kissing each other. It all becomes a blur after that, just too much for my tiny mind to cope with . . I do remember that my Dad cut his face and when we met up after the game, he had stitches just above his eye (which became a near weekly event). I’ve been a Blue ever since, and even though my dad went onto play for other clubs I’ve always stayed a Blue!

My first game came as a young 8 yr old.

I was taken to Maine Rd to watch City v Stoke, it transpired to be a bore draw.

Of note for me though as an 8yr old, was the build up to going to the match. I recall being giddy the night before waiting and dreaming of what may be.

I had been bought a City hat n scarf and laid it out ready to show my colours. We drove to the ground, walking the final mile. I remember as a lad from Whitworth, being amazed at seeing how multicultural Moss Side was. I was amazed at the sea of alleyways and ginnels which were packed with people making their way to this mecca of football.

I turned down Platt Lane and there she was, huge, towering above everything else. We joined a cue to get in, people laughing joking. We were in i, was excited and yet wary of this mass of people.

What do i remember about the game itself ?, not a lot really… i just remember asking my uncle who kept ringing the Bell. Little did i know that Helen was a legend in her own right. A flower seller outside MRI and the giver of a feather to my childhood hero J.Corrigan. Godbless

My first memory of seeing City was a trip to Maine Road in 1976, at the tender age of nine. Being a fourth generation city fan, who had moved to West Bromwich with my family some four years earlier, it seemed only fitting that my first game watching the Blues was against the team most of my friends supported. My father and I, along with a couple of his work-mate West Brom fans travelled up the M6 collecting my Grandfather in Manchester.

It didn’t seem long before we were weaving through the alley’s around Maine Road arriving at the main stand and entering the stadium. My first view of the stadium and the immaculate pitch is still vivid as it was on that that fine but chilly day.

As the stadium filled, my excitement built to kick off. To see my hero’s Joe Corrigan, Dave Watson, Peter Barnes and Dennis Tueart, for the first time was incredible. I clearly remember the left wing play and passing between Barnes and Tueart that resulted in the only goal of the game.

A great goal to cap off a great day, and to make my second City game and first away game a few months later at the Hawthorns to see City win 2-0 and go on to finish second in the old Division One only 1 point behind Liverpool still stays with me some 32 years later.

My father and I have made that same trip up the M6 many hundreds of times since, but now I take him.

When City is bred into you it stays with you.