With
City completing an incredibly successful post-season trip to the United
States, where the club succeeded in raising its profile on numerous
levels, this is Part Two of our reports from the US and reveals the efforts fans make to follow the club
This is what it's like to be City, Stateside
Joe Beauprez – Treasurer, MCFC Denver
Denver, Colorado USA
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Being a passionate City Supporter in the USA has never been the easy road; the list of ‘lovable losers’ here is comprised of very few teams, all of them in ‘American Sports’ (Cubs and Browns fans, take a bow) and one’s affection for them almost always down to having been born in their respective cities. Choosing a team (not to mention an English Football team) outside of one’s hometown is generally an exercise in taking the safe road. I originally came to support City through my love of Manchester’s music; what was good enough for Ian Curtis was good enough for me. What shocked me was how quickly and deeply the connection took hold. I’m every bit as emotionally invested in City as I am the Denver Broncos, my hometown NFL team (meaning, terribly, irrevocably and, if you ask my wife, maddeningly invested).
Being a City supporter in Denver has always
meant embracing a willingness to endure the sticks, stones & harsh stares
from ‘them.’ As recently as a few years
ago, it wasn’t unusual for there to be only a few of us Blue shirts at the pub,
even on Derby Day. Surrounded by a sea
of red, but safely insulated by our commitment, love and unexplainable passion
for City, come what may. The reds don’t
understand why we love our club, but it doesn’t matter. We’re secure enough to not care that the
misguided hordes think a trophy case full of silverware means they’re better
than us. Silly them; truth will
out.
I’ve been thinking/talking/tweeting the
last few weeks about our dear club. Some
of the true believers may have felt cause to question the direction of the
club, the motives of the board, and if not their own willingness to carry on,
at least to once again undertake the internal discussion as to why self-torture
makes any sense at all.
Few can question the Ambition of
those in charge. Personally, I’ve been
viewing everything through a filter of Authenticity. Does the Club remember who it is? Does it really care who supports them? Does it value the communities, not only where
it currently resides, but where it seeks to gain traction (read: USA)? Can I still be proud of my Club? Does City still feel….like City?
Pete Wright, DenverMCFC Chairman with unknown City fan before the game |
Was there a certain brutality to the
treatment of Mancini? It’s hard to argue
otherwise. But is the City board now
sincerely doing its best to do what we never thought possible – win at every
level, every year? Also hard to argue
otherwise.
My love for Manchester City will not waver
if I never live to see another trophy. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like to win. That said, I’d never want my club to feel like
something other than City. I will defer
to the ‘old-timers’ whose memories bear the scars of decades of heartbreak and
to whom the success of the last few years must still feel as strange as
inhabiting another person’s reality. This ‘new City’ is all well and good as long as it’s still City – Authentically
City. True Blue. We support the shirt, we support our
club. Winning is alright by me……but no
matter what, I’m City Till I Die, I’m City Till I Die, I know I am, I’m sure I
am, I’m City Till I Die.
What was for some time only a few blue
shirts in Denver has grown to, by our count, 20 to 30 committed supporters,
including a couple guys from Manchester. Hard to say when we’ll finally have a ‘sea of blue’ here but we’re on our
way. We have grown by being Authentic. It is said that you don’t find a club to
support, the club finds you. To the
extent we can, we are drawing new supporters for the club through pride and
devotion, and those who are drawn to that are finding us, and finding
Manchester City. Just as we can feel
good things coming for the Club, we feel good things coming for our special
group of Blues here in Denver, and for our fellow OSC chapters in the US, many
of whom we were able to meet in St Louis. We have a wonderful home pub at The Armoury in Denver, which has been as
supportive a pub as any Supporters Group could possibly ask for. During the last Derby, for the first time, we
dramatically outnumbered the reds in attendance. That’s something I never expected to
experience, not this soon at least.
Such is the life of a City Supporter in
2013 that the offseason still carries with it the continued weight of hope and
anticipation, albeit of a decidedly more positive nature. In years past, those emotions would be needed
to get through the inevitable internal discussion, wondering why we’d subject
ourselves to another year of this. Now
they focus on thoughts of more silverware and another year of bragging
rights. It used to be enough to hope for
a quiet morning in the pub without constant taunts from the Red Menace; 3 wins
out of 4 in the league over 2 seasons, along with an FA Cup Semifinal victory,
have turned the volume down on that a bit. No group talks smack from ahead like United fans however, and #20 has
brought the trolls out from under the bridges once again. They never learn - we can’t be bothered by
their taunts; everything that happens for us lately still feels like so much
gravy.
City’s move towards the annual expectation
of silverware has taken some getting used to for all but its most recent
supporters. The desire of those from
outside the Blue Circles seems to be to paint the team (and the supporters)
with the same broad brush as other big, Nouveau Riche “Pretenders” and their
fans; heartless glory hunters who wouldn’t know tradition if it rose up from
League One to hit them across the back of the head.
What they still haven’t realized is that
being a true City Supporter is in and of itself a glorious tradition, one that
no sane person would willingly choose for himself (save those who’ve taken it
up in the last couple years). Our
tradition binds us together, gives us a common language; our suffering makes us
a proud family, Authentically Blue.
You can follow the Denver Blues on Twitter
You can follow the Denver Blues on Twitter