Remember your first visit to Maine Road? Or the Etihad?
How does it feel when this life changing moment occurs in middle age?
Cort McMurray supplies the answers:
My devotion to Manchester City isn’t part of
some ancient tradition, handed down from father to son. I’m not Mancunian. I’m not even English. I’m a middle aged American, who grew up
mostly on baseball, basketball and hockey, up in the cold and lonely reaches of
western New York State. I’m a stranger,
a convert.
A bit more than a decade ago, I’d grown
tired of American sport, with its player strikes and steroids and great green
mountains of cash, and I had a six-year old son who showed no interest in
baseball or NFL, but whose eyes lit up when he saw the Mexican and Nigerian
kids from our neighborhood playing five a side in the local park. I wanted to give him a club to love.
Why City?
It fit.
There was an article, about devoted
supporters sneaking into Maine Road to spread their loved ones’ ashes. There was an online photograph of a ruddy,
round-bellied man, squeezed into a blinding chartreuse striped jersey with “brother” stretched across the chest,
celebrating the Miracle Over Gillingham. There were the Gallagher Brothers, wrapping festering sibling discord in
City away kits. And it was all happening
in the shadow of a rival that always managed to be a little more slick, a little
more polished, a little more successful (okay, okay, a LOT more of all those
things.) Being a City fan meant
believing in the impossible, the unbelievable, the True. From the beginning, City felt familiar. City felt like home.
My son, now seventeen, bleeds sky blue,
like his father, but it’s different. For
me City is ghosts and borrowed nostalgia, Colin Bell (a player I’ve never seen,
not even on film) dazzling the adoring Kippax masses (a place I’ve never
been).
For my son, City is Kun Aguero
and the Little Magician and the fearsome majesty of Vincent and Ya Ya, live in
our living room at 6:30 on Saturday morning.
My City is a little like Albrect Durer’s rhinocerous, a mix of eyewitness
accounts and my own secondhand imaginings. My son’s City is a You Tube channel, as real and close at hand as the
dozen sky blue jerseys hanging in his closet.
This is a golden age for American City
fans: five years ago, it was nearly impossible to watch matches in the States;
today, every single match is televised, and the Internet provides a steady
stream of City ephemera. We’ve seen City
play stateside exhibitions, we’ve gone broke ordering shirts and tchotchkes
from the Official Online Store.
The only
thing we hadn’t done, is make the pilgrimage to Manchester.
Last week, that changed.
What we found in Manchester was far
different than either of us expected.
And far better than we had ever imagined....
Next time,
Oz in the Eastlands.
You can follow Cort on Twitter
Great story, can't wait to read the rest! American City fan here who finally made his first pilgrimage to Manchester to see City v Everton this last October 5.
ReplyDeleteQuite a place, isn't it, Michael?!
DeleteIt was indeed, and some supporters were kind enough to take me over to Mary D's afterward as well. Can't wait to go back.
Deletequite interested to read this from an over seas man city fan and how he became a blue my first experiance was on the kippax terrace in 1984 and yes we been bobbins for most of my 30 odd years supporting city but ive so loved the ride . some might say we will find a brighter day.
ReplyDelete