Future meme material . . .

 I honestly don't give a shit about Man City or Real Madrid but this is a great picture.

Via the BBC.

Just a gentle reminder . . .

The original and the best. 

Five trophies played for . . . five trophies won. 

Man Who? Liverwhat?

Saturday night's alright for shiting it . . .

6-0, you say? Cue the music:

Blue Moon: Down Among the Dead Men with Manchester City by Mark Hodkinson (Mainstream Publishing 1999)

Introduction

A Summer Birdcage

Back then, I didn’t properly understand how you got from here to there. The world was confused and disconnected. It was streets and streetlights, cars and buses, fields and houses, and suddenly you were there. We made it to Maine Road, somehow.

City drew 1-1 with Sheffield United. It was 1971 and I was six years old. A bus ride, and we were back home. I don’t remember the game, only the noise, the overcoats, the rich green of the pitch, the overwhelming magnitude of the event — that people gathered together like this and sang and cheered and created something so much bigger than themselves.

Twenty-five years later. My first match report commissioned by a national newspaper. It could have been at any ground between Derby and Newcastle, such is the approximate patch of a northern football correspondent. It was Maine Road, obviously. It rained. The sky was thick with clouds, the match was dire. City drew 1-1 with Coventry City. Alan Ball, City’s manager, provided the ‘line’ without really trying. At the after-match press conference he almost drowned in his own peculiarly random agitation. He coloured a grey day red, and we were all rather grateful he had. The report is included in this book, since it preceded City’s downfall.

Thereafter, I did not return to Maine Road until the beginning of the 1998-99 season. I had spent the previous season as The Times quasi writer-in-residence at Oakwell, Barnsley, from where I had filed a weekly bulletin. Barnsley, after 110 years in footballs backwater, had been promoted to the FA Carling Premiership. In short, it was a small club suddenly thrust into the big-time. Adopting reverse logic, The Times asked me to take on City in 1998-99, and relate the fortunes of a big club in the small time. This famous club — with two League Championships, four FA Cup wins, two Football League Cup wins, one European Cup-winners cup win — was at its lowest point ever, the third tier of English football.

Colin Bell - Reluctant Hero: The Autobiography of a Manchester City and England Legend by Ian Cheeseman and Colin Bell (Mainstream Publishing 2006)

I would like to have played on the perfect playing surface and been involved in the modern game - I'm sure I would still have held my own - but I have many concerns about the way the game has developed.

During the era in which I played, most teams had the potential to win the League Championship and the major cup competitions. These days money has become the dominant factor, with the emergence of Chelsea providing the perfect example of the way things have moved on.

Every club had three or four great players in the '60s and '70s. These days, if a great player emerges, like Steve Gerrard at Liverpool or Shaun Wright-Phillips at City, it is seen as only a matter of time before they move to one of the biggest three or four clubs, the only ones who are seen to be capable of winning the major honours.

I think it is a sad state of affairs that those types of players don't think that they can fulfil their dreams at the clubs who encouraged them to meet their potential. It never occurred to me that I would have to move away from City. I was a City player for life and my ambitions were to win trophies with my club. I expected to work for success and not simply move on to a club that had already achieved it. It never crossed my mind that I would reach a certain stage and then feel that it was inevitable I move on.

I hope things will change soon and that Manchester City will be able to compete for the top honours again with a group of players who are loyal and care about the club they play for. I wonder if the days when football was more sport than industry will ever return. I've been blessed with such wonderful memories of my days playing for City and having been part of such a great family. We're very close and I spend a lot of time talking to Jon about my favourite subject, football, and in particular Manchester City.

There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000)

Lulzchester #2

Via Urban 75:

"Just heard that the Manchester clubs are jointly releasing a fragrance for Christmas: Channel No.5."

Lulzchester

Shouldn't laugh.

Cockney Red-Faced

Football fans in Surrey, Salford and Seoul must be desolate today.

Football quote of the day

Ooh, I wish I'd thought of that:

"Wayne Bridge has just texted John Terry, "That's how you play away from home you ****""

That wee gem of wit comes courtesy of 'Smackhead' and the comments section of the Guardian's report of today's game.

Does that qualify as 'esprit du tunnel'?

Attila the Gloater

That's gloater, not goater.

And why not. Man City may have the big time charlie aspirations for the near future, but last night's defeat to Brighton in the League Cup must have really hurt. It'll be a good few years before City can even begin to kid themselves on that the League Cup doesn't matter for them. Nice to see that Celtic might-have-been, Adam Virgo, scored one of the decisive penalties.

Attila the Gloater? Noted Brighton fan, Attila the Stockbroker, celebrates the victory with considered ill-grace over at his MySpace blog. Yep, why not.

Bhoy Keano and Thaksin's mercenaries

Continuing on with the Guardian's preview of the upcoming English Premier League:

Liverpool

Man City

Man City: the SPGB of the FA Cup?

"Balloons not to blame - Eriksson"

Sven takes defeat with good grace, despite the fact that it was the balloons behind Joe Hart's goal that contributed to Sheffield United's first goal.

Who'd be a Man City supporter? Who'd have a Man City fan as a supporter? Not to say that they bring misfortune on themselves, but they are the sort of fans who would fall into a barrel of lollipops and come up sucking up to a prick.