DID you hear the one about how Man City fans must have gone to the Etihad in fancy dress as blue seats? This is the best team in their history yet they struggle to shift all their tickets, even for Champions League games.
City fans have heard all this for years. It clearly touches a nerve, but I found it odd this week to hear Man United fans who’ve never been to a game in their lives taking the piss out of City fans because they’ve sold about seven tickets for Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against Brighton.
On one level, fans rivalries thrive on stuff like this and it’s not just funny for a United fan despite the wonderful football City can’t get their support to attend such a big game, just as it was funny to hear that City officials planned to give free blue t-shirts out before a 2106 Manchester derby in Beijing because they feared being massively outnumbered by United fans. Their blushes were saved when the game was postponed because of the pitch.
This is a literal disgrace. A win takes them top of the premier league and this is the support they’ve got. Don’t deserve to win it. pic.twitter.com/TK3Wp9JMwP
— Becca Nielsen (@becca_nielsen) April 3, 2019
But let’s look at it another way. Sunday will be City’s fourth trip to Wembley this season, a venue notorious for its high prices and one which isn’t popular with fans full stop.
City’s support is nowhere near as big as United or Liverpool and I’ve yet to hear a rational City fan say it is.
I met some hardcore Blues before their first game of this season away at Arsenal and they spoke much sense.
“Our hardcore is probably 35,000,” Sean McMullen, who has followed his team all his life, told me. “About 7,000 added on when Kevin Keegan was manager, but they disappeared when Stuart Pearce took over. I think we would have been relegated had the Sheikh not come in.”
I asked them what it was like when, across the city, Manchester United were winning everything in the 90s and noughties.
“They were on that much of a different level they weren’t an issue,” he claimed. “I never liked United but I blocked them out. Then I’d go to derby games thinking ‘I hope we don’t lose by more than three or four.’ If we got a point away from home it was an excuse for a two-day bender. The tables have turned now.”
We can poke fun all day long, but it doesn’t alter the reality that City are a big club. They were selling Maine Road out to its 34,000 capacity 20 years ago when they were in the third division.
Here's a sold out Maine Road on a Saturday afternoon in division 2. But don't worry, we're all glory-hunters! pic.twitter.com/bNcnvBYDt2
— WeAreMCFC™ (@WeAreMCFC) July 4, 2015
Want some more facts? In 2003, five years before their takeover, City’s average crowd was 46,830, more than Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs – who were all admittedly restricted by ground capacity.
30 years ago City averaged 23,500 as a second division team. That was more than Newcastle United (22,921), Spurs (24,467) and Chelsea (15,731). United’s average was 36,488 that season, one of the few years when Liverpool were the best-supported team in England. Do you know how many were going to watch other current Premier League teams in 1989? Brighton (9,0488), Burnley (7,062), Cardiff (4,387), Fulham (4,938), Leicester (10,694).
The further you go back, the more City were in the ascendant. They were better supported than Manchester United pretty much right up until the Second World War. They were England’s best-supported team several times and they still hold the record highest attendance for an English club at their own ground – 84,569 v Stoke in 1934.
United would sell out Wembley this weekend because United currently have more fans than City and a massive global fan base – one which City fans mocked for years. But let’s not get too preachy here. The crowd for the 1995 FA Cup semi-final replay at Villa Park between Manchester United and Crystal Palace was 17,987. United had a crowd of only 23,368 for a home game against Wimbledon in 1989.
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I’ve got mates who are lifelong Blues and who are far better football supporters than some of those knocking them. They’re not mercenary City players who are there for the money – and, don't forget, Alexis Sanchez only came to Old Trafford because he had a poster of Brian McClair on his wall in Chile when he was two. They’re not employees of City who are only at the club for money either. They’re lifelong Blues who support their team for worst and worst – and a bit of better in the last decade.
My sister married a Blue. He sat in the rain with my nephew against Cardiff on Wednesday and they went to Swansea in last round too, when City had more luck than whoever is dating Elizabeth Hurley.
They’re not going on Sunday. They’ve been to loads of City games this season and they’ve been to Wembley but they can't afford every one. There’s no shame in that, he’s a hard-working, working-class lad who is delighted with his team, but they’re saving for a new roof for their house. And they’ll need it because I’m going to kick the old one in on June 2nd after United have won the European Cup by beating City. We can all dream.
City’s average home gate this season is 98.2% of its capacity. Liverpool’s is 97.8%.
Liverpool’s all time record attendance would be City’s 29th highest.
Not bad for a club founded in 2008.#MCFC #ManCity
— Abe Froman (@kippaxcity73) March 25, 2019
You might point to Portsmouth and Sunderland taking 44,000 each to Wembley last weekend. City would take 44,000 if they hadn’t been to Wembley for years either, but they’ve been three times since August.
This City team are undoubtedly brilliant and Guardiola is the best manager in the world, but they way they were constructed leaves very little room for romance and the fug of cheating Financial Fair Play sours the image which neutrals have of them.
To mock all City fans as being glory hunters who started going in 2008 is as wide of the mark as those City fans who used to claim that there were no United fans in Manchester or that City were somehow the authentic club of the city.
What really matters about Sunday…is that City don’t win because it would only be fair to save those loyal Blues another trip to Wembley and the high associated costs. It makes perfect sense to let Brighton have their turn.
