by Tom Logan, a Manchester City supporter since 1979
ARE you feeling a sickening wrench in your very heart as the football club you love abandons every moral principle for money? Yeah. Been there. Let me make it okay.
First of all, it’s really great to win shit. Trust me. We won nothing for 30 years, apart from promotion from leagues it was a humiliation to be in, and it sucked really hard. Winning a big old Premier League trophy goes a long way to stifling that self-loathing.
Also, we have the good players now. Christ how we suffered during the lean years. While Beckham was banging them in from 50 yards on the other side of the city, our player of the season was Shaun Goater. Don’t get me wrong Shaun you’re a legend, but a legend from a time it hurts to remember.
It doesn’t hurt to do a bit of moral relativism as well. Okay, so we’re owned by an oil state with a frankly f**ked up human rights record. But at least it’s not a Russian oligarch trying to make himself visible enough to survive Putin’s wrath, or Mike Ashley, or Qatar.
What were City’s principles, anyway? Being vaguely cool in the 1960s? Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? Losing all the f**king time?
Sure, I spent a season pretty conflicted about what we’d become, and a few more telling myself to enjoy it because it’d surely be gone soon, but now I’m as entitled and contemptuous of the relegation fodder we’re forced to play as any United or Liverpool fan.
Does the European Super League hurt? In comparison to being in the third tier while our twat neighbours won a f**king treble? Nah. Do I care if we never play Dinamo Zagreb again? Do I bollocks.
It’s only a soul. Look at all these shiny trophies.
