“WE WILL pull it down,” Roberto Mancini had promised when he was informed Manchester United had a banner permanently in place at Old Trafford to celebrate the length of time since Manchester City last won a trophy. What started off in 2002 as “26 years” now reads “34 years”.
They are skilled in the art of schadenfreude at Old Trafford because of the trophies they have greedily accumulated during an era that began when Sir Alex Ferguson was just a plain old mister. Yet this was a night when City demonstrated how intent they are on hanging on to United’s coat-tails, and not letting go. Mancini’s men played with spirit and togetherness. They lost, but that does not necessarily mean they played badly. Losing does not always equate to putting in a poor performance and, if it is any consolation, they can at least feel they showed they have narrowed the gap on their neighbours.
At various times over the last year Ferguson has dismissed United’s neighbours as “all talk” and “a small club with a small mentality” but, even in the depths of their despair, it should not be overlooked that here was the conclusive evidence of how the gulf between the sides has closed.
When these teams met at Old Trafford in September, Alex Ferguson’s message to his players was when you get bothered by noisy neighbours, the only way to react is to turn down the volume on them. Except it is not that simple when your own club has €825 worth of debts while the opposition are being bankrolled by the richest men on earth, sitting on 9 per cent of the world’s oil reserves.
These are strange times in Manchester when United’s supporters are recognisable now by the green and gold they wear to commemorate the club’s roots as Newton Heath in a show of collective disdain for the men in suits operating the club by remote control from Florida. City, meanwhile, can prepare to say goodbye to the €37.5 million white elephant otherwise known as Robinho with barely a shrug of regret when it comes to the financial implications of breaking the British transfer record and paying a player €184,000 a week only for him to sprint only 38 metres in one match. Robinho was not even on the bench last night as he negotiates a move back to Brazil but City’s supporters will quickly forget about him when the next superstar comes along.
It is safe to assume nobody in the away end was wearing a black-and-white cross of Ardwick FC.
City played as though they wanted to be recognised as United’s equals. They were quick to the ball, fast in the tackle. They chased and harried. They seemed determined to show how far they have developed since those days when the only thing the two clubs seemed to have in common was the first letter of their postcode.
This is the club, lest it be forgotten, Niall Quinn remembers in his autobiography as “reeking of poverty and bad organisation”. Quinn’s abiding memory was that asking for basic necessities, such as a new pair of boots, was “like drawing blood from a stone”. City, he concluded, were a “hole-in-the-sock sort of club”, which is a polite way for saying they were broke and clueless.
The new-look City is a club of oil-rich billionaires, private jets and seven-star stop-offs but it is still the same people watching them and these supporters know what it is like to lose to York, Wycombe and Lincoln. They understand what Joe Royle meant when their former manager talked of “Cityitis”. They remember grubbing around for points in the Third Division in the same season Ferguson was jigging across the pitch at the Camp Nou and uttering the words: “Football, bloody hell!”
At least they can be confident now that Cityitis is not the incurable illness they once feared. Carlos Tevez had frustrating moments but, equally, he was a constant menace to the United defence and his goal was a peach. The same applies to Craig Bellamy on the left side of attack. City’s attitude, in fact, could be accurately gauged by that moment when Craig Bellamy went over to take a corner and a beer bottle was thrown from the crowd. It missed. But a coin struck him on the head and felled him. Within minutes Bellamy was taking on Rafael da Silva again, as if he had hardly felt the blow.
- Guardian Service
