Becoming a GLOBAL Brand

[Tokyo Blue]

I still love city, but being at the top has made me realise how corrupt and rotten football is. When we were shite I didn't really give a damn about what happened at the top. Frankly I have found myself falling out of love with football lately, and I can see myself giving it up all together if it gets even more commercialised and corrupt.

Good call. I couldn't give City up but I know how you feel and in dark moments after we have been clattenburged, I feel the same. When I come to it though, I find that I am too linked to City to pack it in.

[Cocacolajojo]

I still love city, but being at the top has made me realise how corrupt and rotten football is. When we were shite I didn't really give a damn about what happened at the top. Frankly I have found myself falling out of love with football lately, and I can see myself giving it up all together if it gets even more commercialised and corrupt.

That's how I feel as well.

[nottsblue]

City are City. Whether we are shit or whether we are winning titles it will always be in my blood. I enjoyed going to the games as a young lad from about '87 when we were poor. Sadly I don't get the chance to go these days but I enjoy watching us play just the same.

Win and it makes the weekend a better time and lose and I get grumpy. The club getting bigger and bigger in terms of global exposure and revenue and any other accounting measure you care to name is irrelevant to me. If and when we ever go back to being also rans again, nothing will change for me.

[Justified logic]

I still love city, but being at the top has made me realise how corrupt and rotten football is. When we were shite I didn't really give a damn about what happened at the top. Frankly I have found myself falling out of love with football lately, and I can see myself giving it up all together if it gets even more commercialised and corrupt.

That's how I feel as well.

Me too. And when referees decide games with their arbitrary interpretations and selective vision it makes the game a mockery.

[freshie]

We usually get this sort of thread before an expected Barca tonking. The internet equivalent of whistling in the dark.

You were saying?

[iwasthere2012]

I still love city, but being at the top has made me realise how corrupt and rotten football is. When we were shite I didn't really give a damn about what happened at the top. Frankly I have found myself falling out of love with football lately, and I can see myself giving it up all together if it gets even more commercialised and corrupt.

+1

+2
I've felt that way too, but still have this perhaps naive hope, that City will put things right.
I would like to stick with it long enough to see us ram it it down their throats. Win all their corrupt competitions against all obstacles thrown in front of us.
Win this thing and we can no longer be ignored or discriminated against.
The new generation coming through, like my son have safely gotten the bug and can stomach some of the more unsavoury characteristics of modern football and footballers.
Good luck to them.
Football itself may not mean the same to me after that, but watching City together always will.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

We were all new fans once.

Tokyo, mate, you know I didn't mean it like that. I think these people, or at least some of them, will become true supporters over time. However since we barely see any new faces here I was thinking more about what the old guard thinks.

I know, mate. Not having a go at all, and my sincere apologies if you thought I was. It is just that this kind of thing might have mattered to me a bit back but now it basically doesn't. As long as people get something positive out of City, I am not generally that bothered.

I try to stick to what happens on the pitch, which is quite easy as I can ignore the media here or over there, and not visit the club website (such as it is) unless I have to. Accounting and branding and all that stuff, including Melbourne City and New York City, hold no interest for me whatsoever. I do watch the Women when I can though. That is definitely a positive development. After seeing Ladies international matches in the 90s and the amount of coverage the Japanese women's team get, I have developed a basic interest and let's be honest, the City Women are a very good side to watch.

I must say though that I do NOT miss finishing a night shift and then queueing up for tickets outside the North Stand/Main Stand/Platt Lane, depending on the length of the queue, in the pissing rain. Only to then be offered the same tickets by touts at five times the price. As John said, the professionalism has been a great improvement. The times move on and everything needs to move on with it, so I am trying to do so.

The new website is quite shit though compared to the old one.

I remember going over to Maine Road numerous of times and you always had to write to club and ask for tickets beforehand. Then you had to enclose check and eventually pick the tickets from "clubshop" (that rusty shed next to ground). There was always a chance you end up there and sometbing gone wrong you've spend lot of money and miss the game (although in those days I always had couple of games per trips + youth team). Admittedly I always did get to the game but compared to how the whole thing works now it feels like we are on different planet.