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Manchester City fans tell Newcastle it’s ok having Billionaire owner who spends

9 years ago
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I read the article on the Manchester City fans and our route to success yesterday, I’m a City fan since 1973 (aged 9) so feel well qualified to comment.

Totally get your point(s)….and the following needs to be added to the narrative.

Sheikh Mansour wanted to buy a PL club, end of, for amongst other reasons –

– Enhance the Abu Dhabi image

– Oil is on its way out in 50 years (ish) and so the need to diversify, hence they have tonnes of property in New York, Formula 1, Etihad Airline etc etc

He tasked Khaldoon Al Mubarek (active chairman at MCFC and resident in Manchester as the Sheikh’s right hand man).

So off they went looking to buy a club…

And I think it is fair to say (not many Manchster City fans will like this but we were NOT 1st choice, nor 2nd, nor 3rd)…

Chelsea (not a chance)

Arsenal (not for sale)

Spurs (would Levy sell Spurs – I doubt it)

(To feature like Phil, send in your articles for our website to contribute@themag.co.uk)

So London would have been preferred but no other suitable candidate, West Ham at that stage were not getting the Olympic stadium, so in 2007 when they were looking the Hammers were not on the radar, might be different now.

Man U (forget it, not dealing with the Glazers)

Liverpool (told to f*** off)

Everton (Kenwright told the Sheikh where to insert his money, for which we are eternally grateful).

Newcastle (the meeting with Ashley lasted 12 minutes before Khaldoon asked for his coat).

And so it was left with ickle Citeh!

The Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra arrived at Abu Dhabi airport, asked for an audience with the Sheikh (as he’d heard about the shopping trip) and sold him to Man City for I think £80m….

– New ground

– sleeping giant

– loads of potential

– loyal fans (core is 40,000 I think)

This was one of your points in yesterday’s article, my guess is we have a core of 40,000 fans thick & thin loyal and true.

The average gate is around 45,000 each game (capacity 47,500), not going to discuss away fan take up…

We don’t have a groundswell / swathe of 1000s of people clamouring for each spare ticket like a One Direction concert or Man U (for the moment).

The core is growing (at a glacial pace), the day trippers are growing as the number of foreign students at the ground and the sale of the (hateful) half & half scarves goes up as souvenirs increase.

But the core fans grows ever so slowly as it needs families (I’m sure its no different for the toon army).

You are right as our scum friends from Trafford keep pointing out ‘blue seats, I can see blue seats’, which is their source of solace now that their 34 year banner has been torn down and auctioned, plus 2 of their favourite anti-city songs have now been deleted from their repertoire.

We ARE picking and choosing games as it is too expensive to go to 4 competitions sadly, so yes the observations are spot on.

However, I’m sure it will be addressed. The new south stand 3rd tier will be season ticket only at £299 per season, which is pretty good (£15.60 per game). It is ambitious to make the stadium 54,000 then 60,000 but – BUILD it and they will come is the optimism at the minute.

The JCL (johhny come latelys) are indeed annoying, and we could do without them, but you can’t pick and choose who comes thru the door.

I hope you have joined the campaign for safe standing ???

The City academy team won 8-2 on Wednesday night and going to the final of FA (under21) cup hopefully ,so the academy should start to produce players soon, they WILL make it happen I am sure…The Abu Dhabi group don’t do failure…

Just for the record, there are some teams I take NO pleasure in beating and others I take obscene delight.

Newcastle, Sunderland have top top fans (you may disagree) but the Mackems doing the Poznan to United after the Aguerrooooo goal made us all smile. I don’t like beating West Ham either, as when I lived in London they were my team (just like how your writer Robert picked City when he was a student in Manchester).

Obviously enjoy beating the Rags (Man U), Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool (need I go on)…

I could give you another story on FFP as well – Platini est un grand branleur (tosser)!

Good luck this season….I hope Newcastle can hike the black and white cocktail skirt and get rid of Ashley and attract another Sheikh (not an Oligarch). For me, if by the end of this decade it means City, Newcastle Everton and West Ham are scrapping it out for Top 4 I’d be very happy…

Trust me, if a Sheikh came knocking and you were bidding for Ibrahimovic then you’d enjoy it, you just need to get rid of the cancerous toad Ashley, who is doing you no favours.

He was like our Peter (comb over) Swales all those years ago – still wake up in a cold sweat thinking we still have Frank Clark in charge and Gareth (16 stone) Taylor at number 9….

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