After recently visiting the sounds and sights of Mars, it’s back to a more local setting today.
Though he’s slipped from his northern roots, Noel Gallagher has cast his mind back to his Mancunian beginnings with his latest High Flying Birds album, due out in June.
Titled Council Skies, here is the cover reveal:
That spot, where the band’s equipment sits, is the preserved centre circle of Manchester City’s former home in Moss Side. For eighty years, this was where fans watched their heroes in blue take the kick-off that would begin their games.
There is a generation of City fans today who never got to experience Maine Road, the club having in 2003 relocated to the Etihad Stadium in East Manchester. With the former stadium now demolished, houses have been built around that circle which has been left for sentimental supporters, like both Noel and myself, who have long historic and emotional ties to the place.
Having said that, I’ve yet to go and pay homage, but it’s on my list.
My first game was in 1982 and my last was that final one, held there twenty-one years later.
In addition to the hundreds of matches that has drawn me through the network of surrounding side streets of that inner city town, there has also been the odd concert, too. I was there for one of the two-night gigs put on by Noel’s former group, Oasis, when they were at the height of their powers in the 1990’s, with Britpop in all its pomp.
I can remember the moon coming out, the blue moon, adding to the saved inner image as it hung above us all, a sign of the musical Gods’ approval, as the band belted out Champagne Supernova.
It was a great night. A great band with great support (Ocean Colour Scene and Manic Street Preachers ). Maybe my favourite ever gig.
On the other night, a couple of my friends were mugged in one of those shadowed back alleyways as they made their way back home. What the Gods giveth the Gods taketh away.
We had not been to a match for a while. We support a local Non-League club (Prestwich Heys), at a level which is always susceptible to weather. Following two postponements, I had to break the news to my son that, for that night’s game, we had no means of getting there. After my Mum passed away, the tax was stopped on her mobility car which then had to be returned. So, for a month or so, we had no car and couldn’t get to a night game.
“You’re joking!” he exclaimed. “You mean, we could have gone but there was a waterlogged pitch. Then we could have gone but then there was a frozen pitch, and now we can’t go and the pitch is fine?!
You’ve got to love irony. He doesn’t.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, thinking that our lad, still grieving the recent loss of his Gran, could do with a bit of normality, we managed to arrange a lift.
But some things just aren’t meant to be. For, just five minutes from kick off, the lights failed. Floodlights out, clubhouse lights out, changing room lights out, the league advised the referee to give us thirty minutes to see if the electricity could be restored before calling it off. The problem was obviously with the floodlights, because the clubhouse lights were restored, but when the floodlights were turned on everything tripped and we were plunged back into darkness.
The first time that happened, the lights came on and I’m sure that the ref raised his whistle to his lips and then they were off again before he could even blow it!
What is a night match without floodlights? Well, it’s not a night match.
The match was called off. Twice through weather, once through for God’s sake what we gotta do to see a game we are cursed (according to my son).
Our approach to the ground, if only things had stayed this way!People milling around outside. First check was that local street and house lights were on, in case it was a localised power cut. They were, it wasn’t. Heys by night. Bit of a stark beauty about it. Wonder if my son appreciated the view?In the clubhouse, fans gathered around the only light source, a small bar-top Christmas tree. Isn’t that what Christmas is about, after all, the light in the darkness? The bare essentials: light and gratitude.My son, in his duties as corner-flag guy, admitted defeat and set off to bring the flags in again, using his phone to light the way.
I decided to tip the barista off. “There’s some right clowns in here today.”
Passing me my coffee in a takeaway cup, she looked puzzled, and so I inclined my head towards the entrance to this Costa coffee shop.
Her face dropped. “Oh no. Clowns! That’s my biggest fear in the wholeworld. Then, tentatively: “Maybe they won’t come in.”
They came in.
She stood there as they began to approach, preparing herself, stealing herself, to serve with a smile.
“They’re gonna be squirting water in your face from flowers in their lapels and everything,” I helpfully said. “Then stomping out in their size fifteen feet.”
“Don’t. I won’t be able to cope.”
“You’re going to go viral. Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube, the works.”
I wished her good luck and found myself a table. (Yes, I know I had a takeaway cup but it’s a peculiarity I’ve inherited from my wife.)
Later, as the barista was cleaning a table, I asked her what the score was with the three clowns and I learned that they weren’t actually clowns.
“What, so they weren’t on their way to a clown convention then?” I asked.
“No, I’m not sure what they said now, they were either out last night or they’re on their way out from here today.”
“What, around town you mean? Like that?”
“Yes,” she laughed.
I stroked my chin, taking one of them off. “‘Out with the lads tonight. Hmm . . . what shall I wear?” Then: “NOT THAT!”
You’ve got to love Manchester, haven’t you? You see it all. Hen parties, stag dos, clowns, the lot.
Before I left I showed her a photograph that I’d just saved onto my phone from Facebook. “Is this what you in the business call a drive through?”
Later that day it was my son’s football team’s end of season presentation. Along with his regular team member trophy he also won Most Improved Player Of The Season. Then it was my turn!
I contribute to the club by taking action photographs of the players along with submitting match reports, recording Man of the Match awards etc.
Imagine my surprise when I was awarded ‘Reporter of the Year.’
To be honest, I don’t think there was anyone else in the running but it was nice to be recognised. On the way out of the building, James and I compared trophies.
“Is Reporter of the Year even a thing?” he asked me.
I gave him a bit of advice. “When you get home from here, Google ‘Watergate’.”
I’d been in Leeds for three nights. Catching a train, I was leaving behind a patchwork of blue sky and white cloud. The people I was destined to meet were warning me about the typical Manchester weather that lay in wait for me.
Sitting there, seeing the world rapidly passing by my window, it was hard to fathom. After all, Leeds isn’t that far away from Manchester, is it? They’re both northern cities.
It was a concern too, for the people I was to meet were fellow Prestwich Heys fans at a home game for us, and a lot of rain normally meant that the game would be off due to a waterlogged pitch.
I was meeting my wife and children there, too, for our football games are a family affair. I sent a text to Jen, enquiring about the state of weather, and her discouraging reply prompted my own: I’m in light trainers, bring my boots with you.
They’re walking boots, I should add, not football boots. God forbid that I was intending to play!
We hit the rain just before Stalybridge, and the skies got darker and the deluge heavier the closer I got to Manchester, a familiar, dispiriting dark pall hanging over the place I call home.
We arrived and I donned a waterproof jacket before alighting the train. Immediately on leaving Piccadilly Station I stepped into a large puddle, almost strategically placed to snag the unwary. I’d been in Manchester thirty seconds and my foot was soaked. It truly felt like home.
We have one large golfing umbrella which Jen was going to bring with her, and now back on home turf I planned to get another so all four of us would be covered. That’s if the game went ahead.
The game will go ahead, was the welcome comment added to our supporters’ messenger group. With the new drainage the pitch is holding up well.
With time on my side I took brief shelter in a Starbucks close to Piccadilly, sitting with my latte at a bar situated against the large front window of the shop, perfect to watch this wet world go briefly by.
And that world going by appeared serenely oblivious to the weather we were experiencing. Girls in short skirts and crop tops, guys in shirts and summer shorts, hailing each other and hopping between bars. I watched them as I drank.
The generational shift. Sometimes I think I’m still cool, but I’m not. I’m getting old. This world is yours.This wonderful, swarming, metropolis is yours.And you won’t realise it until you are sat here one day, like me, maybe disapproving, maybe in relief, passing the baton on yourselves.
I could wile away the time here, people watching, being all philosophical and a touch fatalistic, but I had somewhere to be. I calculated what time I’d need to leave to make the match, finished my drink and set off. The heavy rain had thankfully subsided into a light drizzle, and, as if the city wasn’t wet enough, I paused briefly to watch the fountains in the grassless Gardens.
Sports Direct. That’s where I’d get my umbrella from. It was just five minutes away so I headed in the direction of the store. Again oblivious to the current conditions, I encountered along the way a man with bleached blonde hair and high heels, further enhanced by blue cut-off denim shorts and a black net stocking top that showed off his nipple piercings, singing loudly “I know he loves me . . . “
Yep. I was back in Manchester.
I got my umbrella and I got the bus, meeting the family in time to make the match with half an hour to spare. We filed through the turnstile, the kids talking football and my wife talking catch-up.
It was great, I thought, after being away for a few days, to return to a place I love doing what I love with the people I love.
In the midst of this sentimental reverie, standing pitch side, the clouds opened up again. But my umbrella didn’t.
No wonder those bastards wouldn’t let me try it by opening it up in the shop! Bad luck my arse!
But it couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm. The match started and we cheered on our team. The pitch was perfect and so was the moment, the one working umbrella covering our children and my son’s friend. And once more I thought of the generational shift, of these young supporters, just beginning, perhaps, a lifelong association. The lifeblood and the future of this, our adopted club.
So, we are well into the Euros. A year late because of Covid. Everything is late because of Covid. But it’s an ideal boon for a country needing lifting-because of Covid.
But anyway, that’s enough of the ‘C’ word.
I walked the dog yesterday and saw some Langley washing lines put to good use.
And then we returned home to watch England beat Germany, our long-time nemesis and hoodoo team. (I was wearing a Sweden shirt at the time, but I’m peculiar like that.)
And so-we are still in it. Our therapy continues.
Keep the washing lines clear of washing! Keep the flags flying!
Say to any blue “Ninety three twenty” and they will know exactly what you mean. Chances are that any football fan, who isn’t even a City supporter, will on reading ‘93:20’ know exactly what it refers to.
Today, before he left us behind in this rainy city, he set yet one more record to go along with all the others. A list of achievements that will elevate him above most others who follow.
2011-2021. In his very first home game, ten years ago, he came off the bench and bagged a brace. Today, in his very last home game, he came off the bench and bagged a brace.
It’s poetic. The career of an adopted Mancunian in symmetrical balance.
I can’t help waxing lyrical. Even that photograph of him climbing those stairs for the final time: the player in front has 16 on his back which was his first squad number. He follows wearing number 10, his last one.
Loved by all City fans, man, woman and child. I’m thankful that my son was upstairs while I watched the curtain closing on Sergio Aguero’s Manchester City career. He thinks his Dad is a tough guy.
I’m a little behind the times, and for that I apologise, but on the 5th of January Colin Bell, widely regarded as the greatest player to ever pull on the sky blue shirt for my team, Manchester City, passed away.
I’d meant to do a post about the time my wife and I met him, in memorable circumstances, a few years ago, but I got caught up in ‘stuff’ and haven’t written it yet. I will post that at a later date.
In the meanwhile, I’ve posted below a short tribute by 007 himself, Timothy Dalton, an avowed City and Colin Bell fan. It refers to the player’s beginnings and how this shy, most unassuming of men gained legendary status without really acknowledging that. There could be no more apt title for his autobiography: Reluctant Hero.
The tribute also shows him running through the streets of Manchester in a vain attempt to come back from the injury that prematurely called time on his career.
City Jackdaw 