Author: The Nation

When Manchester City won the Premier League title for the 22/23 EPL season or perhaps, more appropriately when Arsenal FC lost their collective nerve or simply expired during the keen race for the championship, I was tempted to write an article in praise of Man City. I was only dissuaded from carrying out this enterprise by the thought that there was a distinct possibility that the club was on the threshold of something much bigger. And so, with my eyes fixed on the double with totally expected victory over our red-clad neighbours at Old Trafford in the FA cup final, I stayed my horses thinking that waiting for a few days was only going to add more meat to the barbecue that I was preparing in my mind. Manchester United duly obliged by an appreciation of the odds stacked against them and like Arsenal in the league surrendered to the superior firepower of their unkindly neighbours. Winning the double used to be regarded as a huge achievement and was one worthy of joyful celebrations. But, once again, there was a bigger price waiting down the line and so, once again I was persuaded to delay the celebrations I had in my mind. After all, waiting round the corner was the distinct possibility of wining the European Champions League trophy only seven days after when, on the banks of the Bosporus, precisely at the junction of Europe and Asia, Manchester City was going to lock horns with Inter Milan for the right to be crowned the kings of all Europe. Truth be told, that final match lacked the fire and power which City had shown throughout the season and so, it was a disappointment to lovers of football who looked forward to high grade entertainment. Many of them would have decided that on the balance of play, Inter deserved to win the match but the outcome of football matches does not depend on the balance of play but on the number of goals scored. On the night, City was able to score one solitary goal whilst Inter for all their huffing and puffing scorned all the chances that they laboured to create and in the end did not score any goal, leaving Manchester City to step up to collect that trophy famous for its big ears and signifying the conquest of Europe. Manchester City had landed the treble, only the second English team after Manchester United to do so after achieving the triple in 1999. That irreverent ditty made very popular in the run-up to the Nigerian Presidential election invaded my mind after the event because how better to describe the situation but to agree that as ‘E’ dey sweet us, E’ dey pain dem, as E’ dey pain dem, E’dey sweet us!’ The red devils had been inordinately proud of that achievement and had hoped that Inter would do them a favour in Istanbul but the gods of soccer decreed otherwise as a blue moon rose triumphantly over Manchester. It is hoped that it will not wane for quite some time to come if only because we still have a long way to go to catch up with our very noisy neighbours.

Those of my acquaintances who had been waiting for me to make some reference to the exploits of Manchester City this last season now know why this article has been so long in coming. It was due to my confidence in the ability of the team to make an indelible mark on football history by doing the triple.

My interest in the European Champion League was sparked in 1968 when I was privileged to watch the finals of that competition live. And that was no mean privilege because unlike now, we were in the infant stage of satellite transmission in Nigeria and the only way that a match played in Europe could be seen live in Nigeria was to have direct access to the satellite station in Lanlate.  At that time I was in Upper Six, the final year of my secondary school career and as luck would have it, our designated classroom was the Physics laboratory which was equipped with a television set. I have no idea how my tech savvy classmates, those ones in the Maths section managed to connect us to Lanlate but they did and we risked tremendous censure from the school authorities by tuning in to the match in what was our evening prep period. Thankfully, we got away with it and were able to have an unforgettable experience which is why more than fifty years down the line I can still refer to it in the manner of an eye witness account of a recent event.

That match was played out between Manchester United and Benfica of Portugal or more appropriately, Eusebio’s club. Eusebio had come away as the dominant figure in the 1966 World cup and being African, he was my man and for that reason, I was fully in support of Benfica and was more than miffed when Manchester United with their powerful attacking trident of Law, Charlton and Best won the match in extra time. My other classmates who had watched the match with me were more impressed by the winners and one of us, Remi Olatubosun became a lifetime supporter of Manchester United on the spot.

At the end of that year, I was released from the convent that was Igbobi College and because I had to wait for a university place in October, I had ten months of relative freedom on my hands. Unlike now when there is wall to wall coverage of football matches available to virtually everyone, the football fare offered on television was spare, very spare indeed, no more than a half hour highlight package on Channel Ten every Monday. So starved was I of football entertainment that I did not miss any of those fragments of football matches that was on offer. One would be forgiven for thinking that the highlights of the matches shown were current, but no, the matches had been played the year before in the 67/68 season when Manchester City had won the Championship. Not surprisingly many of their matches which they won, featured prominently on this programme and vastly impressed by their own attacking trident of Lee, Bell and Summerbee, I became a City supporter and have remained so for more than fifty years.

My tenuous link to English football was broken when in September, I went off to the Ibadan campus of the University of Ife to start a course in Pharmacy. Then, after three years at Ibadan, fate took a decisive hand in the matter and the university retained me after my course with the intention of grooming me for an academic career. At that time and at the insistence of the Vice Chancellor Professor Oluwasanmi, the university had a vibrant Staff Development Scheme which had the stated intention of replacing most of our expatriate lecturers with home grown lecturers in the shortest time possible. Once you were retained by your Faculty, your way to an academic career was laid clear before you as you would be sent at no cost to yourself to any university of your choice anywhere in the world. All that was required of you was a letter of admission. At that time, the University of London was perhaps the first choice for any Ife Pharmacy graduate but one of the Professors from London who had come as an external examiner in my department that year told me that there was no suitable supervisor on ground for the session and advised me to apply to both Strathclyde University in Glasgow and surprise, surprise the University of Manchester! I took his advice and was admitted in both universities. Without a hint of hesitation I chose to go off to Manchester basing my choice on nothing more than Manchester was home to the Manchester City Football Club. I since came to learn that the best university in Britain outside Cambridge, Oxford and London was Manchester University and even now the university is seldom outside the best twenty –five universities in the world. I must confess that this fact did not contribute to my decision to choose Manchester because I based my decision on the realisation that it gave me the opportunity to watch my heroes close up and live as they strutted their stuff on the stage prepared for them at Maine road. For three years, I whipped myself up to a state of ecstasy and time again as I watched the team play some scintillating football and in 1976, won the League cup, beating Manchester United along the way. What bliss!

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My live involvement with Manchester City came to an end after three years but of course, I still followed their progress as best I could by listening to the BBC World service. Manchester City held her own admirably in the first division throughout the eighties but this was not to last as the club’s fortunes faded steadily so that by 1999, they were playing in the third tier of the English league! Those were painful days made more or less unbearable by the rise and rise of Manchester United which in the year that we gained promotion from the third tier of English football won the triple of Premier League, FA cup and European cup. Thereafter, they became serial winners of football trophies whilst Manchester City was bouncing between the existing divisions. Throughout this period, the fan base stood as solid as ever and we took our beatings dished out to us by  our neighbours with impressive stoicism bordering on masochism. 

Then in 2008 our fortunes took a dramatic turn as the club was bought over by investors from Abu Dhabi and as the saying goes, the rest is history.  Thereafter we joined an elite group of English football clubs and by 2011 had won our first major trophy in thirty-five years when we won the FA cup, beating our nemesis, Manchester United in the semi finals. But the best was to come as we won the Premier league in the last minute in 2012, beating Manchester United on goal difference having beaten them at Old Trafford by the grand score of 6 – 1. A new kid had arrived on the block and was not willing to take any prisoners. In the last six years, Manchester City has, in the manner once associated with Manchester United in their heydays won the Premier league five times, something we could not dream about fifteen years ago when we were at best a middle table team which was still prone to relegation from the Premier League.

A lot of money has come into Manchester City since the Sheikhs took over and this has been very helpful but much more than this, the money has been judiciously spent by the management team which handled those finances with great skill and diligence. Not only did they assemble a powerful team, they secured the services of the best coach in the world and under Pep Guardiola, the team has taken to wearing a cloak of invincibility. Manchester City has celebrated the Triple crown with great exuberance but underneath all that glitter, you can be sure that the club is even now preparing to go one better next season. We, their loyal fans expect no less.

Manchester City was founded all the way back in 1884 and for all that time, people have given their time, passion and money to sustain an institution which they consider important to them as part of their lives. It is this human support that has sustained that institution through all the vicissitudes of passing time, making it possible to write about the club today. The first football team that I supported as a child was ECN but to say that institution has simply collapsed into oblivion is to state the obvious. My beloved University of Ife is now a shadow of what it used to be and there are genuine fears for her continued relevance. That excellent Staff Development Scheme which paved my way to Manchester was abandoned a long time ago and today, virtually nobody can be attracted to spend a life time of teaching in the university as I and many others were attracted to do so many years ago. There are a great many things wrong with Nigeria these days but all of them stem from our inability to maintain our institutions which is why most of them do not survive the lifespan of most individuals and die long before their time, having in that time served only a few privileged people.