City’s Clock Ticks On

In all the hype about the Special One, the Special Ton, or rather double ton, and the Double Puns (Urinary Infection etc.), everyone forgot the most satisfying news to come out of yesterday for all Manchester. Manchester City got knocked out by Stoke in their FA Cup replay 3-1, leading to this banner getting set to be moved on to the next number.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

For the uninitiated, this is a banner that hangs proudly at the Stretford end, everytime our illustrious neighbours cross the road to visit us. A reference to the years which have passed since they last won any silverware (a 4-0 thrashing of us, most ironically, in the League Cup finals of  ’76). Between then and now, a lot has changed. City have gone through relegation and come back up, Liverpool are no longer a dominant force in the league, and the fate of many clubs in the League have swung in direct correlation to the NPV of their owners. And United have won a gazillion titles. But then, City became one of the clubs to feel the Black Gold’s touch, and suddenly they’re swimming with cash and buying one player each from each of the Premier League clubs. They skipped Liverpool for obvious reasons.

City’s policy this season has been simple – If you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em. Mark Hughes was the man entrusted with all the money, the players that it bought, and the egos that they bought with them. It was never going to be an easy task, especially in a team where everyone is still figuring out where their lockers are and finding themselves playing alongside a player that they faced in the opposition only a week ago. Ol’ Sparky, sometimes touted as a successor for us alongside David Moyes, when the Fergie era ends, did a pretty fair job with the bunch. I mean, it’s a bunch of people who have absolutely no idea of what the other is going to do in the middle of a move, surely it’s going to take them some time to gel. But of course, people with petro-dollars don’t know that. The calculation there was (Money Spent)/(Time). If it was a smaller number than Goldman Sachs’ returns for the past decade, off with the manager’s head. And thus went Ol’ Sparky.

Mancini came in straight into the League Cup semi-final double header, for his first taste of a Manchester Derby. Blue scarf and everything, he loudly vowed that this was the year that ‘The Banner’ would be brought down by City. I hate sneaky Italian types, I just have this feeling they can never be up to any good. Just watch Gattusso in any match. Even after Rooney buried his 92nd minute header to end their hopes of that happening through the League Cup, it was the City fans going Tick Tock Tick, Tock at us. Apparently warning us that the time is almost upon us when they stand shoulder to shoulder with us, like in the 60s. A fair hope, till yesterday.

And so, it’s Tick Tock, Tick Tock again. As aptly summed up here,