By Tony Attwood
I am fairly sure a lot of people approached yesterday feeling a bit sorry for ManC fans; after all, it wasn’t them who arranged all the match-fixing that their pay masters engaged in. And indeed there was even some sympathy for Manc fans in the media – with the feeling that they had had every right to celebrate their years of success. It was the club owners who fixed the matches, not the fans.
But in the space of about 10 minutes,s all that sympathy and understanding for the regular fans who go to the games utterly vanished.
And it wasn’t replaced by a neutral feeling of, “Well, I suppose those fans don’t really see the implications.” No, instead we got the same sort of dislike that many people in England have for the bully – the big kid who goes around punching the little boys and then laughing about it.
For we had absolutely no sign of anyone associated with the ManC club, be they fan or director or player or of the management team, showing any sign of remorse. No one has even said, “Look, I don’t know what went on with the money, but if it was as is being suggested, I can’t support that.” Not even that!
Certainly no player said, “I’m finding it very difficult being associated with this level of cheating.” All we seemed to get was “Give me the money.” .
Now, of course, we don’t expect people in the employ of the Mancs to speak out against the money givers, because that would mean losing their job by taking a moral stand, and as we know people in high levels of employment (MPs, Lords, board members in large corporations, even local councillors) don’t apologise. All they do is say too little, too late. Do you remember British politicians admitting they got it wrong?
As _[The Daily Mail](https://www.dailymail.com/sport/football/article-16195597/Man-City-Liverpool-report-3-0-Anfield-guilty-charges.html)_ put it, “The team belonging to the club branded the biggest cheats in English sporting history embraced their shame and laughed in the face of the scorn of the rest of football,” (Oliver Holt). He continued…
“City defied the revulsion that has been visited upon them and waltzed past Liverpool, the team which suffered most from their cheating. “It was another bad day for a game reeling from what City have done to it … for now, it seems, cheats do prosper.”
And that probably was the first time ever in my entire life I have wholeheartedly agreed with a statement in the Mail. Would I have been horrified if Arsenal had done what ManC had done? Yes. Would I have taunted the opposition in the first game after the revelations – absolutely not. I can’t be sure what I would have done, but I would like to think I would have sent my season ticket back with a note saying, “let me know when the real Arsenal return.”
The only good thing one can say is that when the time comes to punish ManC, absolutely no neutral fans are going to say or do anything to excuse or support the Mancs. No matter which league they are relegated to, it won’t be enough. What they have done as a club, and what their supporters did yesterday, is enough to tarnish that club for a lifetime. As if they had not blackened their own name enough anyway.
Maybe ultimately we forget John Terry being accused of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, or Eric Cantona flying into the crowd with a kung-fu kick. Or Adam Johnson of Sunderland being arrested for having sex with an underage girl, and his club continuing to play him. Maybe. But ManC have gone beyond all that, for they have attempted to destroy the essence of football.
It looks as if every ManC celebration, such as we saw against Liverpool, is likely to increase the punishments they will face, and in the meanwhile will turn more and more of the media against Liverpool. Any publication that prints the league tables without an asterisk next to the ManC line is condoning the cheating, and deserves to be outed also.
And it is worse than this, because the rest of Europe is watching to see how England deals with this level of cheating. And thus far, Europe is not impressed. Indeed, I have already heard mutterings, suggesting that Europe can’t have England in its competitions if England continues to leave ManC unpunished, while their supporters celebrate this industrial level of cheating that they now embrace.
ManC, the club, are clearly blind to the impact their fans’ behaviour is having on their already ruined reputation. Ultimately, retribution must come – and when it does, I don’t think they will understand what has hit them. Or why it keeps on hitting them over and over and over again. And then we will say, “Farewell Manc, once and for all.”