The team my father-in-law supports are unrecognisable from the one he followed as a child: is it still the same football club?
My father-in-law, Bryn, has been a loyal supporter of Manchester City for as long as he can remember. In the 1950s, he would jump on to the crossbar of his dad’s bike and journey from their home in Withington towards the famous terraces of Maine Road. On arrival, they would pay “thruppence” to park among the heaps of bikes piled on top of each other alongside the terrace houses around the stadium. His dad being a season-ticket holder, just like his own father, they would sit together near the players’ tunnel and more than 70 years later it takes little prompting to stir the memories, as strong as the smell of liniment, of his heroes emerging for each game before the assembled crowd and the eyes of that six-year-old boy.
Eleven years ago, during a work trip to America, my wife sent me a photo that caught me off guard. It captured my recently born son dressed in Manchester City’s sky-blue kit, a clear indication that he had been “claimed” by his grandfather to carry on their family tradition, a subversion successfully executed on all six of his grandchildren. Therefore, it was truly poignant for me to witness the entire family gathered together as his beloved team lifted the Champions League in June and achieved the historic treble for the first time in the club’s history: something they would have never dreamed about all those years ago sitting inside Maine Road.
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