Tag Archives: Manchester City

Mar 27 2023
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Daily Post, Portrait

Emma Hayes, Chelsea manager

Sunday 26th March 2023, 2.55pm (day 4,231)

Emma Hayes, 26/3/23

Made one of my occasional forays into the sports media world. High enough to be obliged to display the corporate sponsorship, although no endorsement of any product is implied…. Emma Hayes is by now surely the longest-serving manager in any of the senior English football leagues (having been in charge of Chelsea in the Women’s Super League since 2012, and won it the last three seasons), but she presided over defeat today, 2-0 to Manchester City. In the press room afterwards: “Q: What went wrong today, Emma?” “A: We lost.” Nailed it.

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Oct 20 2019
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Daily Post, Sport

Half-time sprinkling

Saturday 19th October 2019, 1.50pm (day 2,977)

Half-time sprinklers, 19/10/19

Another shot of water caught by sunlight, but here the water is not being naturally produced. Half-time at the City Academy stadium in Manchester, where the under-23 team of the Richest Club in the World were to happily get their comeuppance, slipping to a 1-0 home defeat to Brighton’s under-23s. Which of course I found highly entertaining.

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Sep 30 2018
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Daily Post, Sport

Sprinklers in action

Saturday 29th September 2018, 2.05pm (day 2,592)

Etihad sprinklers, 29/9/18

Football again, but definitely not non-league today. The Etihad Stadium is the home of current, and probably future, champions Manchester City, where even the pre-match watering of the pitch is done on a suitably grandiose scale. To call these massive jets of liquid ‘sprinklers’ rather diminishes them. Better a picture of them in the sunlight than of anything that happened on the pitch today, anyway — at least from my ‘visiting fan’ perspective.

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Nov 22 2017
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Art and architecture, Daily Post, Sport

Entry to the Etihad

Tuesday 21st November 2017, 7.20pm (day 2,280)

Etihad ramp, 21/11/17

For a birthday present for father and nephew (both Manchester City fans) I got them tickets for tonight’s UEFA Champions League game versus Feyenoord at the Etihad stadium, and went along myself.

It was a stellar exhibition of football genius and entertainment, as befits the most exciting sports competition anywhere in the universe, played by Gods who walk the earth in human form. At least, that was the media narrative. Personally I thought it was a rather tedious game, played out by a bunch of uninterested guys who knew it was essentially meaningless and that they’d get their £250,000 each this week whatever the result. And you couldn’t even get a beer at half-time.

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Oct 25 2013
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Daily Post, Sport

CSKA Moscow fans — shirtless and non-racist

Wednesday 23rd October 2013, 9.45pm (day 790)

CSKA fans, 23/10/13

I am a Brighton & Hove Albion fan but I am also a football fan, I just like going to games whoever is playing. When the work colleague with whom I’ve come to Moscow pointed out that we would be there when CSKA were hosting Manchester City in the Champions League, we decided we would go. She is a City fan but I was neutral in the matter. I just wanted the experience of going to a big game abroad, which I have only ever done once before (Benfica v FC Porto, December 1990).

Experience it definitely was, and a good one. It was also a cold one, below zero for most of it, including the last 15 minutes during which these 200 or so CSKA fans bravely took their shirts off. I apologise for the technical deficiencies of the shot but bear in mind this was taken at an angle, with a very long zoom, through plexiglass.

I should also point out that I have seen stories on my return regarding alleged racist chanting by the CSKA fans. As someone who was actually at the game, neutral, and understands basic Russian, I have to say that these allegations are at best dubious. In my informed and objective opinion there was no ‘racist chanting’ whatsoever evident at this game.

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May 15 2012
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Daily Post, Urban scene

‘Champions’ banner, Manchester Town Hall

Tuesday 15th May 2012, 7.50am (day 264)

Manchester City banner, 15/5/12

Posted purely to wind up any Manchester United fans in the audience. I dislike Manchester United because of:

  1. the fact my Dad is a City fan of nearly 60 years’ standing
  2. the general arrogance
  3. (most of all) the 1983 FA Cup Final (look it up if you don’t get this reference).

Anyway the drama of Sunday’s game (which I missed altogether, being on a plane back from Copenhagen at the time) was too good for it to end any other way. Well done, City.

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