Cityitis Strikes Again

Cityitis - the law of if it can go wrong it will go wrong in the world of Manchester City Football Club.

At around lunchtime today, an hour before the Manchester derby was due to begin, I contacted a friend (United supporter - from Nottingham, natch).

My text: stick on united win, probably as a result of some contentious decision which united get away with.

As the game progressed into the second half, United brought on Michael Owen. I've seen Owen play against City a million times, and it's the law that he always scores. So I text my mate: owen always scores against us.

The ref plays six minutes of Fergietime at the end of the game - when he had added on four. Owen turns up with 15 seconds of this to go and scores to send City fans into a slough of despond.

Work tomorrow will be a nightmare. I'm already thinking how I can throw a sickie, merely to avoid the self-satisfied non-Mancunians rubbing it in my face. And this when I'm on a hair-trigger with everything else that's going on.

Why am I always right - even when I don't want to be?
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Hide The Children

'Boxing fans, hide the children' was the ring announcer's introduction to Mike Tysons' s 12th fight against the 6'6" Eddie Richardson. He put him on the floor with his first punch.

At this point in his career, Tyson was irresistible, pure and true. He'd put down his 10th opponent, Covay, in 37 seconds. His 11th opponent said he'd never been hit as hard. Interviewed after, Tyson was calm, eloquent, polite, respectful - but most of all forensic - capable of analysing in minute detail each feint, each counter, each measuring-up-move that led to the demise of the latest sap. His voice, almost camp, lent each analysis a kind of kindness - indeed, he often comiserated with his opponents, almost sorry he'd given them so little chance.

Interviewers were not greeted with snarling self-aggrandisement - more delight to even be doing what he was doing; pleasure at having entertained the local fans; self-deprecating analysis of his own performance, and always a plea that he hoped his opponent was OK. At this point, Tyson didn't have a national audience in the US, much less an international one.

For his own part, whoever was put in front of him, Tyson would look him straight in the eye, no fear. Part of being a man, he said, was facing and overcoming your problems. It's an almost unbelievably mature thing to say. He must have been about 20 at the time.

How much of a man were you aged 20?

A few fights later, in arguably his best performance, he put down Trevor Berbick, who was at the time beating allcomers. Berbick's confidence was shattered by a right cross which staggered him backwards in an exaggerated, theatrical, moonwalk dance. One of the most confident, competent contenders of the time turned into a puerile, babyish, legless mess in front of my eyes.

This is the man we know and love - forget the monster accusations, the rape allegations, the financial scandals. This is a man at the peak of his beauty and I defy any other man not to want to be him at this point in his life.

I did.

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Thrilla In Manila

I have just watched someone die.

Funny to think of it, but this was the moment that Muhammad Ali took the first step towards death.

He was fighting Joe Frazier, his nemesis, his absolute apotheosis, in one of the three major bouts they had - bouts that not only defined the 70's: they were the 70s's.

Prince Far-I, the legendary 'toaster' (for anyone who understands old-school reggaeisms), recorded 'Big Fight' in homage to it. "Dreadlocks v Babylon - fifteen roun' of boxin.'" Ali was Dreadlocks - beautiful, free, cocky, sexy, irresistible. Frazier was Babylon: the Man - the police, the acceptable face of the ghetto; illiterate to Ali's poet; representative of mundane normality - as if he was personally bringing destruction to you, and would then laugh over your grave.

Imagine, fifteen three-minute rounds. Long ago they did away with that, certain in the knowledge that people were dying as a result. Today's pretentious, PC, health-and-safety conscious world just didn't exist in those times. The very idea of someone throwing a sickie to avoid work; or a footballer diving to earn a dubious penalty; of people having ME; of perfectly well people on Disability Benefit - man, they were something from another planet. So they long ago reduced it to twelve rounds - and if anyone so much as gets a nick, the towel comes in nowadays.

Ali and Frazier fought each other to a standstill. By the end, huge, egg-shaped weals covered Frazier's face - but he never for one moment stopped believing, stopped coming forward. His gum shield was ripped from his mouth on several occasions (nowadays they call a time-out, wash the gumshield - as it has been on the floor, god forbid) but he just had to fight on, mouth being turned inside-out by cruel punches, aimed deliberately to maim.

At the end of the fight - the 14th round to be precise - Frazier just couldn't continue. But even then, he didn't make the decision to quit. You can see him arguing with his cornermen, begging for one last chance.

But Ali is in fact worse. He has won the fight, but at first doesn't actually realise it. He is virtually comatose in his corner. I am convinced that this is the precise moment that Parkinsons begins for him. Something has happened to his mind. No-one is giving him any fluids (of course they didn't understand the importance of that in those days) so: he just slumps. In fact he tries to stand up, but drops to the canvas with exhaustion and needs to be helped onto a stool. Still no fluids administered. His brain must have been frying at this point.

Harry Carpenter, the legendary BBC reporter, talks about how Ali has 'harmed his own future' with this performance. How prophetic those words were to become. Carpenter tries to interview him in the ring but Ali can't communicate with him.

Two weeks ago, Ali came to Manchester. Just as I had thirty years ago with Pele, my other boyhood hero, I missed it. I may never, ever have the chance to see him in person again before he dies.

One of the greatest regrets of my life.


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I Shook Up The World

In 1964, Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston.

Didn't just beat him, annihilated him. He was 22. I was 2.

After the fight, there was bedlam in the ring. Liston was the meanest mofo on the planet, a really, really unpleasant individual from ghetto roots and determined to adminster ghetto retribution. Clay simply made a fool of him and delighted in his ritual humiliation. There followed some wonderful self-aggrandisement which set the tone for boxing interviews forever. The post-fight interviews and celebrations lasted longer than the fight. The entire posing canon of boxers who followed would copy it.

I had that picture on my wall for years.

It symbolised all my own fights, all my own fears and how to overcome them, my own self-belief. I went to many boxing matches; became a kind of amateur boxer; was fascinated by the combined brutality and nobility of the sport.

In this early pre-digital, pre-Sky, pre-everything era, when I was a little boy, sporting events from America were not available live - adding to the mystique of America for me - but broadcast days, maybe weeks later on the legendary Sportsnight.

Sportsnight was a kind of extension of the BBC's saturday sports show, Grandstand, but somehow more exotic to young boys because a) you had to stay up to watch it and b) it brought events you had literally never seen before: Clay v Liston. Real Madrid v Brian Clough's Derby County in the European Cup. The FA Cup final replay between Chelsea and Leeds. An era of The Damned United, which all of we 40-something little boys remember nowadays like our lives depend on it.

That's because they do.

My Dad would put me to bed at 8pm, but I didn't sleep, only pretended. Because he had promised me that if I went to bed he would wake me up and let me watch Sportsnight. Compliantly, as all children in that era were, I did. And so it was that I would be allowed to watch these wonderful events, now cynically available 24/7 on any digital channel you like, as if they were the most magical, mysterious events I'd ever seen - certainly since the moon landings. School the next day would buzz and crackle with thrilled post-match conversation.

Children Of Today: there is really nothing left to amaze you - is there? You are bored of everything almost as soon as it happens; cynical about everything; impatient about everything; want everything now without working for it.

That's why Clay - when I was asked during some poxy management training session in a nonedescript plastic hotel - about heroes; was my choice and will always be my choice. When he dies I will mourn the passing of possibly the greatest human being outside of Mandela still alive.

He exists in black and white, like my childhood, and belongs to an age when people were kind and noble, uncynical and never, ever bored.

And he shook the world, like I wanted to but only managed the slightest undulation. Still, I wouldn't've even disturbed the ripples without him.

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My Seat

This is the view from my seat at the City of Manchester Stadium - home, if you don't know, to Manchester City Football Club.

This seat is my property. I live here. And I will die here. This seat will be my viewpoint on triumph, tragedy and disaster. And long after I have gone, this seat will continue to exist - in the same way that in the cycle of life, we die, decompose, and feed other organisms, whom in turn feed the next generations.

This seat will be where I am sitting when I hear the news that my dad has died; my son has been returned to prison; my car/house/belongings have all been destroyed in a fire; my girlfriend has left me.

And you know what, I'll sit there, hunker down, take it all in and philosphise that at least there is somewhere that I still belong.

My love for Manchester City is deep and longstanding. On top of that, I've been a seasonticket holder on-and-off for the entire time I've been a parent. It's as if I needed another baby. This year, being a seasonticket holder is more special than ever. City are officially the richest football club in the world. We can buy whoever we want: Pele, Maradona, Shaquille O'Neil, Johnny Depp, Barrack Obama - anyone.

You have to be a City fan to understand what this means. City have always been shit. I mean, always. The gloom has been occasionally lightened by glimmering moments of drama - the play-off final v Gillingham in '99; the Keegan promotion season, and, er, that's it. Since the 60's anyway. United fans have a banner with removable stickers, showing how many years it is since we've won anything. They just change the number each year. That's how crap we are.

Compare our fortunes with 'the other lot'. In 1999 we got promoted from the second division (third division in old money). United won the league, cup and European Cup. Plus 3 Oscars for Best Picture, OBEs, the final of Celebrity Come Dancing and the Queen's Award for Industry. I was living in Hulme, at the bottom of the road which leads down from Old Trafford. United had an open-top bus parade virtually right past my house. The complete BASTARDS. It felt like they were personally rubbing it in.

The ex-manager Joe Royle coined a phrase to describe the fortunes of the club: Citiyitis. What he meant by this was, it doesn't matter how much money we have; how many fantastic players come; how many people come to games; who the directors or manager are - City will always fuck up. If something can go wrong, it will - and still does. That's why many City fans view our new-found wealth with mild amusement, just waiting for Cityitis to kick in.

So what makes a person follow this team?

Perhaps it's an almost Shakespearean fatalism - as if we enjoy the catharsis of the next tragedy which is about to befall us. Conversely, it's a kind of dogged optimism - we've stuck with them for this long, surely things will eventually come good, if we just wait a little bit longer??

For me, it's something more. Every 3 or 4 years, my life can be relied upon to contract Cityitis. If something can go wrong, it will; and try as I may, I seem unable to break this cycle. It's a relationship breakdown; it's the realisation that my career is stuck in a dead-end; it's a financial meltdown; it's some personal tragedy. Often it's all of them together. And I can feel it happenning again, soon. I know the signs - personal and professional relationships sour, to the point of non-communication and fixed, belligerent stance. A sense of being beleaguered by the numerous hangers on and dependents grows - a feeling that you're getting absolutely nothing out of all the effort you've put into life, all the support and help that you've given other people, and all of the money you've thrown at it. There is only one solution - move on. Break the cycle somehow. This usually involves a complete change of circumstances - new town, new job, new friends, new life.

I'm so absolutely fucking sick and tired of it. I want to walk into the sea.

Then I remember City.

So I go to the next game, sit in my seat, believe and belong.


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Rainbow Over The 11th

I wouldn't say that golf has become more important to me than sex or money, but there are times when it comes very close. Look, Hemingway managed to make bullfighting interesting to the uninitiated so, as the saying goes, suspend your disbelief.

Golf at its best is a duel with the elements, whilst at the same time the player is at one with the elements. Today, for example, I was simultaneously caught in a howling gale on the 9th, pissed all over on the 10th, and sweating in a heatwave on the 11th. That's what caused the rainbow, of which more in a moment. I saw a family of coots cross the 11th, parents like a school crossing patrol, ushering the fledglings from one side of the fairway to the safety of the stream on the other side. I saw a falcon hang in the air and then silently dive to take its prey as I putted home for par on the 13th. Then on the 16th, I was surrounded by a swarm of around 100 swallows, hugging the contours of the fairway in low-slung swoops; gliding in search of flies, like water boatmen across a clear lake.

Oh, and I also got round the back 9 in a more-than respectable-but-not-exactly-Tiger-Woods score of 44, against a par of 37. I'm not shabby.

That's because I've put in the hard yards - hours and hours of socking it down the driving range in the wintertime; then tentative knocks from the ladies' tee to build my confidence in the spring. Then finally, when I got my new clubs (Ping G10s, natch), hammering it off the pro-tee with the best of them. It's a metaphor for my personal and intellectual development. I feel that at this stage of my life and career, I've done the work I need to do to get here - personally and professionally I'm on the pro-tee.

I almost always play alone - normally because I hate most of the white-van-men whose outsize egos are only matched by their outsize waistlines; not by their limited talent or technique. And judging by the lack of women on the course, that lack of technique is not limited to the golf course. I wonder what happens behind the bedroom doors of a thousand north-east golf widows. I really hope they're getting some from the milkman or the neighbour's teenage son.

So it's against this background that I stepped out today. It had been a hard day - in so much as I'd broken my holiday to dutifully go into work and collect latest performance results - which were an abberation. As I popped my head round the Director's door the senior managers sat in a disgruntled huddle - like grizzly bears, awoken from their winter slumber to find something has shat in their cave. I knew that next week I would pay.

I left as soon as I humanly could, and tried to reason why I still worked there at all. I couldn't find a reason - not even a lukewarm one.

I'm in the middle of a mid-life crisis. I don't even want to work. I want to write, take photographs, walk the earth, speak other languages, feel the sun on my back. I don't give a flying fuck about performance data or the corporate bottom line. I'm working in a metaphorical McDonalds. All that experience and training, and I'm serving people metaphorical burgers, so in turn they will be able to go forth into society and serve other people burgers.

So when I got to the 11th, away from all that, and looked back over the fairway from the green, I looked at that rainbow with renewed hope. Things do - and will - have a way of working out. I don't know how yet, but that rainbow reminded me that it just might be possible.
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