Source: Daily_Mail
Colin Shindler: The heart has been ripped from the club I love
You see, doctor, we were childhood sweethearts, that's why it hurts so much.
I can honestly say I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't support Manchester City - body and soul and mind - but now I . . . it hurts too much . . . I can't say the words.
Right from the start I loved everything about City - the pale blue colour of their shirts, the pristine white of their shorts, the cathedral that was Maine Road towering majestically over the two-up, two-down terrace houses of Moss Side.
It was my spiritual home - much more than the synagogue, out of whose doors I sprinted every Saturday lunchtime to be home for Sports Parade - you see, doctor, even you haven't heard of Sports Parade. It was the preview programme on the radio long before Sam Leitch presented Football Focus on the telly – that's how long ago it was, doctor.
Man City
Glory days: Manchester City skipper Tony Book holds the FA Cup aloft after the 1969 FA Cup final win over Leicester
I wanted them to win every match and I was devastated when they didn't. Of course, it wasn't logical, doctor, there is no logic in supporting a football team of mortal men with that amount of devotion. But there was one man who made it all worthwhile.
He was a German, a product of the Hitler Jugend but he came to England as a prisoner of war and stayed to keep goal for Manchester City until 1964. His name was Bert Trautmann and he was the best goalie in the whole wide world. I wanted to be him and so did my best friend, Jeff Cohen.
Yes, doctor, I do understand the incongruity of two little Jewish boys hero-worshipping an ex-Nazi paratrooper within a few years of the end of a war in which his fellow countrymen had murdered six million of our co-religionists. But he played like a hero for City and surely you remember that he broke his neck in the 1956 Cup final and played on and won the Cup for us. How could you not forgive him?
Well, of course, I grew up but that didn't change my love for my team. If anything it grew stronger. My mother died when I was 13 and my life felt as if it had been shattered beyond repair. What saved me was that every Saturday afternoon I went to watch Trautmann and Bill Leivers and Joe Hayes and a Scottish goalscoring machine, a one season wonder called Alex Harley.
Bert Trautmann
Pain in the neck: Bert Trautmann bravely dives in at Peter Murphy's feet during the 1956 FA Cup final but pays the price
Harley scored over 30 goals in that 1962-63 season but we were relegated to Division Two. Can you believe the luck? My mother dies in September and the following May it's either City or United for the final relegation place. In the match that decided it, the biased Red loving referee rules out a legitimate Harley goal that would have put us 2-0 up and then he gives them a penalty when Denis Law trips over Harry Dowd, the young City goalie.
United scrape an entirely undeserved 1-1 draw and we go down. What did I ever do that could have brought down that kind of Divine retribution on me?
Yes, doctor, I do understand how I transferred the love I had for my mother to a bunch of underperforming footballers in south Manchester, but you see, and this is the joy of life - or at least it is the joy of sport - there is always the possibility of redemption.
Trautmann
Tough guy: Trautman walks off rubbing his 'sore' neck in the final - which turned out to be broken
In July 1965, Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison took over the club and we all embarked with them on a journey for the next few years that would cause many of us, well me anyway, to be writing about it in books and newspapers for the next 40 years.
It was the high point of our romance. What had started out as a childish obsession had grown into a full-blown love affair. Manchester City and I officially became lovers on May 11, 1968, when goals from Summerbee, Young (2) and Lee gave us a nerve-jangling 4-3 victory at St James' Park, where we snatched the League Championship from a stricken United, who had only the winning of the European Cup later that month to comfort themselves with.
Then came the children . . . the FA Cup in 1969, the League Cup and the European Cup-winners' Cup in 1970. City and I were the parents of those delightful kids and we even survived that horrible time when our beloved Joe and Malcolm left and the club was entrusted to the Machiavellian devices of Peter Swales, the chairman whose ambition saw the back of the men who had given us those days of wine and roses and trophies.
Manchester City
Back from the depths: Jubilant City players celebrate their 1999 victory in the Division Two Play-Off Final against Gillingham played at Wembley
I kept a place in my heart for Joe and Malcolm for a long time. Some would say too long. But only those who have loved as long and as deeply could understand what had so cruelly been taken away.
