When you dance with the devil

I have supported City since the 70’s having inherited the team from my late Grandfather.

It wasn’t until the season before last that I ticked something else off my bucket list and finally became a seasoncard holder and then only for a flirtatious 18 months, deciding that the travelling from Edinburgh and back meant that watching us play was becoming less of a pleasure and more of a chore.

As a youngster I had always thought that the way football was structured meant that every decade or so we would have a proper tilt at the title and probably get to Wembley every five years or so on average. I could live with that as a fan. I don’t feel that would be greedy or asking too much.

As the Premiership years unfolded, however, and we were yo-yoing between divisions it became increasingly apparent that it was going to take something entirely different to compete with the Sky 4, ie a shedload of cash.

It was as this realisation dawned that I thought to myself “Why can’t we have a billionaire benefactor?”

I decided that despite there being a “right way” to win things, this way was obviously not going to work. Even a decent cup run seemed out of the question so I magnanimously agreed to myself that if the elusive billionaire showed up I was on board, despite any moral dilemma of all the baggage that would inevitably come with “buying success”.

This brings me to case in point of perhaps the most baggage anyone has seen in a footballer in Mr Tevez.

I was at Wembley singing my heart out on that glorious day in May. I was, however pretty disgusted at the way I saw on reruns our captain throwing scarves delirious supporters had draped round his neck to the ground as if they burned him.

Tevez’ misdemeanours are well documented here so I shall not bother to recap but it seems as though that moral dilemma I mentioned will be tested to the max.

As far as I am concerned I should prefer it if he never took to the field in a City shirt again but it seems as though that is a pipedream and so it is with a somewhat weary heart that I shall be cheering the team in spite of him.

I hope that things resolve themselves in the summer with his departure. For the record I believe our owners have behaved impeccably throughout their tenure and in throughout this charade in particular, but if as some you see Tevez as the devil incarnate then I will just say if you dance with the devil he may step on your toes, or something like that.