Last week I actually had the time to take advantage of my brand new season ticket at Manchester City and take a trip down to Eastlands, where I saw my second live Premier League game of the season: Manchester City vs. Blackburn Rovers.
The seats are amazing and probably better than the ones I had last year; they’re three rows from the front, right on the half way line. I like being close enough to hear the players swear at each other, because that means there’s a fairly good chance they’ll occasionally be able to hear me swearing at them.
The first thing that struck me was the lack of travelling support for Blackburn, as you can see from the picture:
I’d understand if City were playing West Ham for example, as the fans would have an extremely long way to travel for a 12.45 kick-off. Blackburn fans on the other hand only had a very small distance to travel to get to the stadium, so I think it’s fairly pathetic that they couldn’t fill that tiny section of the ground. I was even more astounded when at the end of the game Diouf felt the need to applaud the Blackburn fans, prompting me to scream ‘they only travelled 30 miles you dumb prick, what are you clapping them for’ … Football doesn’t bring the best out of me.
The second thing that struck me is that Mark Clattenburg is a shit referee. Seriously, I’m not just bitter because he wasn’t giving decisions City’s way, the man is not fit to be a Premier League referee. Some of the decisions he made were truly laughable, and booking Viera five minutes into the game for a nothing challenge started one of the worst refereeing displays I’ve seen for some considerable time.
Anyway, this weekend I’m off to see City vs. Chelsea, which should be an interesting game. I’ll just be praying Mancini doesn’t start Jo (or put him on the pitch at any point in the game) because the man about as likely to score as I am to get a phone call from Cheryl Cole asking me to wear her like a hat.