And So To Battle

Tonight’s game doesn’t just represent a chance for the blues to appear at Wembley. It doesn’t just give them a chance to knock United out of a cup competition. But it does represent a milestone in City’s evolution.

After years of new managers and false dawn’s this season could just be the one and Roberto Mancini is the man who will take us there. Mark Hughes was popular but he was never a tactician like Mancini, who can see where things need changing and is not afraid to do it but a big thank you has got to go to the Welshman for getting us here in the first place.

Blues fans have waited almost thirty years for a night like tonight and now, just a couple of hours away from the biggest game for City for a long time, blues fans everywhere are hoping for that one result that will transform their season.

For United, this is just another derby, just another cup semi-final. They have been to so many over the years that they will treat this as just another game.

Yet for the blues it is so much different. We have lived in the shadow of United for too long and now is a chance for our club to evolve and to begin to step out from behind that shadow.

Tonight, friends will become rivals for at least ninety minutes as the battle rages on the pitch and we can only hope that it is only the pitch that sees such a battle tonight.

If the blues fail tonight, there will be another time, another place where we won’t fail. But if we succeed, it will mark a pivotal point in our evolution and fully justify the finance which ADUG as placed in the club. We will no longer be ignored, dismissed as a mid-table team but one with real ambition and a glorious future ahead of us.

And so to the Battle of Old Trafford, where I fully believe that tonight, the lads will pull it off. Whether it is a draw or win, I don’t really care. What does matter is that, by late this evening, City’s name will stand opposite to Aston Villa’s on the League Cup Final date. It is what every blue wants and hopes for tonight and by tomorrow, bragging rights will firmly belong in the blue half of the city.

Good luck City. Makes us all proud.