1stCityExile

City away to Cardiff (the old Ninian Park) for a play off semi final. I forget the year but this was probably about 10-15 years ago. Impossible to get an away ticket, but a City supporting mate of mine, who lived in Wales, was registered on the Cardiff City database (don't ask, no idea). So anyway, we get tickets in the home end - the old open end, concrete strip down the side of the pitch, where all their ultras used to assemble (terrible choice, but we lacked familiarity with the ground). Apart from the fact that we lost 1-0, we got soaking wet from the atrocious weather, we also felt obliged to clap their goal for fear of being "outed" as "foreign agents" by some of the less than friendly meatheads around us. Not a great day.

I remember as a kid, in the East End in the 1970's the crowd chanting to some opposing player, "Sex case, sex case, hang him, hang him, hang him!". I can't remember now who we were playing, and I certainly had no idea who the abuse was directed at, or their alleged misdemeanor. Not much has changed in football, or society then.....