Clempsey

Well, what can I say?

Apart from fusckshitwanker.

I'm going to compile a chart of the highs and lows of a City fan. It will be similar to the map function in Flickr, where one is able to gradually drill down from the entire globe to the very house in which you are sitting.

The top of the chart will be marked 'excellent' and the bottom will be marked 'shite' and there will be an entirely objective plotting process for each game as far as the Citizens are concerned. It will track individual games and then pan out to the pontoon scale, then full season, going on to the entire history of the club. I will be able to conclusively prove that it is more exciting, in terms of pure adrenaline, to support Manchester City than any other team. There may even be an Easter Egg.

Saturday's game against Fulham (no exception to the rule) was screened on Setanta Sports only (another nail in the coffin, IYAM) so wasn't easy to track down. I congratulated myself on finishing the new curtains in time to get to the pub for the kick-off. They're all Gooners here, so I wasn't surprised to find the nearest pub half empty. Imagine my horror when, strolling to the bar, I turned to find out if there had been a first minute incident and saw.........

Ipswich v Coventry!!!! WTF?? I thought, turning smartly on my heel. For a moment it crossed my mind to pop into the offy and catch the game on 5 Live at home, but something persuaded me to keep walking.

I ended up at Kennedy's, a so-so bar on the Cally. I was relieved to see that the game was being shown in there, even if the set-up is pathetically poor for watching telly - at best, maybe 6 people can see the (2) screens properly. I plonked myself down and craned my neck, fully expecting a dour affair - 1-0, 0-0 maybe, and waited...

City were prising fish scales off bent oak planks skilfully coopered into a pleasing rotundity for 20 minutes and then the inevitable happened. Fookin Fulham got one. City were so irredeemably crap at this stage that I was losing the will to live. The only thing that sustained me was my enduring love.

On and on this went, till I turned my head when I heard a supportive murmur:

"Fucking Clint Dempsey," a voice said in a languid US drawl. A pissed-up Yank was sitting next to me and paying attention to the game. He had watched Arsenal's earlier demolition of Derby and had stayed the course for City/Fulham. My estimation of the good ol' US of A went up a few notches right there - especially with the vitriolic hatred of 'Clempsey', as he called him. There's nothing so pleasing as an irrational hatred of a particular player (though you could argue that in Clint's case, the hatred is entirely rational) Despite the paucity of our play, Fulham were somehow, inconceivably, worse and we got one back. Stephen Ireland (though he will no doubt deny it) clattered into Dempsey and left him on the deck. My new buddy said he would buy me a beer if we got Dempsey stretchered off and the evening really started to get going as we cheered every mistake he made.

The game ended in a 3 all draw, though there could have been even more goals at both ends. There was a table of Gooners who had thrown in their lot with Fulham (solidarity among Londoners or some other bollocks, I suppose) and I was hoping and praying that we would turn them over. The Yank finally showed his true colours by leaving at half time, but he wished me a 'Good luck, man' as he left, and the little Tory who sold me a hamster a few months back took his place. He said that he would have stopped supporting West Ham if Sven had taken over there. I said he wouldn't have.

Cracking game, terrible result.