HE GAVE US ALL OUR GREATEST MOMENT
WITH three minutes of injury time remaining, I’d made the decision to pack away my City scarf and plot my escape from the Etihad to Manchester’s Piccadilly station and the train back to London before United fans had time to come out on the streets to celebrate snatching the title. Then Edin Dzeko scored to make it 2-2 against 10-man QPR, and I said to myself that we’d probably have one more goalscoring chance in the last couple of minutes or so to win the game — and City’s first league title since 1968. What I didn’t expect was that we’d actually take such a chance and win a title which we seemed, just a few minutes earlier, destined to lose with all the inevitable jibes of ‘typical City’. From a feeling of utter dejection — let’s not forget it was only a football match — to complete euphoria in the space of three minutes is quite some journey of emotions. I have been a City fan since my dad first took me to Maine Road in 1972 and never, in watching several hundred of their matches since, have I ever come close to the ecstasy of watching the ‘Aguero moment’. Barely a decade earlier, we had been in the third tier of English football and I was present as the not so mighty Wycombe Wanderers completed a historic league double at Maine Road. There were many more indignities at the hands of York City, Lincoln City and Bury before the renaissance with Sergio Aguero truly began on that unforgettable day in May 2012. The irony is that he could easily have gone down for a penalty after a crude, late challenge from a QPR defender before he slotted away Mario Ballotelli’s through-ball to make Premier League history. Who knows what would have happened if a penalty had been given? Not that I would have known in my seat at the other end of the ground — a seat which I call my ‘Aguero seat’ because I will forever remember the moment when I saw that goal go in and 40 years of red hurt from the other side of Manchester disappeared and a new era was born. I still have that seat and will be back there next season, Covid restrictions permitting. Aguero is City’s record goalscorer whose brilliance over 10 seasons has been a joy to witness. There was absolute pandemonium in the stadium after his goal went in — fans hugging complete strangers from several rows back like long lost friends. Tears everywhere I looked. Few people away from the red half of Manchester and perhaps some older generation Arsenal fans will dispute that, in terms of drama, it was the greatest moment in Premier League history. To do it in ‘Fergie time’ made it even sweeter. Now that Sergio is leaving at the end of the season, I dream that he has one last piece of making history — playing a part in City winning the Champions League. It was dreams that kept me, along with tens of thousands of other City fans, going in the dark days of the 1998-1999 season in the third tier. Thanks for all the great memories, Sergio. Please provide us with one more. You, more than any of the brilliant stars of the last decade — David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure etc — have made a once long suffering City supporter very happy.