If you have to travel a lot to watch this club you can end up in some quite bizarre #hcafc related conversations to kill time.

 

The other day a City mate said to me, that the ongoing relationship between the club and fans is a bit like Brexit.

 

My reaction, not unlike yours dear reader was…

 

“Eh? What?! What are you talking about?”

 

The rest of this blog is a summary of that conversation plus other reasons I’ve thought of since, neatly fitted into five headlines.

 

Is there a world record for the longest time a club has ever been up for sale? And if so are we currently setting it?

It’s been over a decade under the current ownership and around half of that there has been with a "for sale" sign outside the MKM.

Yet here we all are, like that meme of Mr Bean waiting in a field. Waiting.

Around the same amount of time has passed since the vote to leave Europe, with quite the run up before and although there’s been more happening in this area (there could hardly have been less) it’s also been slow and painful.

Neither look like they’ll ever go away and nobody even seems able to move on. It’s like being in the longest waiting room queue for a treatment you don’t even know you wanted yet.

 

I worked with loads of Danes and Finns on Erasmus schemes and they are always wondering why what is happening, is happening in the UK… and well… there’s not enough time to explain is there? Half the people in the UK don’t really get Brexit, almost nobody outside of it does.

 

Similarly….Here’s a chain of events you’ll recognise…

1. A picture of city fans is shared on social media at an away game, it looks a bit sparse 2. A club with more fans than attended "Live Aid" posts “shit support” “irrelevant club” 3. You, me, or another city fan with brain cells tries to explain. 4. The same fan who commented repeats the same point.

 

* Sigh *

 

I almost had a punch up with a tatty looking Wendy walking up Wembley way in 2016 who asked me as an opening gambit “Why didn’t your pissy little club give us your tickets?”

Ok, fair enough my reply that day wasn’t to explain the complex and malfunctioning relationship between our owners and the fans but more to question said blue and white striped miscreant’s parentage and suggest a diet.

Perhaps not my finest moment as a City fan, but hopefully he took it to heart and cut out the carbs.

 

Ok let me be clear, I voted remain, but can see there’s strengths and weaknesses of both campaigns even though I personally thought there were more weaknesses to leaving.  I also think that I’d like the uplift of a new start for City with new owners, but I don’t think that everything the Allams have done is bad, not do I want to jump from the frying pan into the fire in terms of getting into bed with any fly by night owners.

This approach to both matters is rarer than you’d think. Both politics and football seems more tribal than ever and reason and balance seem entirely unfashionable.

Therefore on the City side of things, it seems social media is either awash with one extreme or the other…

There’s people who are so devoid of reality that they have publically stated that pensioners shouldn’t have concessions because they themselves wouldn’t want them (conveniently forgetting others are less fortunate and eventually even the ownership disagreed with this viewpoint.) There’s no reasoning with this.

 

Similarly when the U23 lose 2-1 to Leicester someone from the other extreme will comment “Allam out” or “McCann out” or something as utterly irrelevant...

 Let’s be brutal, both have blinkers on and both get right on my nerves.

 

Ok, this one is a little left field. Stick with me.

 

We can all agree that old Bobby did something great in the eighties. Actually beyond great. He helped front a campaign that saved thousands of lives.

 

He’s also such a sanctimonious, arrogant and gigantically irritating oxygen thief and if I ever have to clap my eyes on him again it will be time I’ll never get back.

 

This both surmises the sheer presence of Allam Junior who could launch an appeal to save baby lambs from the slaughter and still deliver it in such a way that you’d keep your money in your pocket, and also the withering presence of some of his less self-aware critics who would have a far stronger argument if they’d just add some balance to their diatribe and acknowledge that it’s not all bad.  

Neither are right (and if you think they are, you are one of them) and thus it’s double Bob Geldof.

 

 

Well… aren’t I just a ray of sunshine on the cusp of a new season?

 

And the answer is…. Yes…..

 

Because I made the decision about both Brexit and our ownership to crack on with it a long time ago.

 

I can’t change either, I never could and although I’ve got a democratic right to express opinions on both, it’s all you know… a bit redundant now.

 

Thus you won’t see me posting shelves in Tescos (full, half full or otherwise) or demanding an immediate change of ownership every time someone pulls a hamstring.

 

I acknowledge some people won’t return before they go (and that Kev Chadwick wouldn’t come back unless the stadium is gold plated and we throw rose petals at his feet as Bill Gates is announced as chairman) but I love City too much. I like this young team, it’s the most Hull based it’s been in years and watching us makes me happy (well… you know…sometimes)

 

There’s a saying Jonny Vaughan says on his Saturday football radio show. “Kick football out of football, don’t let a good day out at the football spoil the football”.

 

Thus I’ll be having a beer at St Gregory’s Catholic Club in Preston before the game on Saturday and driving 350 miles for the pleasure. God only knows what we’ll talk about on the way.

 

Thanks for reading. UTT.