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- THE 93:20 NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 14
THE 93:20 NEWSLETTER: ISSUE 14
Howard Hockin
November 29, 2024
Hello, and welcome to the 93:20 Newsletter, Issue 14. One written under a cloud, as I watch a football team I barely recognise right now. Thankfully, as I have explained before, this is not a newsletter that dwells on match reviews. Maybe in the distant future, when we win a game again.
But first, some begging. A head’s up, there will be some at the end too.
A quick request – we are a small podcast. We don’t have tens of thousands of subscribers, and we give up a lot of our time because we choose to, but it is not paying our heating bills, or for that funky Ikea lamp I’ve got my eye on but can never afford. So, if you are a subscriber to the podcast, or even just to this newsletter and/or listen to the Friday Show (now renamed as the Weekend Show), please do spread the word, because it is word of mouth that helps us grow, and actually helps us survive. Thank you. #uptheblues
You’re thinking about that lamp, aren’t you?
I was in a long, long double meeting on Tuesday, that I needed to attend, because like everyone else, I have bills to pay. I couldn’t give my Feyenoord ticket away. Nor could quite a few of my friends. It may be due to bad form, but let’s be honest, it’s about far more than that.
Those that run the game have finally flogged football to death. The players, the fans, they’re exhausted, at the top level at least, though the schedule further down the pyramid is often just as brutal. How much football is too much? The enthusiasm has waned, the games come thick and fast so they seem less important, and it all just overwhelms. The rhetoric, the tribalism, the nastiness, and all that legal stuff. Football used to have as many problems as it does nowadays, but at least it was pure- it was largely about the football. Now it seems like a competition – between fans. It’s not helped by a minority of the City fanbase being utterly incapable of anything that does not at least approach perfection. I’m not talking about those who criticise players occasionally, have opinions on who should play or fairly point out recruitment has not been good enough recently. I mean the head loss brigade. But I do think there are understandable reasons to feel worried right now. Not knowing when your football team will next win a game can do that to you, especially when that team barely ever lost one previously.
A drop off season is fine. Well, not fine, but I can handle it. My team has won the last four Premier Leagues FFS! There was going to be a drop off season, it was inevitable, I’ve been expecting it for a while. The pressures of football finally defeated Jurgen Klopp and his players some seasons too, and it is clearly affecting everyone at City right now. I could even do with a break from the stress cycle of March-May, which I am sure has already knocked a couple of years off my life expectancy. I can handle it – BUT – what I am struggling to handle is the nature of the drop off. I’ve never seen anything like it, so I do not know what to think, how to process it, how to move on and not let it consume me. It is deeply worrying, truth be told. A manager who signed a new contract only last week looks broken. Many of the players do too. The mentality monsters are no more. The drop off is so serious, I worry about the consequences moving forward, such as ensuring Champions League football, a minimum requirement for a club like City.
Ok, chill out. What will be, will be. The natural worrier in me has bubbled to the surface, the worrier that used to think a week of rain would have the likes of David Silva and Sergio Aguero scuttling back to Spain. The 115 still hangs over everything though, and avoiding punishment is far more important than any football result or ten. I may be in the minority, but I find it weird that it really is business as usual despite the tribunal. A new Director of Football. Talk of multiple January signings, new contracts for Rodri and Haaland, a definite new contract for Pep, and the worst news may still be to come, putting a late collapse v Feyenoord into context. Of course, the club are extremely bullish and confident that they will be fine, and they were there in the hearing, so will have an idea of how it went. But sorry, that’s not enough for me. Now we may not know an answer until the end of the season. It would be better if we knew now – I cannot take another year of 115 discourse. Still, at least Elon Musk has helped me beat the addiction of social media. Stay off there and get on with your life, and all these problems halve instantly. The woe is me online brigade make everything worse – for the readers’ wellbeing, and their own. Ultimately, the only thing that should concern us as fans is a threat to our long-term stability and success, and not the here and now troubles that any fanbase has to deal with at some point.
And weirdly (or perhaps not), the podcasts have been the greatest comfort of all for me. In the past, there have been times when I have not wanted to do a podcast, after a perfectly fine performance. Sometimes I just need to walk away from talking City and football, it can be all-consuming, not that I can complain about my lot. Yet after the Spurs defeat, I wanted in on the review. In fact, I needed it. And perversely, I very much enjoyed it. It provided context, structure and a bit of therapy to the recent travails of my football club. And if it did for any listeners too, then great – we have done our job. And we are all family, and families have theirs ups and downs, eh?
A quick note on the Champions League qualification process after that midweek collapse. Many a blue will now be resigned to City only making the play-offs (at best, ahem). But there is nuance even within that block of positions, as the play-offs are seeded. So in principle it could make a difference, and be beneficial, to finish in positions 9-16, rather than 17-24. But that assumes the cream will rise to the top, and the lower you go down the table, the worse teams are. And that is not how it is playing out so far. Juventus are 19th , Real Madrid in 24th . PSG are 25th . Many have highly winnable games to come (I hear PSG and Juventus do), so expect them to climb, but it shows you cannot plot your route in this new competition. The winners of the play-off game will then play a top 8 team, but again, some of the best teams may not finish that high. Such games are months away, so all City can do is get through, and not try and work out how it all plays out. Atalanta in 5th position are a great side, but I would still rather City played them in a knock-out tie than Real Madrid, PSG or Bayern Munich, to name but a few.
And finally…
Seeing Liverpool beat Real Madrid made it dawn on me once more why I find any dip for City difficult to handle. And it is all Pep Guardiola’s fault. I have become so spoiled with riches, that I have no idea how to deal with failure. But as a consequence, a weird side effect that has developed subconsciously, always there, needing only a United win v Fulham to surface, is that I have also become really bitter about the idea of any other fanbase (if the big clubs, all of whom I despise, naturally), experiencing the sort of joy I have in recent years. Really weird, really needless. We’re all football fans, and City can’t win everything. I wouldn’t want them to, deep down, it would soon be pretty boring. Maybe it already is – maybe it ties into the apathy I see from many blues in recent times. Some tough times will help us refocus. Just not too tough, please? Whatever some legacy blues may claim, we’re not really looking forward to life in the Championship, and asking for spares for Plymouth (a). Lord Pannick, don’t let us down. Because if we do fall, can we be sure a rise back to the top will follow? How will it feel? How would the media cover this different world? Will it be as exciting as some picture it? Do we all need a reset?
No further questions.
There is one quirk that a relegation (which I should point out, even as a pessimist, is ridiculously unlikely, and would only play out after many more months/years of legal wranglings) would bring. It would make supporting City “easier” in some respects. Liverpool, Arsenal and United fans could at last say legitimately we’re not their rivals, and their cultish fan bases (United less so, admittedly) might actually finally “not care” and stop talking about us all the time. Peace and quiet at last? The timing is also interesting. My biggest fear of City getting their wings clipped was not the inability to win the big trophies again. It was never seeing so many legendary players in a City shirt again, as they would inevitably leave. But City are coming to the end of a cycle for sure, and many of those players are near the end of their City career anyway. A brave new world awaits, come what may. Let’s embrace it, we’ll all be dead soon anyway <:O).
Another “and finally”…
Hang on, there’s more.
You think some football journalists hate City? Paranoia? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But imagine what thy say away from their widely available opinion pieces, or when they are invited to be biased on a rival fanbase’s podcast. So, posted without comment, here are the words of Jonathan Liew on the Anfield Wrap this week.
“The model of the theatre state - all monarchs, all despots, politicians in power, they like to big themselves up, produce rituals and spectacles that tell everyone how great they are…. They become the power itself, the psyche is run for the purpose of spectacle….power serves pomp, not pomp power…this got me thinking about the Rodri shenanigans on Saturday night….what City have done on the pitch, you can’t argue with that, though I guess the Premier League and the lawyers are trying to do just that…obviously there is an issue there with how they are remembered. This is a club run by despots, and what do despots like to do? They like to control the narrative around them. So you get these things, like magnificently overblown title parades, and this statue discourse, who gets a statue outside the Etihad…and then things like Rodri winning the Ballon D’Or – before the game you have Rodri’s name up in lights, you have teammates applauding him onto the pitch. No one asked for this, there is no precedence for this in English football, but it just struck me even more is that this is becoming an organisation which is almost winning in order to have another parade. Like, the parade has become the thing, the theatre has become the sport, rather than the other way round. Power is now serving pomp, rather pomp power. You get this with the documentaries they do, controlling the message, and briefings…”
So, back to begging. It is of course the run-up to Christmas, so it would be remiss of me not to mention the books that I once wrote, and my most recent, about a fan’s story during the 2011/12 season. If you’re after a stocking-filler, check out my stuff. Thank you.
What We Have Done This Week
THE 93:20 REVIEW:- BRITTLE
Howard, Ste and Ahsan look back on a sobering Saturday evening. The many potential issues, where responsibility lies, and what the future may hold.
THE 93:20 REVIEW:- HOUSE OF CARDS
Ahsan and Lloyd try and dissect what happened last night. Spoiler Alert. They failed.
THE HUB:- EPISODE 19
Albert Blaya joins Bailey to discuss La Liga this season, the impact of Hansi Flick, the struggles of Real Madrid, and why Rodri was so important for City.
What We Have Coming.
The Weekend Show
The usual huge show, looking back at a difficult week, a potentially even more difficult weekend, the rest of the Premier League and anything else that may take our fancy.
Plus another refereeing discussion, the usual reviews, previews, and lots more besides!
If you are not a subscriber to our player shows, then enjoy some free samples of what we are about. Every show we do will have a 15 minutes sample on Soundcloud, along with a full, free weekly Friday show, jam- packed with content. Give it a try!