Ten years on

I can't believe I missed this (by two hours), but today (that is, Saturday 30th), is the tenth anniversary of the greatest day in my life as a City fan: Gillingham.

There's not much I have to say about it really; but that it was both the worst and best moment of my football supporting life, that it was the apex in a parabola whose first peak was, at the latest, the Peter Reid era, and on whose upward curve we are currently travelling.

While counterfactuals are never too helpful, it is surely true to say that had we not beaten Gillingham that day we would not currently be about to enjoy as exciting and improving summer as we now face. The blow of failing to get out of the third tier at the first attempt would not have been easy to recover from. There's no way of knowing if any of Kevin Keegan, Ali Benarbia, the City of Manchester Stadium, Georgios Samaras, Emile Mpenza, Thaksin, Sven, ADUG or Robinho would have happened to us. But likelihood must be against it.

But it went in, we won the shoot-out, and the rest is history. I still never back Dickov to score when I watch it again though.