Shindler

Most City fans will by now have seen Colin Shindler's sorrowful essay on his detachment from City, from the Daily Mail on Monday. His key point is that he now feels 'as if I can honestly say I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't support Manchester City.' And this is down to the new foreign owners:

And now, when they ran out of money, my beloved City took to the streets and lifted her skirt at every passing lecherous bloke with five quid in his pocket.

Mancunians sold my love to a man from Thailand who was on the Most Wanted list of Amnesty International. It didn't faze the marketing manager he appointed, who thought Thaksin Shinawatra was a good bloke with whom to play golf.

Too many fans looked no further than the money. Shinawatra's money was all smoke and mirrors. At least this Abu Dhabi lot have got money, but that's all they've got. They've taken my love who Shinawatra turned into a whore, cloaked her in the finest of silk dresses and doused her in the most seductive of Arabian fragrances.

I don't recognise her any longer. She might look beautiful but she's rotten at the core. I still love her. How could I not after all these years? The opposite of love is indifference and I'm certainly not indifferent to what happens to Manchester City.

Colin Shindler is one of City's most famous fans, certainly in the sense of being famous by virtue of his being a City fan - unlike Noel Gallagher and Ricky Hatton who are famous for their achievements elsewhere. So it's worth reading what he has to say. I think, though, that is far out of touch with the feelings of most City fans.

His central contention seems to be that the soul of the club is inherently tied up with the ownership. Once the ownership leaves Manchester, the soul goes with it. If you accept that, his argument makes sense. I'm just not sure I do though. There is so much more to the soul of Manchester City than the money men. If anything, they are merely the foundations, or the enablers, which allow the soul-carrying aspects of the football club: the fans, the shirt, the young players - the sport itself - to exist. And I don't think there can be much doubting that those areas are stronger than they have been for some time.

The fans' engagement with the club - the new website, £5 tickets for Hamburg, the Open Day tomorrow - seems as strong as it has ever been. The shirts are beautiful - and closer to anything from the eras Shindler describes than we have had for some time. And the Player of the Season last year was, for the first time in ages, someone City had raised and nurtured in our own Academy. We have just given a five year deal to a local lad we've raised ourselves, and who has it within him to be a great captain of the club. Then there's Micah Richards and Michael Johnson who, despite difficult 2008s, can, with a bit of focus, still grow into City regulars. And the football itself is about to be better than anything I have seen in my lifetime.

So I just can't bring myself to agree with Colin Shindler's contention that foreign ownership has destroyed the soul of the club. If he was making a point about the recent high spending I might be able to see his point. (I don't think our spending is morally wrong or anything, but I do think it rather distorts the competitive balance of the EPL. But that's a whole different issue.) But Shindler says nothing like that at all. So I must admit to finding myself a little bit bemused by a writer for whom I have real respect. Just because what we're seeing is so alien to us, it just doesn't follow that we all feel alienated by it.