Blue Moon: Down Among The Dead Men With Manchester City by Mark Hodkinson

Author:Mark Hodkinson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Mainstream Digital
Published: 2011-08-07T23:00:00+00:00

Seven

Far from the Madding Crowd

Wednesday, 3 February 1999

A report by leading accountants Deloitte & Touche revealed that City had the seventeenth best annual turnover of all English clubs.

Thursday, 4 February 1999

Two former City players passed away. Defender Arthur Mann, 51, who played a starring role in the 1970 League Cup-winning side, was killed in an accident involving a fork-lift truck. Joe Hayes, 63, a scorer of a first-minute goal in the 1956 FA Cup final, died after an illness.

WHERE MATCH-DAY WOES WASH AWAY

(The Times, Saturday, 6 February 1999)

Joyce and Janet know, and so does Elvis. The laundry room at Manchester City is a place where secrets must have been spilled, young souls left out to dry. So what do footballers, these men among men, confide when they walk into a warm room with warm hearts? Joyce smiles, says nothing. Janet fills the tumble dryer. Elvis keeps time and, tick tock, the secrets remain hidden among the suds.

Joyce Johnstone, a City fan, has given 25 years service to the club. In that time, the Elvis Presley clock on the wall has turned from white to ochre and a film of dust has fallen over his GI uniform. Along with general secretary, Bernard Halford, and the manager’s secretary, Julia McCrindle, Joyce is a rare constant in the shifting sand that is Manchester City. Janet Kirby, meanwhile, is a relative newcomer with six years to her name. Between them they ensure that, win or lose, City look the part.

The laundry room is beneath the Main Stand, just a few yards from the dressing-room area. It provides a telling contrast, with its blast of parched soap-scented air and sprigs of domesticity – an ironing board, kettle, sewing machine, boxes of soap powder, children’s drawings on the wall. It is also the only part of the football club that is exclusively female. There are no windows, just a small grille through which they can see strips of daylight. ‘In summer we have to put our sunglasses on,’ Janet laughs.

Joyce is a pragmatist, and Janet a trainee pragmatist. Ask her about the huge washing machines and she’ll tell you: ‘It’s a big washing machine, isn’t it?’ And the players – who have been her favourites down the years? She smiles again, looks around the room. Janet pretends to be busy. Eventually, they volunteer a name. ‘Kit Symons, he was lovely.’ Symons, City’s captain until he left for Fulham last summer, often eschewed the customary afternoon game of golf for a quiet half-hour with the ladies. ‘He used to come in here with a packet of chocolate biscuits.’ Did they learn his middle name? ‘We knew his real name was Christopher, if that’s what you mean’ says Joyce. So you don’t know that his other name is Jeremiah? ‘Oooohh, you’d keep that quiet though, wouldn’t you, love?’

Uwe Rosler, the German striker who played for City between 1993 and 1997, made the most memorable initial impact on them. He was living in a hotel and asked whether they would do his washing until he found somewhere to live.

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