Over the many barren years they have accepted, mostly with good grace, every barb and joke that has been arrowed their way.
There may be some Blues out there who currently feel that the club is once again a laughing stock after the Kaka transfer saga ended in tears.
But they would be totally wrong.
City made a genuine, sincere and well thought out £91m bid for the Brazilian superstar that was scuppered for two simple reasons.
Firstly, Milan put the deal's goalposts on wheels and then gave them a hefty shove.
Secondly, the Italian club totally underestimated the strength of public feeling against the deal.
Money became the overriding interest of those at the heart of the talks. And even when you have more cash at your disposal than any other club in the world, there is a limit as to how far you are prepared to go before walking away.
While Milan and Kaka's advisors acted like Oliver asking for their bowls to be filled a little more, the Blues requested something in return.
Outcry
That wasn't forthcoming and with a deal rapidly becoming more take than give, they decided to walk away.
It could have all ended quietly and diplomatically had the Milan club not chosen to reveal details to their media outlets and so set off a chain of events that eventually saw them besieged and bothered by the public outcry. There is a tendency in this country to think that we are always in the wrong, but apart from caving in to a list of demands, it is hard to know how else City could have handled the events that turned sour after looking so sweet seven days previously.
Not once did they make any public comment, save to confirm what Milan had let out of the bag - namely talks were taking place.
City never once spoke of figures either in terms of a fee or wages for Kaka.
Garry Cook and the City team went to Milan four times in a bid to make the deal work. They were confident they could persuade Kaka to swap the San Siro for Manchester and there was an air of expectation amongst fans during the 1-0 win over Wigan.
Presentations were prepared and the Blues thought they had quickly come to an arrangement with their Milan counterparts. But in the end even the best laid plans were not enough, leaving the Premier League club's board shocked, but far from embarrassed.
"We are extremely proud that we have a seat at football's top table," declared Cook after returning from Italy.
Expectations
"There are many clubs who would have liked to have been in our position trying to bring Kaka here on our terms - and it had to be our terms.
"Contrary to many an opinion it is harder for us to do business because the expectations are so high. People look at our financial resources as the ticket to success but that is truly not the ticket to success.
"Of course there is a mixture of disappointment and frustration that the Kaka deal did not go through. I think the initial intention from AC Milan was clearly to sell their player and Manchester City's intention was clearly to bring him here.
"There are only a few clubs who could even attempt to bring a player like Kaka to their football team.
"Milan wanted to do the deal and they were ready to do the deal, but they were under political pressure from the owner and the media.
"You could see it, you could smell it and to be honest they were scared. I think they bottled it, simple as that."
Cook and the Blues felt that preliminary talks with Milan had laid the foundation for a world record deal to be concluded and they flew back after an early visit a week ago more than hopeful that Kaka would sign.
They were prepared to sell the 26-year-old Brazilian a vision of the future and put him at the hub of the club's renaissance on the pitch.
But they were never really given the chance as the discussions gravitated more and more towards cash.
"We chose not to say anything about our interactions with Milan whilst the Italian club chose a very different plan," said Cook.
"Interestingly Milan say that Kaka turned us down and what I would say is that it is very difficult to turn down something that you've not been offered.
"We've heard everything that has been said in Milan and there's been a bit of mud-slinging, but we're going to choose not to get into that.
Stunt
"It would have been great to have had Kaka at this football club, the Premier League would have benefitted, football would have benefitted and we were willing to make that investment on rational terms. Unfortunately, the behaviour that they showed was not what we had expected nor had we anticipated."
Cook also railed at those who claimed the Kaka bid had somehow been devised as publicity stunt.
"We visited Milan four times and the delegation on Monday involved three lawyers that represent the legal counsel for Manchester City football club," revealed the executive chairman. "It also involved a board member who had flown half way around the world from Abu Dhabi, me and one other senior executive.
"We were confined to a room, with no food or drink, and we asked some questions of the Milan and more importantly we asked some questions of the representatives of the player and they simple could not answer the questions.
"What they wanted to talk about was; `how much are you going to pay him?' We chose not to get into that and we didn't make an offer to the player.
"People perhaps don't understand the complexity of deals like this. There are all kinds of stages to deals with when it comes to players of the stature of Kaka. One is the transfer fee, the second is the commercial terms and Kaka has seven separate sponsors who all have clauses in their agreement with regard to where he plays football. You have to work through all that before you even get to personal terms.
"When those start they are related to basics and bonuses and all three stages are complex in their own right. They require legal and financial counsel and they require counsel from executives of the club.
"In some cases you can phone up a club, ask if a player is for sale, meet with him and his agent put in an offer, agree terms and it can all be done in 24 hours.
"When you are talking about players of Kaka's ilk it doesn't work like that. I think what has disappointed us that the circus that took place around this deal was created by AC Milan.
"That is the disappointing part, but we have always said we will walk away from deals that are not right and we are not anybody's fool."
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We have come away from this deal with are heads held high. Kaka did not turn us down, we pulled the plug, simple as. All we do now is move onto are next target. Onwards and upwards
Forget this, I want to know if we have hijacked the Palacios deal yet. I'd love to see Redknapp's face and dulcet tones, as he tries to make out we are the bad guys and he would NEVER do anything like that.
Also hijack Arshavin so we can have an encore from Wenger.
Chris,
Another excellent article. Perhaps you could send it on to the gutter press newspapers and see whether they would like to publish something factual?
Yeah yeah! Thats history now. Lets face forward! COME ON CITY!!
Think Garry looks like a mix between Richard Dunne and Jay Leno.
AC Milan will soon have to start selling players as they are in so much dept, they have purchased an ageing English player on loan which proves there transfer policy. I just hope the club don't go for any other Milan players as this money would help them out. Kaka will be sold during the summer but probably to Real Madrid and at a fee of around £50mill, which is a big loss to Milan. Well there loss will be someone else's gain, lets's get Arshavin or Diego if we're after a quality attacking player but also let's get a CB, CM and a forward with some height as we are desperately lacking in heght up front if we playe Robinho and Bellamy.
Once a Blue always a Manc let's keep the faith and rally round our club.
We must move on...There are other Kaka s...non more so than Sergio Arguero at Athletico Madrid,the next big thing in world football.I would like to remined everyone of certain people who have publically humiliated the club through the media over the last few days....A LIST OF SHAME...NEVER FORGET....Steven Howard ..The Sun,Mark Lawrenson,Mark Pugash radio 5,Torres,Beckham,Arsene Wenger,Alan Shearer,Henry Winter..The Times,Hugh Mcivelly..Sunday Times,Paul Merson ,Matt Le Tissier,Phil Thompson,Hawksbee & Jacobs..,Mike Parry..all Talksport,Gordon Taylor,The Daily Mirror...NEVER FORGET.!
"Not even for 30 seconds did I think about going to Manchester City,"
supposedly a direct quote from Kaka himself,and i believe you mate,that must be why you flew your father half way round the world i guess!!to not deal wit us,it does seem a little strange that AC Milan were asking us how much wages he was going to be getting(surely thats none of their business right?)and isnt it funny that as soon as he found out(kakas papa that is) that we werent offering half a million a week(merely £300,000) he suddenly found his heart was at MIlan,at least for the next few months then its real madrid!!Just ask David'its not about the money £500,000 a week for the La Galaxy Pub team'Beckham.if you dont believe me!
Well done Mr Cook
i have to say,as a life-long city fan (from irealnd....full of the other lots crowd from trafford) i have found the accusations of city 'not living in the real world' to quote arse wenger to be completly laughable.....the gunners cant aford to buy players because they are still paying for the emirates stadium (the fact that wenger was bashing middle eastern investment despite the fact their stadium is named the emirates must be a contender for joke of the year).
as for the red crowd....my own cousin for example owns a pub and is a lifelong trafford fc supporter and is harping on about us buying in a whole squad......i find that to be pretty funny considering les ferdinand,veron,ronaldo,rooney,berbatov....(i could go on) were all bought in on obscene ammounts of money to help buy their titles over the past few years.im more than happy to wait for success to come to us,i dont want to buy a whole team of stars.give me 4 academy players,four stars and 3 of the old guard (dunne,richards and ireland) and build on from that......good things come to those who wait.
Personally im glad he isnt coming.......but on the other hand a bit gutted as he is one of the worlds best players.....
This article was excellent, for those of you who doubt this man, doubt no more, he didn't become one of the top men at Nike for nothing, this guy is a shrewd business man and it seems that he knew when to get out and so he did, I have stopped reading the Mirror and the Sun as they are garbagge. It doesn't take one man to make a team it takes 11, and at the moment we are nearly there. Good on you Mr Cooke, you are def nobody's fool
It's a nice exemple of how things work with the topclubs in Europe. The make sure for eachother they play CL every year and get their sheer of extra money to go out and buy players to keep other teams down. It's the same on a national platform, i.e. in England. It's of no surprise that the so-called big 4 teams moan about everything City is doing, because they know and fear there is actually a club with the potential to disturb the pleasant rich life at the top. Did City failed? No, it was a long shot all the way. But maybe more important is that the people at the club now know and learned what it is all about if you want (or be allowed) to join in.
I really don't understand why so many people turn against the club just for being lucky to have a wealthy owner. Some think it's more important than the global failures that cost communities billions. In the end it's just football, it's just a man with a lot of money that likes to spent it on something different than keeping the worldeconomy alive. Or has it something to do with the fact the owners are Arabs? It would not even surprise me one bit nowadays. But let's remember how prices in football have inflated over the years and what amounts of money clubs spent compared to City?
Ah well, I should probably stop reading all these stories about City. Just support the club, visit whenever possible, cheers the lads in Blue (whoever wears the best shirt)and hoping in the end we can nick a prize of two. It's a strange enough hobby as it is being Dutch (although I would never ever had it any other way). We are the 1st club in history to have tabbled a 100 million offer for a player, and the 1st not able to get him signed a contract. That can only be one club ... and it will only make me support it even more.
Nice to see Garry doesnt want to get involved in mud slinging, just before he starts slinging the mud about lol.
Oh dear, those naughty Italians didn't provide any food or drink. After the bottling comment too, I'll say again that Mr Cook needs access to some proper PR advice asap.
I've sat in City law firm offices for meetings that have dragged on for hours and I am capable of getting up and asking where the water-cooler is. Don't you come from a company, Mr Cook, where the moto is 'just do it'.
I'm sure your holding court in an executive box yesterday afternoon was great for the journalists in terms of providing them with good copy which will fill up at least two pages of Gazetta. But as I read the long piece in the Guardian this morning, the words 'laughing stock' certainly entered my mind. I'm sorry to refer to our neighbours at this point , but the way David Gill quietly goes about his business should be a lesson to City. Perhaps Mr Cook, you should take him out to lunch and pick up a few tips.
But please, no more of yesterday. The signing wasn't done. Move on; forget about it; and just quietly comfort yourself that with the other signings, the club is moving in the right direction and in that sense you are not doing too badly. But, boy, do you need some decent PR advice.
Shocking behaviour from AC Milan. It will interesting if Italian Premier Berlisconi (and club president) needs to have any dealings with Abu Dharbi asking for assistance in these 'credit-crunched' times. I might be tempted to string him along for a few weeks before publically crushing him. Revenge is a dish best served cold! Mwah haa haa!
I'm sorry but you have to plan an exit strategy before you go into a deal like this and that exit strategy must incorporate the possibility that the player was not going to come. With the City delegation travelling to Milan it was always going to be picked up by the media whether Milan leaked it or not and it was always going to be football's top transfer story. To return to Manchester empty handed and not have a planned response was naive and damaging for the club's image. The "bottle it" sound byte that they decided to band about was equally disgraceful and has done nothing to enhance the club's image or smooth the way for further dealings with Milan or any other club. Further, please tell me why the club couldn't give Kaka'a representatives an idea of how much they were going to pay him. It may be complicated but they must have had a ball-park figure they could have given him. If I suspected that a club was merely after garnering publicity, I would ask the same question and if an answer was not forthcoming I may draw the same conclusion. Gary Cook and Aldridge must be let go after this affair. It reeks of incompetence.
At least we tried to get him in a diplomatic way. I'm afraid we were undone by Italian politics and a PM who wanted to and has made as much good press as he can from a pit that he had dug himself.
Move on City, whilst Kaka would have been an ideal candidate to speed up the process there are other fish in the sea. Januarys signings seem to me to be quite astute and the month isnt over yet.
If the performance against Wigan (save for RD's childish kick-out) is anything to go by we are starting to find some character, personified in no small measure by a determined display from Zabaleta. Lets keep this up, move into the top half and see where we end up.
One thing's for sure: it's never ever dull being a blue.
Keep the faith!
Maybe its time we started to back Cook and Hughes and ignore the anti City media......
The Sun's headline that 'City are pants' in relation to the Robhino story is a case in point. They all want us to fail. I think we have strong men in charge though who have acted in with the dignity our great club deserves.
Maybe its time we close ranks and finally back them. Hughes has only been in the job since the summer and look at what he has had to deal with. Still he talks sense, with integrity, spirit and fight. He was never my choice, but his determination despite all the continued flack is maybe what this club needs. We build properly, with players Hughes can work with, Who train and work hard (interesting thats why he wanted bellamy - so I assume some players dont train hard). When the worlds top players are avilable we try to get them, but we are not take for fools....eventually those players will come.
Patience and trust are twe key words.
When I read GC's first statement on Monday night I confess to having been underwhelmed.
Then yesterday I heard him on BBC Radio; then watched all the clips on SSN ... and a picture emerged of a man who clearly knows how to do business at the highest levels of porfessional sport.
This picture has been further enhanced in my view by the article in The Grauniad (older readers will understand that) which has been referenced by other City Fans.
This is the first time that I have seen GC do anything other than "sound bites" and I think he is very impressive. I can't see City doing buisness with AC Milan or Kaka's father any time real soon.
I think we have learned a lot about our Exec Chairman over the past 48 hours and he appears to me to be a very trustworthy and professional person and worthy of our full support.
Looking forward to our next signing.
Well done gary ... and Thanks for putting us in the picture.
Very good and enlightening aticle in the guardian. I do think Cooke is a very astute man, perhaps he's still lerning is new role as a chairman of a football club, it he's very clever. It seems that Cooke was trying to prove that he could earn Kaka so much more money in commercial revenue that we wouldn't need to pay him loads in weekly wages. However his father didn't seem to get it.
We're still moving in the right direction, and like I said yesterday, we're going to hit a few pot holes on the road up to becoming a great wolrd beating football team!
Have faith city fans!
i know milan did the dirty, but isnt cook. supposed to know what goes on in these deals anyway.. or maybe not.. i can see peter kenyon replacing cook very soon....
Many,not sure if it's a majority,including myself,were actually relieved the deal did not go through.My reasons are that City need to reach a higher level of consistency and performance with the addition of at least five more player's plus the return of Bojinov,Petrov and Johnson,to get us there.Those three injured player's could be classed as City's best and such a loss even to clubs with bigger and stronger squads would take it's toll.Leave putting the finishing touches till then.So to all who visited this City site to add their caustic remarks, which really shows how fearful they are of city's potential longterm,City's development plan will take place and City will be a footballing force to be reckoned with and many of the "having a laugh" remarks submitted will have to be swallowed by many.
Hi all apart from losing quite a bit of money to rags (suppose i deserved it)i can only tell you that people were celebrating the kaka deal including robinho going around last friday telling everyone it was a done deal.this has left robinho embarrassed and part to blame for why he went back to brazil,when he was told he could not.
the link below tells its own story, the deal was only awaiting kakas signature and he had said yes.obviously this has a knock on effect villa had a gentlemans agreement should kaka sign, and john terry was spoken too.lescott had been in for secret talks the second day of the transfer window, and the sad news is that now their are strong vibes of desperation with sturridge possibly a make weight in the cruz deal (plus £25 million),benzema also heavily spoken about.we will defoo sign 3 more players and a superstar is still on the cards,i personally would like that to be diego as long as we sign a keeper and a centre back.If we are about to swap sturridge then all city fans should protest outside the ground like the fans of kaka did.
Garry Cook and City have acted correctly in the face of poor judgement from Milan and almost defamation from many sections of the media - and its not just the usual suspects, I have cancelled my Guardian subscription. We are the good guys who will win with pride not predudice......Mark my words!
Re: JerseyBlue, Jersey 09:45 21.01.09
Well said. Back MH & Cookie to the hilt. Cookie`s worked at the top table as a head honcho PR man for NIKE for god sake. MH`s signings to date have been v.good in most cases with more to come (his 1st full window of opportunity).
The Jealous & Bitter sniping from non-man.c fans & Man.Ure in particular is quite hilarious.
Shame they (Manure) can`t afford to bid for players such as Kaka, considering their "worlds greatest debt" init. The way all these Jealous Bitter non City crew go on you`d think there`s never been a world star not sign before (see Gerrard "NO" to Chelsea, see Le Tiss "NO" to Chelsea, see Lampard "NO" to Inter.
UP THE BLUES