Welcome to Mad City

WITH apologies to the so-called Madchester rock scene of the late eighties, when the likes of the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays first stalked the land, it’s surely past time that the name Mad City entered the football lexicon.

And while it might still be a bit of jump from Shaun Ryder to Shaun Wright-Philips, the Eastlands crowd seem to be doing their best to bridge the gap, even without the help of lashings of mind-altering substances. There’s ecstasy there, sure, but agony is never too far behind.

With an apparently never-ending pipeline of oil money now flowing into the club, Manchester City increasingly resemble the lottery winner who discovers that overnight riches do not bring peace of mind. We are all familiar with the tabloid fable of the lucky family whose numbers finally come up but, sent spinning entirely out of control by their new world disorder, proceed to go from rags to riches and back to rags again in double-quick time.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the bould Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan — “Shaky” to his footie mates — is about to pull the plug any time soon, but the events of the past couple of weeks certainly bear truth to the wisdom that you should be careful what you wish for, lest it actually come true.

Thrilled by poaching Robinho from under the noses of Chelsea last September, the City faithful were back in dreamland in recent weeks amid breathless speculation that the acquisition of Kaka was imminent for a cool one hundred trillion squids or thereabouts.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. And while Kaka’s bold decision to resist the glamour of Mad City for the austerity of Milan must have been hard enough to take, the violently destabilising effect it seemed to have on his compatriot Robinho — who promptly fled home to Brazil from the squad’s training camp in Tenerife — threatened to turn a high-profile setback into a spectacular farce.

Seriously, it takes some doing for the richest club in the world to fail to land one superstar and then flirt with losing another, all inside the space of a couple of days.

Poor Mark Hughes has been left to pick up the pieces. Of course, no-one is technically poor at Eastlands any more, but you know what I mean. One of the best and brightest bosses in the British game, an increasingly baffled-looking Sparky has suddenly been cast in the role of flak-catcher, doing his best to at least give the appearance of being in a position to impose order on chaos.

Robinho, we are told, is contrite and will be punished by being docked two weeks’ wages — that would be £341,862. Somehow, one suspects he will cope with the financial blow rather better than the psychic pain of having to actually return to Mad City.

Still, there was some good news for the faithful this week — the joint arrival of Craig Bellamy and Nigel De Jong. Yep, a gentleman of the Dutch persuasion and, well, Craig Bellamy – that should restore some equilibrium to Eastlands right enough.

Bellamy is as explosive on the pitch as he can be off it, which makes him probably the perfect symbolic acquisition for City right now. There has been no better entertainment on offer this season than City in full attacking flight — unless, of course, it’s them simultaneously falling apart at the back while going supernova (without the champagne) behind the scenes.

None of this is entirely academic for watching Irish eyes. Richard Dunne hasn’t looked a happy camper there for quite some time, but then he’ll hardly have forgotten that one of the very first quotes of the new cash-rich era was executive chairman Garry Cook’s appalling: “No disrespect, but the name Richard Dunne doesn’t roll off the tongue in Beijing.” As for Stephen Ireland – the fact that the country’s prodigal son is keeping his head when all about him are losing theirs perhaps says more about the atmosphere of unreality at the club than just about anything else.

Still, I hope that Manchester City somehow come through this enhanced if not entirely unscathed.

Living in the shadow of their all-conquering near neighbours for so long should make them deserving recipients of the sympathy vote. And, in truth, some of us old timers retain more than a sneaking fondness for the comparative glory days when Frannie Lee was diving, Mike Summerbee was buzzing and formidable characters like Colin Bell, Mike Todd and big Joe Corrigan waded through the mud and snow at Maine Road.

Indeed, perhaps only Mad City could somehow retain their underdog status even as the wealthiest football club in the world. And there is always one great consolation — they are not entirely alone in their fantastic madness. City’s next game, on Wednesday, sees them up against the Premiership’s other great dysfunctionals – Newcastle United. To the prospect of which, one can only exclaim: quick, nurse — the screens!