The prospect of watching Manchester City at Walsall looms again

Terrace Talk Man City: Maybe it would have been a lot simpler if City had just made up its mind to muddle along with Leeds and Villa, instead of trying to edge out the Big Boys

BETTER TIMES: Manchester City's Vincent Kompany (left), Yaya Toure (second right) and Sergio Aguero lift the Premier League trophy. Pic: PA

The prospect of watching Manchester City once again fulfil a league fixture at Walsall came closer to reality for the faithful this week, with the Premier League’s announcement that they were charging the club with every misdemeanour they could possibly think of, in the sincere hope that some of the bigger ones might stick this time.

Maybe it would have been a lot simpler if City had just made up its mind to muddle along with Leeds and Aston Villa, instead of trying to edge out the Big Boys. Maybe Lord Ferguson of Govan was right after all, when he casually dropped his “not in my lifetime” pre-Manchester Derby non-sequitor back in 2009. After all, he was running English football at the time.

The Big Brains at the Premier League have kept digging on this one, past where UEFA’s hand-held tools failed to penetrate.

Every brain worth engaging has been included in the debate. Even Dmitri Seluk, sadly no longer employed as Yaya Toure’s fix-everything agent, has wheeled out his opinion on transparency and trustworthiness. When Seluk arrives in football’s great quote chamber offering a defence of City, the appropriate reaction is to fret.

“I’m interested to see what happens next,” he stuttered, whilst casually feeding Yaya’s birthday cake into his two-storey shredding machine. Seluk and an as yet undisclosed number of other luminaries would be “happy to speak to the independent commission”, which normally gives the accused 14 days to respond, but, given the sheer volume of paperwork that covers the 115 separate charges, it may be closer to 14 years before this ragged show staggers to its inglorious end.

Real experts suggest it could be four, by which time the esteemed and aptly named Lord Pannick may well have earned himself the equivalent of Kevin de Bruyne’s salary. One imagines the City chiefs will be delighted to shell out win bonuses if appropriate too.

Rumours that City’s hierarchy, taking their lead from Marjorie Taylor Green’s majestic stunt of trailing through American congress this week with a large white “Chinese” weather balloon attached to her jumpsuit, intend to parade past Premier League headquarters with a giant polystyrene cake on castors have been vigorously denied. Certainly, City will need all the hot air available to keep them afloat in the coming weeks.

This correspondent’s beleaguered mind flits back to the gentler times of Peter Swales, the 1970s City supremo with the hair of Chairman Mao and the charisma of a Vauxhall Viva. In his highly acclaimed “City Diary” which aired in every home matchday programme during the 1978-79 season, Swales wrote candidly of his endless encounters with the upright Men in Suits of the day. United’s Louis Edwards, a Salford businessman found guilty of selling mouldy meat products to South Manchester’s schools and Bob Lord, Burnley’s version of Pol Pot, ruled the footballing roost.

It was a time of Bernard Manning anecdotes and Tommy Docherty philandering. Gary Glitter and his Glitterband were top of the charts that were announced to a goggle-eyed nation each week by Jimmy Saville between puffs on a huge phallic cigar. Sir Stanley Rous bestrode the after-dinner circuit with homely stories of how Joao Havelange had entered the Court of FIFA, mutinous sword swinging above his bald pate, and knocked precious Sir Stanley to kingdom come. The Sword of Justice is out again now and swinging ever-closer to City’s expensively coiffed head.

Swales was a paragon of 70s virtue alongside these petty crooks and rapscallions. “Now to the big mystery,” he wrote in his diary of 29 August 1978 (Grimsby at home in the League Cup, in case you’re wondering), “I spent all day on a secret mission. A touch of the James Bond’s. If the outcome of the day’s work proves satisfactory, this will result in one of Manchester City’s biggest scoops…” 

Perhaps City’s biggest scoops now no longer involve squaring up to the game’s Big Knobs on the football field and beating them to the prizes but standing up to them in the court of law.

The air, meanwhile, is slowly leaking from all of us. The ability to fight, to reason, is seeping away. Where UEFA failed and CAS objected, the Premier League now strides, wonky sword in hand. There will be no time-barred excuses this time around, no ifs, buts and well-you-see-it-was-like-thisses but there will be no Pannick in the streets of Manchester either, just the hope that this daft old club can survive to make us all laugh again.