Matthew Peters/Man Utd/Getty ImagesMario Balotelli has given City supporters hope the tables are turning in the Manchester derby

It would be less than magnanimous of me if I did not start this piece by congratulating Manchester United on their 20 years of almost complete Premier League domination. It has been quite something to behold, from its pantomime birth with plain old Mr. Ferguson and his sidekick Mr. Brian Kidd (shame on you, Brian!) doing the Chicken Jerky 5 yards inside the touchline after Steve Bruce's stopwatch winner against Sheffield Wednesday.

It all just seemed to roll from there, didn't it? I'm sure, however, many reading this will join me in confirming how glad City supporters are that the dark period is finally at an end, brought to that unforgettable close by Sergio Aguero's nod to history after our red cousins had turned -- in the space of 30 unrepeatable seconds -- from champions-elect once more on a dreary afternoon on Wearside to the quietest of quiet neighbours.

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And therein lies one of the first boils to be lanced this year: Along with a 6-1 win at Old Trafford and a home win in the most vital of circumstances against a foe who came only to defend, just how does one follow the happenings of 2012? How, if it is possible, will 2012-13 top that for laughs and squeaks?

In historical terms, the Premier League is a mere spotty teenager, picking its nose, refusing to clear the breakfast plates and spending slightly too much time watching women’s chests go up and down on the Internet. To mature mortals like myself (in years, at least), 20 years represents a significant chunk of our football-watching history, a history dominated to a large extent by "them lot from over the city boundary."

It is a sad and demoralising fact of life for me that my parents' timing was badly out of sync and I was born into this sky blue world at precisely the wrong moment. City's period of domination over our neighbours in the late 1960s and early 70s, a right royal period of 4-0 and 4-1 wins, was coming graciously to a close with a Keith MacRae whimper and a Mike Lester hiccup.

I remember Denis Law and his back-heel, a tidal wave of greasy, unkempt Bay City Rollers clones commencing a stampede across the rutted pitch at Old Trafford, a forlorn-looking Tommy Docherty making the most trite excuses possible on television on the Sunday afternoon Kick-Off Match on Granada and the unthinkable end that the 1973-74 season had given us: Manchester United relegated to the second division.

Lee, Law and Marsh were all about to leave. Bell, too, was soon to be stopped in his magnificent stride by Martin Buchan's sloppy tackle. The shadows were getting longer, memories of the glory days thinner and more distant. Years of bitter depression, oppression and shame-faced mediocrity faced us all. As United returned from the second division, City fans were unprepared for the unthinkable future that lay ahead for them: five relegations! Barry Conlon! York away in a league match!

Since the Back-Heel, you can count the opportunities United have awarded us to feel giddy on the fingers of one hand. I still occasionally find my otherwise pleasant and floaty dreams interrupted by the sight of Andrei Kanchelskis skinning poor David Brightwell down the right wing and then coming back for more down the left and then through the middle. In my dream, Brightwell and indeed Alan Kernaghan too (although in his case, he may have been this way in reality as well) have morphed into large sacks of cement. It is quite a scene. The words on the sacks, printed in those typical cement sack letters, say " Humiliation - This way up."

One tries to balance all this bed-wetting hysteria with simpler thoughts of Brightwell’s brother Ian "just wellying it" in 1989, of David Cross, Dennis Tueart and Kevin Reeves all nodding in at the Scoreboard End to send the hordes of Blues delirious in that heaving away paddock, of Michael Robinson scoring a “goal to grace any derby match,” of Keith Curle returning from the penalty spot with a City fan draped around his neck and of Andy Hinchcliffe's five-fingered celebration at Maine Road 25 years ago. "He's the left back you know."

In more recent times, we have rejoiced in little Shaun Wright-Philips's howitzer, stood in silence and then in trembling glee as Benjani's shoulder saw us finally to victory at Old Trafford (Denis Law Day being the previous one, 30 years previous!), a place where a sound stuffing came as regularly as the same fate befalls a Christmas turkey. We have celebrated not one but two home-and-away doubles in recent times, just to prove that we are over the two-generation-long jinx.

And now, with the clubs peeling away at the top of the league, this weekend's little dust-up at the Etihad promises to be a pointer not only to which side might expect to be left holding the shiny pot at the end of the season, but also to whether we are set for an extension to the 20-year domination of the red hordes or the strengthening of a new blue power base in the north.

Come on, City! (and don't play like I dream ... )

 

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