MAN CITY FAN VIEW: My club’s relationship with financial skullduggery has left me yearning for the comedy club days, writes LAWRENCE BOOTH

For those of us who supported Manchester City long before they were accused of financial skulduggery, it has been a strange few years.

City were completely inoffensive back then – the comedy club who once kept the ball near the corner flag because they had been (wrongly) told a draw would spare them relegation. 

For years, the fans survived on scraps. The near miss in the 1981 FA Cup final, when they were robbed by a freakish Tommy Hutchison own goal. The Full Members’ Cup final of 1986, when they lost 5-4 to Chelsea. The mad play-off comeback against Gillingham.

But when the money poured in from Abu Dhabi, there arose a strange conundrum. Did I prefer the old days, when City were popular but useless? Or was it all about winning, no matter the cost? The answer was not always straightforward. 

Now that they’ve been found guilty of all but one of the 115 charges, at least we finally have a bit of clarity, grim though it looks. 

My greatest fear has always been that they would be retrospectively stripped of titles, like Russian athletes at the Olympics. 

The idea Sergio Aguero’s last-gasp title winning goal against QPR in 2012 might now be null and void is hard to stomatch

Financial penalties, points deductions, even relegation – I could live with all that. But the idea that the last-ditch winner against QPR in 2011-12 might now be null and void is hard to stomach: Aguerooooo…oh! 

Other fans, who have continually protested their indifference to a ‘small club’ like City, will still say their achievements deserve an asterisk. That’s how fandom operates. No matter the lawyers eventually conclude – needless to say, City will appeal – the court of public opinion made up its mind long ago.

I get the sentiment. I didn’t like the fact that City were attracting censure, not affection. I hated the thought that their trophies were regarded as ill-gotten gains. But try as I might, I couldn’t cut the umbilical cord. It’s not terribly logical, but that’s how fandom operates too.

I was also suspicious of the notion that money automatically means success. Manchester United are proof that life isn’t always so simple. Money helps, sure. But it has to be spent wisely: Sergio Aguero, Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, even Manuel Akanji – was anyone else trying to buy these guys?

Oddly, I found last season quite relaxing, what with Arsenal finally getting over the line. Sorry if it sounds arrogant, but winning the league was no longer the thrill it was when Aguero did his thing. 

Life felt a bit more normal again: a draw was not a disaster, and City’s defending was occasionally comical, just like the old times. Who knows: perhaps, one day, people will even learn to love us again, though I accept that is more likely if we’re banished to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car National League first.