'Typical' City

Gary Cook doesn't want us to use the word and we've spent a fortune in an attempt to get rid of it but still it remains. After back to back wins against Arsenal and Chelsea we'd 'turned a corner', we'd found a consistency to our game it was onwards and upwards. 'Fraid Not. 3-3 against one of the poorest teams in the division who aren't exactly blessed with one of the best attacking lines around and who are struggling...Typical City.

Okay the performance had its positives (what are they feeding Carlos?), didn't lack effort from the team and wasn't helped by Mr Clattenburg (How can this guy still be refereeing at the highest level? One or two mistakes - it happens, but this guy rattles them up every year) but if City want to lose the 'Typical' tag these are the games you've got to win...along with Burnley, Fulham etc.

Fortunately for us the majority of results went in our favour and we're still there or there abouts with Spurs and  a worryingly out of form Sunderland to come this week.

Johnson Blow

Gutted to hear about Michael Johnson's injury in training. Looks like he could be out for the rest of the season and that follows on from missing last season with abdominal injury. Must be devastating for the lad just as he's started to put himself in the frame for the first team. When he broke on the scene he certainly looked as though he had huge potential and I just hope he gets to fulfil it and doesn't suffer the same fate as the likes of Dyer and worse still Ashton whose careers have been blighted by injury.

A Missed Opportunity

Popped into the City Store on Sunday to pick up a few bits for my lads for Christmas and have to say I was pretty disappointed. While the store has improved a hell of a lot over the past year with more tills and the 2 floors (shirt printing upstairs etc) and we've got three of the most stylish kits we've ever I thought the other stuff in there was pretty lame and 3 weeks to go to Christmas they were out of stock (certainly in kids sizes) for most of the better designed stuff. My kids love anything with a City badge on it and naturally I'm more than happy to put my hand in my pocket and buy it (well someone's got to pay for Benjani's wages) so why can't they get some decent designers in, extend the range and make sure they have stock especially at Christmas.

Grumbling about not spending money...should perhaps be doing a Rag Blog!

City V Chelsea

Started off a bit dodgy and there was certainly a bit of a worry when they scored but a superb performance by all the boys following on from the Arsenal win. Shaun gave Cole plenty to think about, Tevez was a bull and capped it off with a great goal (although Cech helped) and De Jong gave one of the best midfield performances I've seen in quite a while. Another high spot for me was the continued improvement in the form of Lescott who actually looks like he's remembered that he's a centre half and that means you're going to take a knock now and again. Last few games he seems to be a lot more physical and aggressive and it seems to be paying dividends. Great all round performance from the whole team really although I'm getting increasingly frustrated with Adebayor.

City V Arsenal

A great result and we even managed to get up Wenger's nose as well. Thought the team looked up for it last night (all except Adebayor that is who just hasn't been at the races since his ban). SWP looks like he's just hitting a streak of form similar to the one he had before he left for Chelsea, Tevez was unstoppable and Bellamy was at his annoying best, never giving anyone a minutes peace be it on the Arsenal team or his own. 3 cracking goals, 1 great result and a draw against the dark side in the semi-finals. Can't wait!

The story continues...

So we got the Dickov Goal done, got some limited edition prints sorted and we're currently selling them on a website we had a guy at work build www.thatgoal.co.uk.

The response we've had has been great and it wasn't long before we thought about what other famous City goals we should try.

Thought about Kinky's goal against Southampton (one of the few times I've seen a stadium empty at half time as everyone went to see the goal again on TV), but in the end we plumped for Hinchcliffe's goal against the rags back in 1989 (also fell in nicely that we're twenty years on!!).. Ron (the artist) has been very busy in the past few weeks and finally it's here.

And then it was Five......

Larger view of it here if you want one - www.thatgoal.co.uk/and_then_it_was_5_image.aspx

We had an idea

About 6 months ago I was sat in the pub with my mate and he came up with the idea of producing something to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of  the Play Off Finals in 1999.

We were both there together on the day and let's face it for the vast majority of us it's pretty much the high point of some pretty barren times over the past 40 years or so. Having been to art college and done a fair bit of illustration and painting over  the subsequent years, he decided he'd try and create a watercolour painting capturing Paul Dickov's Goal. We scouted far and wide to find reference shots, grabbing screen shots off the dvd of the game and mixing them with other bits we found to create a unique view of the goal that we've never found anywhere else. Once we had the reference the painstaking work began to paint the scene complete with Wembley Crowd and scoreboard.

The result? Well here it is. If you want to see it larger try www.thatgoal.co.uk/thatgoal_image.aspx