Match: Manchester City V Queens Park Rangers
Competition: Premier League
Date: May 13, 2012
Kerry District League Secretary John O’Regan, describes a dramatic day for all football fans, two years ago at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. City had to beat the London side to clinch the Premiership after a gap of 44 years…
I became a Manchester City fan by accident really.
As an 18 year old from Causeway, I left for a job in Manchester back in 1972 and while over there I decided to go see the Manchester derby at Old Trafford.
I bought my ticket and ended up in the City fans end. I had no allegiance to either side but the Blues won the game 3-1 and I’ve been a long-suffering fan ever since.
A few weeks before the title decider in 2012, a friend of mine who had season tickets at the Etihad wasn’t using them so I said I’d go to it.
When you’ve followed City for as long as I have, you’re always living in hope, you never know what they’re going to do.
Pablo Zabaleta struck first for City and everything was rosy. We were all dancing around the place, but then the bottom fell out of it when QPR came back to score two goals.
I thought ‘here we go again, we’ve left it slip again’.
But we were handed a lifeline when Joey Barton got sent off. We left it very, very late. Dzeko scored in the 92nd minute, and with the last kick of the game Balotelli set up Sergio Aguero with a piece of genius to get the winner.
Another player may have gone down, but Aguero stayed on his feet. Once he got those extra couple of yards, he was never going to miss.
The feeling of winning the title after 44 years was unbelievable, you couldn’t describe it – it was just total euphoria.
It happens so quick that you just got caught up in the moment. The noise was deafening you couldn’t even hear yourself talking or screaming.
The whole of Manchester was a party that night and there wasn’t a United supporter to be seen, we had the city all to ourselves.
