Embarrassment and catharsis

It was like the Bolton game all over again, only even worse. City didn't exactly dominate Doncaster for most of the match, but they did generally have the better play and chances, though once again they had trouble finishing. When it went to extra time things were tense, but when Vassell put away a penalty in the first half, it looked good... then Onuoha got sent off for a challenge on a 50/50 ball with the goalkeeper which the color commentator thought was a harsh red. (Having seen the replay on Sky Sports News, it was in fact tremendously harsh - not only did Onuoha make contact with the ball, but he managed to pull his foot all the way down after he hit it so that he did not hit the keeper with his studs. And he gets sent off for that.) Then ANOTHER BALL GETS HANDLED IN THE BOX just two minutes from time, and Doncaster equalizes. Then we head to penalty kicks and things only get worse.

McIndoe, goal. 1-0 Doncaster.
Vassell beats the keeper... and hits the crossbar. Still 1-0.
Coppinger, goal. 2-0 Doncaster.
Sibierski has his shot saved! Still 2-0!
Heffernan, goal. 3-0 Doncaster. City now must make all remaining kicks and saves. Please.
Dunne... saved again! By the backup keeper! And that's it, 3-0, not a single PK converted against a side at the bottom of League One! And City are out of the Carling Cup!

Painful. Painful, painful, painful. I listened to the whole radio broadcast on an internet feed via the BBC website, and that's the result I get.

However, there's something sort of cathartic and unifying here. Though I took care to choose a Premiership side that was not among either the recently or historically dominant, Man City's recent unbeaten run (which had started before I declared my fandom) was almost unfair. I had looked into their history, of course, and found stuff like last year's third round FA Cup loss to Oldham, but there's a part of me that thinks that no matter how you chose your team, you can't truly belong until you've suffered with them. Otherwise you just seem like a frontrunner. Even Yankees fans, as much as I hate them, had the 1980s. (Although a decade of futility had sort of been earned by the Yankees' previous 60 years of general dominance.)

With the Bulls I had the post-Jordan, pre-Gordon era. With the Bears I've had about everything since 1986. With the Devils I had the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, and the early playoff exits despite being the East's best team in 1997, 1998 and 1999. With the Cubs I've had my entire life.

So I hadn't yet had anything like that with Man City. There was the Bolton game, but Drew saved me from watching it, and the highlights simply reinforced the notion that City had played much better but had had some bad luck. Today, however, I suffered along with the team and the other fans, all the way through a game that should have been much more reminiscent of Barnsley than Oldham. Maybe it's because it was on the road (so was the Oldham game; Barnsley was not). Maybe it's because there was no Cole (surely he could have finished, as he could have finished one or two in the Bolton game), or no Barton or Fowler. Maybe it was just a few bad breaks - does it happen if Onuoha doesn't get sent off? Regardless of why, though, there was something cathartic - albeit deeply depressing - about the experience.

In what may be my favorite book, Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, he writes of Arsenal's success at the beginning of the 1990s, "It was strange, trying to write about how miserable most of my footballing life has been in the midst of all that post-Championship hope and glory. So as the season crumbled to dust, and Highbury became a place for discontented players and unhappy fans once more, and the future began to look so dismal that it was impossible to remember why we thought it bright in the first place, I began to feel comfortable again." I'm not saying I relish defeat, as Hornby is not, and I would deny that theory in the same way that Bill Simmons refuted the idea, last fall, that the Red Sox fans' identities were tied to losing and that, having won the World Series for the first time in 86 years, they would not know what to do with themselves. What I am saying is that you have to take the bad to appreciate the good.

From the time I started getting really serious about sports, in the mid-90s, the Devils were probably the most successful team on my radar screen, winning three Stanley Cups between 1995 and 2003. But the 1995 Cup came on the heels of a devastating loss in 1994, and the 2000 win followed a three-year period during which we were eliminated twice in the first round as the #1 seed and the third time by the hated Rangers. Had the Devils pulled an Oilers and just won several Cups in a row, I'm not sure I would have known what to do, just as the Bulls' ridiculous run of NBA success was something that was good - not least because I knew so many Knicks fans at school - but not something to which I was really affixing my permanent identity. As nervous as I was in Game Six in 1997 and 1998, there was something fatalistic about the whole process, as though, having made the playoffs, the Bulls could not possibly lose. Following them, as a result, became less enjoyable - all their wins were expected. Had they lost just one of those years, everything else might have seemed justified - but they never did.

No one - and I say this very seriously as a Cubs fan - wants losing to define them. Being part of a losing culture is no fun. But there is one thing that a losing culture has over a winning culture - achieving the result will always be that much better. Yankees fans of the new generation who didn't remember the team's '80s struggles and thought there was no way they could lose to the Diamondbacks in 2001 probably had no idea how to react when Gonzalez hit his flare. Red Sox fans of any generation, however, knew how to react as Foulke tossed to first. They had seriously earned the win.

So as horrible and depressing as this loss was, ultimately it's a good thing. I mean, what if Man City had (somehow) not lost a game in the Premiership this year? Sure, I would have been following them the whole year, but I would never have known a loss. The City fans who have been waiting for a League title since 1968, or a Cup title since 1976, would be over the moon, but what would I have to compare it to? You need the losing first - otherwise you're just some guy who showed up to reap the rewards. I'll still be pulling for City to do well, of course - but now, if they win anything, I'll have a reference point: that crushing defeat at Doncaster that felt so painful. And I'll actually be able to say how much better the winning feels.