CYCM, If we hold each other close...

FC United of Manchester play House of Fraser on Monday. I used to love their sales as they used to put pen-written prices on their sale items and pin it to them with no bar code. They used to write them in red pen as if somehow that’d stop the petty pilfering. However, it was no great cleverness to take several items to the changing rooms and swap the pinned prices. A £330 item for £17 was my bestest but it had some close run mates challenging it…err, I mean someone I knew used to do that etsetch etsetch. Anyway, enough of this Mancunian petty crime against a big corporation for the sake of representing our city at United aways with a befitting sartorial elegance…yes, there’s a Course You Can Malcolm on Bank Holiday Monday. A place where reds come up, and if we’ve not got change because it’s still early we/they say ‘Give it us later when you’ve got it’. Proving again that the slogan on the Manchester Trades Council banner of ‘A better world is possible’ is, as we already knew, correct. And continuing on the theme of a better world being possible…

TURNS…

Bear with me, I’m rambly because it’s the last Malcolmses preview. Moston Quinny came up to me in the 2005/6 season and said “I went to secondary school with you.??? I couldn’t remember. I saw him the next game and he said “I was in your class for five years.??? I still couldn’t remember him. The next game he came up and preceding the statement with an expletive he said “…and I was in primary school with you.??? I still didn’t remember. The next game he came up and showed me a picture of the both of us at about six or seven years of age in a class photo. I was stood at the side of him. Alzheimer’s me loads and that. Who has? Pardon? I heard that.

So when Quinny came up at the last Malcolmses and said ‘I know a band who wants to play??? my first reaction was “Who is this bloke talking to me???? My second reaction after realising it was Quinny was ‘Crikey crumbs maximus, how bad is a band going to be if Quinny knows them?’ I would have bet the rouge out of Margy’s match day panstick and rouge set that the next sentence out of Quinny’s mouth wasn’t the one that it was. If he’d have said “I know the hottestly hyped new band in Manchester and they want to play??? then he would have been getting there. Many of you won’t have heard of them, many of you will. The band is Wu Lyf. They’re doing a bespoke set as unbeknown to us, Ellery from Wu Lyf had already been to Malcolmses and loved it. We’re leaving it there. What a lovely way to end the CYCM season. It’s an encapsulation of everything CYCM started out to do - bringing a vibrant part of the inventiveness of the Manchester music scene to the side of the pitch where we are being forced to play. Beautiful. Truly.

STRAIGHT OUTTA CROMPTON…

After the audience beat Dennis 5-2 in the last Matt The Bike quiz he’s found an ally in Matty Wilks. So this time the audience will take on the pair of them. It’s all about audience participation, making bellends not hereditary heirs. We might be taking the audience participation bit a bit too far though as on this last Malcolmses a section of the audience are taking over all operations so as to give the usual volunteer workers a day off. Including the ‘getting there before ten o’clock to be there for the beers’ arrival and lug it up the stairs’ bit which is extra kind. That’s very, very thoughtful of them but we fear for your pampering. So if your beer takes ages and your food is cold…hit them with a stick, they won’t mind.

GUEST BEER…

Blaine, informs us that this week’s guest beer from a brewery close to the team we are playing is Hawkshead’s ‘Brodie’s Prime’ at 5% abv. Apparently it’s “A dark premium beer with an unusual medley of flavours. It is rich and malty with a roasted stout-like edge yet also dry with spiciness and fruit from the blend of hops: exuberant American Cascade restrained by traditional English Fuggles with a touch of Bramling Cross.??? All we heard there was “stoat-like edge.???

THE OTHER BITS OF BIZ…

Due to the Bank Holiday Mondayness of it all there’s no tater hash. All the volunteers are getting in on it. To accompany the ever present input of Eyebrow’s vegetarian pizza and veggie sausage we have a chicken sizzler curry from Mr Pett, we have jacket potato and cheesy beans from a board member and something as yet unspecified from the Norwegian Chef. All in all not the worstestist day you’ll have before you even watch United. We also promise not to let Murrjy do any card tricks as he did last time – painful. The booing has never been louder.

So that’s the season’s ending at CYCM. You may well miss us when we’re gone. We tried, we really did. With almost everything we had, we had a go. Seerz. Thank you so much for contributing to the rich bank balance of love that we’ve all created at this ring of ours. A band of platinum betrothing us together in a toppling mixer of knowing that what we are doing is getting us to what we want to do. Frightened of nothing but serenely tempered with the self built strength to hold and care. The height, weight, guile, genius and bravery to stay but blessed with the grace to cherish and nurture and see the red in the blossom. We are that amalgam. We are that form. We are that part of Manchester. Romance will always win. We’ll fight you for it. Together, as always, to the next three play-offy points.

Fraternally, spirit, patience, gentlenessly yours

The oddoirs