What made Oasis fall in love with Manchester City?
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Support for a team comes in unexpected and surprising ways, not to mention random. And Liam and Noel's support for City was sparked by family reasons.
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Oasis are back. Over seventy thousand fans were ecstatic for them, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, who, after sixteen years, appeared side by side on the same stage again. A reunion whose anticipation was similar to that of Led Zeppelin's return at Live Aid 1985 or the one that, the day after Oasis, saw the original members of Black Sabbath reunite one last time for former frontman Ozzy Osbourne's live farewell.
Oasis were the most famous band of the late 20th century, as well as the leading group of Britpop , a musical phenomenon that was an expression of the so-called Cool Britannia, the renewed sense of patriotic and cultural pride that, starting in England, quickly spread to the rest of Europe, thanks largely to the megaphone provided by MTV. And so, along with Oasis, the likes of Blur, Pulp, the Verve, Supergrass, Radiohead, and their ilk also became popular on this side of the Channel.
Not everyone remembers, however, that Britpop had a close relationship with football. After all, the 1990s were the years of the 1996 European Championship: thirty years after England's only trophy (the World Cup, which was played on Albion soil), a major football event returned to the birthplace of the beautiful game. "Football's coming home," as English fans sang to the tune of the song by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner, and the Lightning Seeds. And what about the relationship between David Beckham (the pop icon par excellence of the England national team) and the woman who would become his wife, Victoria Adams of the Spice Girls?
The most well-known connection between the idols of the British music scene of the 1990s and football is undoubtedly that of Oasis and Manchester City . Liam and Noel Gallagher are in fact avowed fans of the City. When, in 1994, at the beginning of their careers, the Gallagher brothers were immortalized by photographer Kevin Cummins in a now-historical image, both were wearing Manchester City shirts.
In this respect, it's fair to say that Oasis were true ambassadors for the Manchester City brand around the world. This was especially true before the English club managed to emerge from the shadow cast by their then more famous (and internationally) and more successful cousins, Manchester United, when City's ownership passed to the Abu Dhabi United Group, owned by Emirati Prince Mansur bin Zayd Al Nahyan.
As often happens, support for a team comes in unexpected and surprising ways, not to mention random. Liam and Noel's support for City (both Manchester natives) was rooted in family reasons. As Noel told the Guardian years ago: “The first game my dad took me to was City against Newcastle United at Maine Road, in 1971. That was it: City became my team. United were in the Second Division at the time, and we were the best team in Manchester, for about ten years . But over the years, as City began to struggle and United became the best team in Europe, I sometimes wondered why my dad took me to Maine Road instead of Old Trafford. The reason is fundamentally family: my dad hated his brothers. They were all Irish who had moved here and decided to support United. My dad only chose City to piss them off. No other reason. In fact, Liam and I should have become United fans.” And this despite the fact that, years later, Noel refused the invitation to write the club's official anthem (which therefore remained Blue Moon, composed in 1934 by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart): “They wanted me to write their new theme song but, even though I'm a fan, I don't sweat blood over a song if it's not for me” .
Finally, when talking about Oasis, it's impossible not to mention their musical rivalry with Blur, which revived the glories of the Beatles-Rolling Stones era (or, if you prefer, the one between Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet in the 1980s). Football is still involved, given that in 1996, during a celebrity tournament, Liam Gallagher and Damon Albarn (a Chelsea fan) found themselves face to face, in another now-famous photo . Just as Uwe Rösler and Dennis Wise, then favorites of Citizen and Blues fans, might have done.
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