Among many doomsday scenarios facing Manchester City is plunging down the football pyramid. Would that be so bad? Instead of yawning at the prospect of yet another meeting with Real Madrid or repeated Avanti train-hampered journeys to Wembley, how about the exoticism of away travel to Wealdstone? In the National League, City’s ownership may wish to know, there are no formal financial fair play or strict salary cap regulations.
Wrexham, Notts County and Chesterfield have taken advantage of such lax constraints to regenerate. For City fans, Ruislip’s buzzy high street, full of nail bars, estate agents and a couple of homely pubs, would represent a welcome world away from Milan’s Via Monte Napoleone, as would the suburbia of Grosvenor Vale, Wealdstone’s home in the middle of a housing estate, which may jog memories of late-90s visits to Macclesfield and Lincoln. Simpler, happier times, perhaps.
