‘Relegation is a cruel, remorseless beast’

Manchester City: The Genuine Soap Opera Club is about the shit. A book on relegation must be, of course. There is no shortage of melancholy, turmoil, and defeat. But this book is also about much more: The highs that balanced the lows, the instances of calm amid the chaos, the victories that accompanied the losses, the personalities, settings, narratives, and events that comprise a football season. Relegation is more than just the very moment a club is sent down; relegation is not the enduring image from a club’s season. My book recounts with much detail and colour the long, eventful journeys City undertook before arriving at their final-day denouements.

However, I do not consider this work to be a book about relegation. It is a history book, and on its pages you will encounter City’s most well-known and successful past players, be taken pitch-side to many of the club’s most calamitous (and in some cases, celebrated) matches, and become acquainted with the boardroom decisions that contributed to being sent down.