The banner was a mistake.
After winning the FA Cup final on Saturday, some Manchester City fans predictably unfurled a new one - "00 Years" - a retort to the infamous odometer banner which hangs at Old Trafford, mocking the number of years since City won a trophy.
Perhaps it was impossible to resist answering such a long-running taunt - particularly after Roberto Mancini, the City manager, promised last month to metaphorically tear it down - but, if ever there was an occasion to hold one's tongue, this was it.
Firstly, referencing one's rivals at such moments only emphasises how much they matter to you. It gives credence to the stereotyped "bitter blue" who checks the United result, in the hope of a defeat, before his own team's. The cup was silver but, on this issue, silence would have been golden.
Secondly, by resetting the odometer to zero, those City fans simply remind us of the enormity of the task ahead. A reset odometer signals not the end of a glorious journey but the start of a new one. Exciting as that may be, the distance City must travel to even taste United's dust is immense.
Nor is progress guaranteed. The glib assertion, trotted out by Mancini and his players, is that lifting the FA Cup signals an automatic opening of the floodgates of success. Pundits buy into this myth, speculating that just as the 1990 FA Cup both saved Sir Alex Ferguson's job and catalysed United's resurgence, so it will be for Mancini and City.
That is a leap of logic so long, it would put Carl Lewis to shame. Forming a winning habit does not hurt - unless you break the bank to do it, like Portsmouth did in 2008 - but nor does it guarantee a United-style march to glory. Ask Arsenal fans, who have tasted nothing but bitterness since the FA Cup triumph in 2005. Ask Liverpool fans, for whom that thrilling FA Cup win in 2006 spelt the beginning of a disastrous slump.
Even Chelsea, a cup-winning club with comparable resources to City, have struggled to match Manchester United's achievements. Which brings me to the third reason why that banner was a mistake. Manchester United is a super power against which conventional warfare - comparing honours - is a fool's errand. There can be only one winner.
By engaging in a numerical discussion, City fans simply invite their gloating rivals to strike back with another humiliating figure. The only difficulty will be which to choose: 11-5 (FA cups), 3-0 (European Cups), or, most probably, 19-2 (league titles).
Ah yes, 19. We will be hearing that number a lot from Manchester United fans. It was emblazoned upon a banner at Ewood Park on Saturday ("Are you watching Merseyside, 19 times?", proving that Manchester City fans are not the only ones to obsess over a rival), shaved into Wayne Rooney's chest hair (yes, really), and sampled by the musician Paul Hardcastle, who has been persuaded to re-release his 1985 nationwide hit, 19.
Hardcastle's track was about the Vietnam War, and the US folly of sending 19-year-old kids to fight it.
America was a superpower then and is even stronger today. The Vietcong did not beat them - they just gave them a bloody nose and checked their progress for a while. That is pretty much all one can do against a superpower - a fact that the crowing, dreaming City fans should remember.
FA mistake flags up a bad idea
Whatever my criticisms of that City banner, at least it was authentic – unlike the sea of red and blue nylon flags handed out free by the English Football Association (FA).
These flags had already caused the FA considerable embarrassment when a printing error meant they arrived bearing duff information: the City flags stated their opponents were Bolton Wanderers, while Stoke City’s pitted them against Manchester United.
To me, however, it was an embarrassment to be handing out free flags at all. It was the FA Cup final, not a wet Wednesday night at Stamford Bridge. You do not need to generate plastic atmosphere at the showpiece of English football.
Manchester City and Stoke fans are among the most loyal and passionate supporters in the sport. They know how to create a buzz.
A Stoke rendition of Delilah, their inexplicable club anthem, is said to be four decibels louder than a stadium full of trumpeting vuvuzelas – another invention of meddling authorities who do not trust fans to create their own atmosphere.
Reducing 40,000 individuals to a homogenised blob of colour is yet another shameful sidelining of the fans. They are not people but “extras”, there to be choreographed like a rent-a-mob at a Chairman Mao rally.
Nor will it stop at generic flags. How long before some television director notices that real fans – especially Stoke’s – are not as beautiful as the pretend ones you see during the half-time break, on adverts for soft drinks and motor cars? They will want to do something about that.
Last week, fans of the LA Angels baseball team broke a record for the largest gathering of people wearing wrestling-style face masks. They had previously set a similar record for dressing the fans in blankets.
Hey, a mask and blanket can cover a multitude of sins – and these were in the Angels colours, of red and white. Perhaps the FA should make a bid for them, in case Stoke make it to next year’s final?
