Unconventionally, Manchester City‘s players got the tram to the bus. Well, three open-top buses. And there were three more with roofs close by, because the thunderstorms coming our way seemed particularly nasty.
City have spent the last 15 years ripping through the traditional elite like a tornado and, once they reached the Treble summit, a different sort of storm threatened to blow them over while surveying the path trodden. Thankfully, it didn’t.
But first, the tram. A metro from Velopark across to Deansgate is not exactly a glamorous route – especially after a few beers and an Ibiza hangover. It passed through New Islington, Piccadilly and around the back of the main eventual stage at St Peter’s Square. A parade before the parade.
Here were a group of young lads dancing and banging on the windows going to an event and, in this part of the world, that is nothing new. Any given Saturday. Ruben Dias, the father of the group, had to direct one straggler onto the correct coach. No prizes for guessing who that might have been. Again, any given Saturday.
Pep Guardiola and his squad, backroom staff and executives had held their civic reception with the deputy leader of the council at the City Football Academy because, helpful, Manchester has no functioning town hall at the moment. Chief executive Ferran Soriano said a few words.
Man City travel through the streets of Manchester in the pouring rain for their victory parade
City players celebrated with the supporters and showed off all the trophies to the crowds
The man behind the the historic treble, Pep Guardiola, enjoyed the celebrations with a cigar
Jack Grealish was the at the centre of all the fun once again on a jubilant open top bus
An estimated 100,000 fans flocked to the Manchester streets to give City a heroes’ welcome
And to the weather. Only here, miserable for two-thirds of the year, could it somehow then become too hot for a parade, a scorcher morphing into treacherous storms that looked very out of place in the North West.
The tram system was a state all day, the soaring temperatures causing havoc with cabling and grinding the area to a halt for a while. And still the thousands came, the start delayed by half-an-hour after City held talks with the local authorities and the Met office. A fair guess would be that 100,000 lined these streets.
Wet – very wet – and delirious. Jack Grealish turned to Erling Haaland: ‘How are we having it?’ Presumably he expected ‘large’ to arrive as an answer. Haaland dumped a bottle of champagne over his head instead.
The hair had long been spoiled anyway. The tops soon came off. Drenched supporters were doused with booze. Guardiola puffed on a cigar. We’ve seen this film before, but never while enjoying something on this scale.
Down Oxford Street, where fans crammed in, it resembled carnage as lightning bolted and thunder rumbled. Weather does weird things to people and some were breaching barriers and causing chaos on a day City had handed over security measures to an independent firm.
The whole thing was just about kept under control. ‘For the last 24 hours I’ve had the best day and night,’ Grealish said. ‘To be fair I don’t think I’ve slept. I’m a turkey and the turkey needs feeding!’
And so Kalvin Phillips fed him so vodka. Everybody cheered.
Even without Saturday in Istanbul, even without beating their rivals at Wembley and even without menacingly clawing back Arsenal, this would have been a day to remember in this special city. Hanging off lampposts, almost bringing bus stops to their knees, leaning out of windows, a pocket of Manchester felt alive.
Ruben Dias held the FA Cup aloft as Erling Haaland (right) soaked up the atmosphere
City’s three major trophies were in clear view as the Treble winners paraded the streets
Leading the celebrations was 52-goal ‘striking Viking’ Haaland as City celebrated their success
Grealish admitted he’s hardly slept in the last 24 hours while enjoying another night partying
The City players paraded the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup to the crowd
It proved a historic campaign for the Manchester club as they matched bitter rivals Man United’s famous achievement from 1998-99
Haaland, draped over the side of their bus, gleefully showed off Ol’ Big Ears. Grealish pleaded with Bernardo Silva to stay put on the tram as Paris Saint-Germain lurk. Captain Ilkay Gundogan wandered out, all smiles clutching the biggest pot of the lot: ‘We’ve won it all!’
‘The last few weeks have been incredible,’ said secretary of the official supporters’ club, Kevin Parker. ‘I’ve got a dog called Sergio and because it’s been so busy, some friends have been looking after him for three weeks. We’ve won three trophies in that time! He’s coming back to a very different person!’
Parker was wearing the yellow and blue 1999 away shirt – the iconic one, the Division Two playoff one, the Paul Dickov one. ‘I’m superstitious and don’t normally wear shirts,’ he added.
‘I decided to get one for Istanbul. I went into then club shop and this was the first I saw. Of course United won the Treble in 1999 and something just struck me that it’s the right shirt for this time.
‘We’re positive about the [Premier League] charges. I speak to the club and they are adamant that they’ve not done anything wrong. Of course we look through blue-tinted glasses but I hope that is the outcome.
‘[But] whatever the outcome, you can’t take the titles away, the performances, the Aguero moment, Yaya Toure at Wembley in 2011, the 6-1 at Old Trafford. You can’t take that away from supporters.’
Nor the players, who have been enjoying themselves to the fullest. The majority performed a U-turn at Manchester Airport on Sunday afternoon, from one private jet to another, and headed straight for Ibiza.
Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Stefan Ortega are all too old and too clever for that, instead having dinner at Chinese restaurant Tattu. A little more sedate.
Ibiza ended up being a trip of under 18 hours and, once City finished thanking their fans here, they were whisked off to an all-staff party at Depot Mayfield, the scene of their screening on Saturday. Guardiola will have been boogying in there, after calling out Noel Gallagher for missing the occasion and predicting that Oasis will reform.
‘I think the job is done,’ Guardiola had said earlier in the day. ‘I don’t want to compare myself so much with Leo [Messi] but there is an image of him with the World Cup that says ‘that’s it, that’s it’. And in this club I know that it is there now.’ An ending fitting for a start.
