Very Superstitious

Manchester City take to the pitch for the second half. All of their players go and take their positions ready for kick off. All of their players, except one.

Kolo Toure jogs to his position at centre-back...then jogs a little bit further. He runs to the edge of the 18 yard box, and then begins to jog across the "D". Once he gets to the corner of the D, he makes a diagonal run to the touchline and corner of the box and plants his feet firmly into the ground. He looks up to his left and applauds the City fans in front of him. Then he turns to his right and offers a slightly less enthusiastic clap to the away fans.

That is exactly what has happened at every game Kolo Toure has played at the City of Manchester Stadium in the last year. It seems he is the superstitious type.

It's not just Kolo - football is littered with superstitous players and managers. Paul Ince famously used to leave his shirt off until he was out of the players tunnel; Fabien Barthez required a kiss on the head from Laurent Blanc before he was ready to play for France at World Cup '98; David James goes to a urinal, waits until it's empty and spits at the wall for good luck before a match (yes, really).

So...why? What makes a professional athlete, who has spent the whole week preparing physically and tactically for a game, spit at a wall for good luck? Anything to give them that extra edge I suppose, even if to the rational thinker their rituals are meaningless and bizarre.

Wonderfully, though, the football fan is rarely a rational thinker. And so we have it that football supporters the world over have dreamt up their own quirky superstitions. This seems even more hopeless because we have no influence on what happens on the pitch. But that's hard to accept, I suppose, so we do what we can.

If you're interested (and even if you're not), here are some of those that have afflicted me over the years:

* For the 2007-2008 season, I would have the same order from the chippy prior to every single game. A simple one, this. On the walk up to the first home game (v Derby County) I ordered a chip muffin. We won. So for the next home game (v United) I ordered a chip muffin. We won. Clearly this was working so I stuck with the chip muffin all season, even after we finally lost at home, deep into December that year.
I got pretty bored of that though - I don't think I've had a chip muffin since May 2008!

* Slightly more simple is taking the same route to every home game. That may seem logical, but the route taken is not necessarily the quickest one. If, for any reason, circumstance ever forces us in a different direction then I can't shake the feeling that we will lose. Strange? Yes. Rational? Certainly not.

* My entrance for every home game is entrance J. Those of you who have been to the City of Manchester Stadium will know that at each entrance, there are several turnstiles. Not for me. All but one of those turnstiles is effectively obsolete. I will always take the turnstile to the far left. There may be a queue there, whilst all the others are empty, but it makes no difference. No matter how hard the stewards try to make me use a different one, it won't happen. For if I do, City will lose, and I am not prepared to bear that responsibility.

The beauty of it is that almost everybody has their matchday routine, their special matchday underpants or a special pre-game drink.

Does it make a difference? Of course not. But are we supposed to turn up and think we can't help? It's nice to feel you're contributing in some way, right?

So, The Sheikh can spend what he wants and Mancini can do as he pleases in training, but if I don't use my lucky turnstile, my Auntie stops drinking out of her lucky City cup on matchdays and Kolo Toure stops doing his lucky ritual then we've no chance of breaking the top four.

Right?

Ciao,

Richard

http://twitter.com/#!/RichardTheBurns