It was one of those beautifully ironic pieces of fan jesting, no-one I've asked seems to know who's idea it was to give birth to him, he was, like so many gods and icons, proclaimed from the stands without his nature being disclosed, the difference was that those devotees did not even accept their own existence:
We are not,
We're not really here,
We are not,
We're not really here,
Just like the fans
Of the Invisible Man
We're not really here
Such postmodern epistemological theorising did, and still does, resound from the home end of Eastlands. Its announcement is the Nietzschean unity in the abnegation of the self. That blissful overcoming of the individual will. Here, it whispered to us, ye are no longer bus drivers, buskers, bakers or medical monstrosities. Here you are the faithful. Oh, sing, mine congregation, sing through thine mouthfulls of balti pies and cold tea.
A couple of years ago, I bought a t-shirt bearing an outline and the legend 'Man City Legends: The Invisible Man'. I am now able to, and often do, show my devotion to my translucent patron saint whilst going about my daily buisiness. But I am doing someone else's buisiness too. Unlike the church fathers I am not about my father's work, but, rather, the work of marketers, buying into the increased commodification of football. Taking the spontaneous outbursts of fans into items to be bought and sold. That moment of unity becomes a statement I can make if I have the cash. I did, in doing so I stuck my dagger into His ribs and sank my fangs into His jugular (this proved difficult as, being invisible, He was not easy to locate).
We are His murderers, you and I. How shall we atone for this sin of sins? What new chants must we create? What are these stadiums now but His tombs and sepulchers?
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