Few sporting rivalries are as intense as the one between Manchester’s two football teams: United and City.  United fans like me, accustomed to decades of comfortable superiority and to sneering at their near neighbors, are now suffering as City dominates English football.  The teams, separated by a few miles and and lifelong allegiances, meet twice every season for the Manchester derby.  Don’t for one moment mistake this for a football match.  This is a confrontation between two warring tribes.  When a friend offered us four tickets to the recent derby, we all hopped on a plane behind enemy lines to City’s Etihad stadium.

The game took place on Armistice Day and the 100th anniversary of the end of the Great War.  A famous coach once said that football isn’t a matter of life and death; it’s far more important than that.  None of the 55,000 supporters in the stadium who fell silent to commemorate the war dead believe that, but you would never have guessed it once the first ball was kicked.

There’s no hiding it.  The game didn’t end well for my team and it was a painful reminder that United’s glory days aren’t coming back anytime soon.  But what a joy it was to watch it through the eyes of my sons.  Their first derby, their first visit to the Etihad’s cauldron of noise and passion, and a useful reminder that in the longest relationships it’s important to know how to handle an occasional disappointment.