Growing up supporting City in the 1990's, you were told tales of the great players to have previously worn the blue shirt.
When I first felt the crushing blow of relegation in 1996, 20 years had past since Dennis Tueart had scored an overhead kick at Wembley to secure City a League Cup victory. That victory would be the last great day for many years, and it signified the end of a 8 year glory period for the club where we won the league, cups and in Europe too.
For the first 15 years of me being a match going fan I had to grasp on to the temporary crop of cult heroes with the knowledge that a legitimate legend may never play for City again. I loved Rosler, Goater and Benarbia, who are rightly adored as being City's heroes of their day, but they didn't achieve the sort of things which my Dad had seen when he was my age. Doyle, Summerbee, Lee and of course Colin Bell - the King of the Kippax.
City had moved on from this era and moved away from the Kippax. I doubted that we would ever see another "King". We all know the story of the developments of September 1st 2008 - when everything changed. But it still didn't seem real, and although the names and reputations like Robinho, Bridge, Given were bigger than before we still needed to achieve or for my generation be forever celebrating players who were just great servants of the club, not players who we could remember for the moments that you will talk about forever.
The summer of 2010 was a significant one for City. Having been within touching distance of qualifying for the Champions League that May, we went out and bought the players that we hoped would take us to that next level - to not only compete, but to win.
A lot of players will be remembered fondly from that transfer window; Balotelli, Kolarov, Milner but two in particular stand out. David Silva and Yaya Toure.
Little did I know at this point how important these two players were going to be. It will be a sad day when David leaves, but that day is not upon us yet, but for Yaya, the end is nigh.
And it wasn't just myself who didn't know how important Yaya would be. If you've never read this before, check out this article from The Mirror's Brian Reade - https://www.mirror.co.uk/opinion/football-opinion/brian-reade-column-millions-squandered-3353824
There's almost too much to say about Toure. He was absolutely vital for Mancini in the 2010/11 season. He was viewed as a deep lying central midfielder but Mancini looked at his attributes and played just in front of Barry and de Jong allowed Toure to be creative on the ball with his passing, and allowed him to break forward with such pace and power that hasn't probably been seen before or since on these shores.
With some players they have attributes such as pace or shooting ability, but some players just have that ability to score important goals. David Platt once described Edin Dzeko has having the ability to score "heavy goals", and when you're in the hunt for silverware, you need someone who can provide the heavy goals.
A sunny mid-April day in the capital against our bitter rivals for the right to play in the F.A. Cup final a month later. A game that City grew into, but there was not a lot between ourselves and United on the day. It was tight, if anyone made a mistake it could have been crucial. The recently-much-lauded Michael Carrick made this mistake and Yaya pounced on the loose ball, ran past Vidic like he wasn't there before megging Van Der Sar.
It's almost easy to forget with everything that's happened since this moment of jubilation what exactly this goal meant. Trying hard not to sound patronising here but the younger generation of City fans will never know what that feels like. We may well go on to do this and that in many different competitions, but that moment where City exploded out of the shadows by beating United will probably never happen again. All eleven on the day heroes, but it was Yaya who was the difference on the day.
4 weeks later and just as the nerves of "maybe this isn't going to be our day" were just about kicking round in your head, Yaya again almost burst the net with a goal at the same end, right in front of the blue end of Wembley. The F.A. Cup was City's first piece of silverware in 35 years. Thirty five fucking years. Some people don't live that long. It was an amount of time which our neighbours reminded us of regularly, and even had a banner mocking us. Hope they made the most of it at the time.
I could be wrong and there's no way of knowing otherwise, but in the same way that we all felt that without Dickov scoring those goals and Weaver making those saves in 1999 we would have been doomed, I think we all feel that if Yaya hadn't been the difference on those two days and City hadn't won the F.A. Cup in 2011 we might not be where we are today, 7 years later just days away from lifting our 3rd league title.
The Cup was the first thing. The next step was to be the English champions. City headed to Newcastle for the penultimate game of the 2011/12 season just barely on top of the league by 8 goals and 0 points. Newcastle were flying high at the time, and they knew that if they beat us and won away at Goodison the following week they had the chance to get in to a Champions League place. Mancini made the change to push Yaya further forward in an attempt to win the tight game between us and Newcastle. There's a story that Joleon Lescott tells about Toure assuring him the day before the game that he was going to score at St James', and he did. Twice. More heavy goals. Another huge day in my life where I was watching a really tight game of football and Yaya Toure was the difference. I recall clearly walking out of St James' that day knowing that we had done it. 44 years since we last won the title and we just had QPR at home next week to lift the title. Dead simple...
It didn't quite work out for City or Mancini the following season, not to say that Toure had a poor season at all, but City just didn't seem to have the right mentality as champions it seemed at the time - a trending theme as no club has defended the title since.
A new manager and a new style of playing for the 2013/14 season, one that will be remembered more than any other due to Toure's performances. Where do you start? Dominating United home and away, ridiculous goals of all types whether long range strikes against Fulham, Plzen and Sunderland in the League Cup final - a goal which is possibly the finest the new Wembley has seen, and sparked the turn around where City ended up winning 3-1 and lifting the League Cup for the first time since 76 - or lung busting runs against West Ham, Cardiff and Aston Villa. This final goal is particularly significant as it was a rainy May night at The Etihad where City found Villa hard to break down, but eventually got our noses in front with two goals from Dzeko. It was the 90th minute at the end of an exhausting season and Yaya picked the ball up in his own half and drove at Villa's heart like someone trying to kill a vampire, before smashing the ball into the back of the net to win the game 4-0 and put City 2 points at the top of the league with one game to play.
Throughout the whole of that season he was basically untouchable. Pellegrini made everything go through Yaya and that season it worked a charm as we won our first double since 1970.
There were great moments after this; the winning penalty in the 2016 League Cup final in particular stands out as well as great goals away to Villa in 2014 and Watford in 2016. But unfortunately he never really got to the same heights in the seasons following 2013/14. He was a victim of his own success in one way, and I have always believed the Pellegrini relied on him too much and over played him. When he joined City, he had just come off a World Cup, another World Cup in 2014 as well as what seemed like AFCON every year. Add that to him being over the age of 30 and being a huge bloke and I bet his body was exhausted at times in Pellegrini's final year. Elements of our support were getting on his back, which made me love him even more, but even then it looked like at the end of the 2015/16 season with Pep about to take over it looked like it could be the end for Yaya.
By all report he and Pep have a weird relationship. I won't get into all the tripe that Yaya's agent has spouted over the years, but he made it even worse in the autumn months of 2016. But then, when I had resigned myself to never seeing Yaya play for City again, Pep brought him back away to Crystal Palace in November 2016. Me and my mates were absolutely buzzing when we saw the team news. And after Yaya not having played for 7 months, what do you think he did? Scored 2 and again was the difference on the day. As he scored his second he ran over to the fans in the same he did when he scored there in April 2014 before our second title win, and fans ran on the pitch to celebrate with him. It was an emotional moment, something that I never thought I'd have - a true City legend - had returned and scored on his comeback. For the rest of the season he looked great, playing in a bit more of a reserved deeper role - probably something Pellegrini should have done 2 years earlier. He played that well that he was offered a 12 month contract extension.
So we get on to this season, where his appearances have been limited, but there's no telling what his winning influence would have done for the dressing room with a lot of the team being under 24.
It was announced on the 4th May, just 9 days before his 35th birthday that he will be leaving City after 8 years and that our final home game of the season against Brighton will be used as a send off to a City legend. A year ago, as Zabaleta was saying his goodbyes, I questioned whether the current crop of players had the personalities to take on the hero status' which Zabaleta had had before them and I think although no one is Zabaleta standard yet, they are doing their bit.
There's certainly players in this current squad with the ability to control games, score important trophy winning goals, and create moments like Yaya has over the years, but Yaya will always be remembered as the man that created those first moments. Without him, City wouldn't be the club they are today.
We will be lucky to witness anything like what Yaya Toure has done at Manchester City again, and for me and many others he is my Colin Bell, he is The King.
Thanks for the memories, Yaya.
