Mix blue and red and you get purple. But when it comes to Manchester, those colours usually stay very separate: one side of the city is red, the other blue. It is a tribal affair with no overlap — or at least it was, until women’s football started to change things.
When the fanzine United We Stand interviewed an individual who followed the City and United men’s teams 20 years ago, it was so rare that they insisted on anonymity due to the stigma attached. In women’s football, however, there is a growing trend for ‘purple’ fans.
“I am that person, that weirdo,” Laura Day tells The Athletic before City and United’s WSL clash at the Etihad today. “I get stick for it all the time. My friends say I am the human version of a half-and-half scarf.”
Day has been a Manchester City men’s fan since she was a young child, when she would wear the blue City shirt at birthday parties. “It’s our family team,” she says.
But when her local football team started going to the first women’s Manchester derbies following United’s promotion to the Women’s Super League (WSL) in 2019, she and her friends started watching United Women’s games.“My dad wasn’t best pleased,” she smiles.
However, she is not alone in crossing that divide.
“There are a lot of people in…
