Before the sun was up on New Year's Day, much of the talk on the bus hurtling to London containing the Baguley and Brooklands Blues concerned Joao Cancelo after the awful attack on him and his family at his home that week.
As the same Manchester City fans returned long after the sun had gone down, not only were they celebrating a memorable win at the Emirates but one young supporter had Cancelo's matchworn shirt to add to his collection.
Kailem Hayes, 12, does not need reminding how lucky he is but will keep getting told by family and friends anyway.
He has travelled to away games for a number of years — his favourite game before Arsenal was the last day of the 2017/18 season at Southampton when City clinched 100 points with the last kick of the game — but this year has been the first where he has gone to every away after his dad Mark, along with his friend Lee Howarth and his son Luca, decided to make the most of fans being allowed back into stadiums after the pandemic.
And having already bagged two shirts from players, getting Cancelo's at Arsenal had extra significance for Kailem and his dad after the Portugal international suffered a shocking home invasion days earlier.
"Kailem's favourite players are Bernardo Silva and Joao Cancelo. He does love them," Mark told MEN Sport.
"He's been quite lucky this year because we promised to take him and Luca to as many away games as we can. He's actually received three shirts this season — one from [Aymeric] Laporte at Anfield, one from [Aleks] Zinchenko at Aston Villa but obviously his favourite is Cancelo so it was just perfect timing. That's the one he feels the most about.
"We were at Brentford as well and obviously [the attack] happened after the Brentford game, we didn't expect him to be there so there were two reasons. Kailem loves Cancelo and he wanted to thank him himself so whichever way we can do it.
"He found time to make my son's day and we're so grateful so we just want to thank him. It's an amazing gesture. You don't know what has gone through his mind, he's had a terrible ordeal, but he still found time for that. For the kids, that's the best thing that can happen at a game for them to be recognised by a player."
The absence of fans in stadiums for a full year during the pandemic highlighted what an inferior game football is without them, yet they are still routinely let down.
Last month there were a raft of late cancellations in the Premier League that gave no consideration to supporters who were already travelling across the country for the match, while City's FA Cup tie at Swindon this week finishes a couple of hours after the last train back to Manchester has already departed.
While Pep Guardiola can often be seen at the end of away matches directing his players over to thank the travelling support, there are still numerous examples in the league of high-profile players snubbing fans who've gone to great effort to watch them.
It may be a small gesture from the footballers, but it makes all the difference for plenty of supporters — including Mark and Kailem Hayes, who are already looking forward to more memories to come.
"We do try to go to as many [away games] as we can," said Mark. "I've just always wanted to do it and especially being away due to Covid for so long and missing it — I'm a season ticket holder at City as well — but we both said we should do it this year.
"It's a memory. I've made memories with Kailem this year. No matter what happens, when he's my age he's going to be telling everybody how much his dad took him and got him the City tops.
"That's priceless in my eyes. It doesn't matter how much it costs you to go, it's more the memories I've created with my son."
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