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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Dominic Farrell

Man City fan who made Yaya Toure's Periscope masterclass possible - and you still owe him a pint

Manchester City return to Premier League action at Crystal Palace on Monday, with Selhurst Park the scene for plenty of memorable days out over recent years.

There was Edin Dzeko’s early opener in 2014, just after Steven Gerrard 'let it slip' in Liverpool’s defeat to Chelsea on the same day, Kelechi Iheanacho’s injury-time heroics in summer 2015 and Yaya Toure’s surprise return and match-winning brace in Pep Guardiola’s first season.

Toure loved Selhurst Park and he also netted a trademark free-kick to cap a 3-0 FA Cup fourth-round win later in the same campaign.

That game was a Saturday 3pm kick-off and, as such, fell beneath the UK’s football broadcast blackout. For many City fans, it will be forever known as the Periscope match.

“I posted a picture of me or the ground or something on Twitter and a few people started replying saying ‘film it’,” City fan Josh Chambers told City Is Ours , recalling a day when he became the unlikely hero of the online City community.

“So I thought, ‘why not?’, got Periscope out and started streaming. Then it just started to blow up - I think because people were looking around and there was nowhere else streaming it.

“Even my dad stumbled across the stream. I hadn’t told him where to look or anything. It sort of crashed my phone a little bit, I couldn’t do anything with it and it started overheating.”

But it wasn’t just Josh’s friends and family members who were relying on his device lasting the course after Raheem Sterling put City ahead late in the first half.

“I looked and it was about 86,000 who were watching it live, which was a bit mad,” he said.

“There were then another 30 or 40-odd thousand who watched it on replay. I don’t know what the final number was.”

The battery and software ultimately held firm, with kind offers of charging packs forthcoming from elsewhere in the away end.

However, Josh discovered other perils of trying to play television director via Twitter’s short-lived streaming app.

“There was one awkward moment when I was trying to zoom in,” he explained. “People were commenting so I was trying to interact and get a better shot of the [stadium] screen when there was a replay of a goal or something.

“I double-tapped and it flipped the camera around and it wouldn’t flip back. There was a period where I was panicking and I’ve got all these people watching my face.

“It ended up becoming a bit of a meme with screenshots of my face going around City Twitter."

Leroy Sane extended City’s lead during the second half before Josh got some wonderfully-framed footage of Toure’s closing salvo.

There had also been plenty of buzz around Gabriel Jesus’ full debut, which in part accounted for Josh’s huge global audience.

“I found there were a lot of people from around the world messaging me,” he said. “There was a Toronto fan group who got in touch, people in Brazil - people from all over the place.

“It made me realise there are a lot more City fans out there.”

Monday’s game will be shown live on Sky Sports meaning Josh, who is in the process of trying to source a ticket for the match, can leave this one to the professionals.

But if he does make it to Selhurst Park again, there are few promises to be called in.

“I was promised a lot of beers and pints but I’ve never had one,” he chuckled.

“I’d never really thought of it as being City folklore, but maybe there is a little bit of that. It does feel nice.”

Did you watch City's FA Cup win over Palace in 2017 on Periscope? Follow the City Is Ours editor Dom Farrell on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comments section below.

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