Back then, he wasn’t to know that over half a billion pounds of Sheikh Mansour’s money would go on what Chief Executive Garry Cook calls a “project”. But while hundreds of millions in transfer fees have enhanced their standing on the field and millions more have made City look slicker off it, more modest sums have allowed them to completely alter the face of football elsewhere.

In the Europa League last night, City prolonged Red Bull Salzburg’s ongoing failure to buy success beyond Austria’s borders. It’s five years since Red Bull acquired and adulterated the ailing Bundesliga side Austria Salzburg; rebadging and renaming the club in line with its brand-leading energy drink.

But just last summer, Manchester City were involved in the transformation of hard-up Hyde United from a club with not only “United” in its name but red shirts, to one without the offending suffix and colours. All in “celebration of our 125 year anniversary” according to Hyde FC, but the club soon unveiled white and blue strips bearing the sponsor City In The Community, which certainly underlined the initiative’s claim to make “a huge difference to the lives of those around us”

The kindest thing there is to say about this is that the manipulation of Hyde United has slightly more to do with football than Red Bull’s of Salzburg. Hyde FC’s Ewen Fields received more than just a lick of sky blue paint before City’s reserves made themselves at home, but in a move indecipherable from audacity or stupidity, they too have been retitled as Manchester City Elite Development Squad.

City fans had no more to do with this nonsense than those of the former Hyde United, but the non-league club’s dire straits, just as in Salzburg, put them in the path of an irresistible cash whirlwind.

Garry Cook isn’t a football man but the former Nike executive understands brands, and City’s foray into Hyde illustrates the complexity of a supporter’s relationship with their club’s brand. It’s a word that evokes consumer choice, but as a fan there is no other club for us so surely we must be more than merely consumers of a brand. Therefore there is no choice, so clubs must be more than brands and fans more than consumers.

However, brought up on tales of past success and derring-do, good times are what our hearts desire and the brand-minded know it. That’s why decades of tradition can be warped or slaughtered in subservience to other, bigger, brands and we still turn up in Hyde, Milton Keynes, Salzburg, New York and Leipzig to watch the resultant footballing Frankenstein’s monsters.

“When the real is no longer what it was,” observed Jean Baudrillard, “nostalgia assumes its full meaning.” In Wimbledon and the violet half of Salzburg (I hear there’s even a team in Manchester) there are indeed reminders that so often branding sells football fans short. There we’ll find the inspiration that it’s history and tradition that invigorates communities; that fans are not consumers; and that football clubs underestimate the power we wield at their peril.

Of interest instead this evening is the first pairing of Celtic and Rapid Vienna since the two clubs slugged out an ugly Cup Winners Cup tie in 1984.

At Parkhead, Celtic overturned a 3-1 first leg deficit but were ordered to do it all over again by UEFA after Rapid midfielder Rudi Weinhofer claimed to have been struck by a bottle chucked vaguely in his direction from the crowd.

Weinhofer left the ground with his head wrapped in a comedy bandage, and the Austrians eventually progressed to the quarter finals after a venomous replay at Old Trafford, where goalscorer Peter Pacult had the smile wiped from his face by a Celtic fan.

Pacult is Rapid’s boss these days, and may aim to land a few blows of his own with the aid of specially re-introduced all-red strip to commemorate 1984′s skandalspiel victory. It’s just “a joke”, Rapid say – though Celtic are unlikely to see the funny side if history were to repeat itself tonight.