Man City remember their roots as Champions League adds to global pull

"There is someone behind us looking out the window from their house seeing a Playzone that looks amazing, and there is something that keeps catching the eye. It's either the Champions League, the FA Cup or the Premier League trophy."

Nedum Onuoha can scarcely believe what he's saying, or where he is, but this is actually happening in a park in Newton Heath, a few miles from the Etihad Stadium in Manchester, surrounded by houses on one side and a train line on the other. In the middle, next to a brand new Playzone the City in the Community (CITC) Trustee has just opened to give youngsters a space to play football and hang out, glorious sunshine means that light bounces off the three gleaming trophies that Manchester City have lifted in the last two weeks.

For anyone who travelled to Istanbul last week to watch the club win their first-ever Champions League final, the haze from a mesmerising city and the daze from a severe lack of sleep probably makes things even more surreal, but this is still anything but a glamorous location to showcase the Treble in Manchester for the first time. The fact that one of City's first thoughts after winning all of the trophies was to delight some local schoolchildren, who arrived at the park for a CITC session unaware of the special guests on display, is a credit to the club.

City's director of sales, services and operations, Danny Wilson, explains in a voice still hoarse from Istanbul celebrations why they have done it. "Winning the Champions League raises the profile of the club but also from a community perspective, this being the first thing we've done since we get back to bring the trophies here goes back to what this club has been based on and rooted in for the last 130 years: a club