The regret and joy of not witnessing Sergio Aguero's Man City title winner

For the rest of my life, my biggest footballing regret will be not being inside the Etihad Stadium on May 13, 2012.

I was 14 at the time and, given how cruel teenagers can be, City's collapse in the title race was particularly hard to take. The days after City's crushing late defeat to Arsenal, a result that left the Blues eight points adrift of Premier League leaders and arch-rivals Manchester United, were tough.

Many of my school mates were Reds, and the mick-taking was almost unbearable. I cursed myself for even allowing the slightest hope of winning the title to enter my mind earlier in the season. As a kid in the mid-2000s, I'd dreamed of City one day winning the league - but that is how it would remain; a dream.

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Even a few days later when City thrashed West Brom and United suffered a surprise defeat at Wigan, I still thought it was over. Roberto Mancini's side were five points adrift with five games remaining.

People say that children have a special, slightly naïve sense of optimism and belief, because they have not experienced the pains and setbacks that life throws at us adults. But I think that teenagers are even more pessimistic than adults - the slightest set-back is the end of the world, whether that be rebuffed love interest or a football team losing.

I wasn't a season ticket holder at the time, so me and my dad used to buy tickets for individual games. We'd been to a fair few in 2011/12 (so much so that we decided to queue for four hours to buy season tickets for the following campaign) but by mid-April I'd lost hope.

I didn't actively avoid buying tickets for