How North Carolina sparked Kings of Leon drummer's love of City | OneFootball

Nathan Followill has explained why the North Carolina Tar Heels helped inspire his love for Manchester City.

A fan for over 20 years, the Kings of Leon drummer’s love of the Club has coincided with the band’s growth into one of the most successful rock groups of their generation.

Asked where that passion came from, Followill highlighted our iconic Manchester derby win in 2004, when City ran out 3-1 winners at the Etihad Stadium.

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However, he also added that our famous sky blue kits – a colour shared by the University of North Carolina's athletics team the Tar Heels – sealed the deal.

“Manchester City are the reason why I fell in love with football. The City blue, it’s so beautiful,” he told mancity.com ahead of their recent gig at Co-Op Live arena.

“I cheered for them [in 2004] because they were the underdogs of that game, and I love a spoiler. They won, and you could hear the announcer saying like: ‘that might have just blown United's chance of winning it all.’

“I was like, even more amazing, and I fell in love with them [City]. Every time we came back over [to England], anytime there was a City game on I would watch it or go and find a pub.

“We came to Manchester and played our first show, and I wore a City jersey, and realised that half the crowd cheered for me and the other half threw things at me.

“Luckily my drums are so far back that the rest of the guys took the brunt of it!

“Since then, I've just been a City fan. I've got kids now and they have their City kits and I’m just passing along my love to my children.”

WATCH: City v Celtic: English and Scottish champions to meet in North Carolina

City’s pre-season tour of the United States gets under way against Celtic at Chapel Hill’s Kenan Stadium on Tuesday 23 July at 19:30 (EDT).

It’s the reigning English champions against our Scottish equivalents, with both sides boasting a rich history and similar ambitions for silverware in 2024/25.

The first of four friendlies for Pep Guardiola’s men, the clash provides fans with a first opportunity to watch the team since securing a record fourth-successive top flight title.

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And Followill expects City to be given an incredibly warm welcome at the 55,000-seater Kenan Stadium for what’s sure to be an exciting clash.

He added: “You will feel very at home.

“Something tells me that you’ll be North Carolina's Premier League team from that day forward.

“You'll gain a whole state just by the beautiful, beautiful blue.”

Formed in Nashville in 1999, Kings of Leon have since gone on to release nine studio albums, the most recent being Can We Please Have Fun earlier this year.

But the four-time Grammy and two-time Brit award winners will always credit England as the country which really helped to kickstart their careers.

Fast forward to 2024, and they’re selling out Co-Op Live, the biggest indoor arena in the United Kingdom.

Followill, however, will never forget their humble beginnings, and the importance of their English fanbase in those early years.

“We were so lucky 20 years in and not only to be able to do this but to go to places where people actually want to see you and actually want to spend their hard-earned money to come watch you

“I remember we played a show, probably to 10-12,000 people which for us was the biggest of that time.

“We left there and got to Heathrow, and we're taking pictures with all the workers thinking ‘oh yeah, this is it.’

“And we got back to Nashville, and our mom was standing down there all by herself waiting on us to come down the escalator!

“England really made the Kings of Leon.”

USA TOUR 2024

City face Celtic, AC Milan, Barcelona and Chelsea during the Club’s pre-season tour of the United States.

As always, mancity.com and the official app are the best places to keep across all things City during our time in the US.

Including pre-match press conferences and live open training as well as detailed and varied in-game and post-friendly coverage of all our fixtures, our website and app provide fans with a complete City experience, all from one handy place.

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Our matches will be shown on both platforms in the following countries: United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Sweden and United Arab Emirates.

To access these matches from one of the locations listed above, you will need an active CITY+ subscription. Those same restrictions will apply to full-match replays and Pitcam highlights.

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For fans living outside of the countries named, we will have a full explainer article on how to tune in coming in due course.

Subscribers will be able to watch on the official app and mancity.com, with the option to cast matches onto their TV from mobile devices. Find out how to do this via our handy guide here.

For more information on CITY+, including subscription prices, click here.