IAN HERBERT: Is it beyond City fans to respect Sir Bobby, who helped put Manchester on the map?

It's perhaps inevitable that Manchester City are barely represented in the sea of flowers presently laid at the front of Old Trafford.

Liverpool, Everton and Burnley shirts have been placed there in tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton. West Ham, Cardiff and Barnsley are also represented.

But there is almost nothing which adds to a sense that this week transcends old blue/red divides and that United’s loss is the city of Manchester’s loss.

That’s what stored up bitterness can do - and City have certainly been on the receiving end of some from Manchester United in recent years.

A few of those on their staff had the misfortune to cross Sir Alex Ferguson’s path behind the scenes when the teams met, during the early stages of club’s journey from upstarts to dominant Manchester force.

Ferguson positively loathed City in their early Abu Dhabi era, and he let them know about it. But is it too much to ask that City’s fans make a positive showof respect to the memory of Sir Bobby when the teams meet on Sunday?

And, at the very least, that a minority of supporters might not be permitted to pollute the occasion with the kind of vile chants about Sir Bobby’s passing which were issuing around the Etihad at half-time during last weekend’s win over Brighton?

That’s the stadium built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games which Sir Bobby helped secure for Manchester. The stadium which was fundamental to Abu Dhabi deciding to buy City, when Newcastle United and Everton were also contenders.

The chants which were such an abomination last Saturday would have been bewildering to those of the Charlton generation, who did not know or understand that kind of attention-seeking and pumped up hate.

The City and United players of that era knew each other and shared in