St Peter’s Square is a place synonymous with Manchester’s radical tradition and the city’s history of standing tall in opposition to tyranny and oppression.
Previously known as St Peter’s Field, it was the site of the Peterloo Massacre on August 16, 1819, when cavalry charged a crowd of 60,000 people protesting in favour of parliamentary reform and universal suffrage.
An estimated 18 people, including four women and a child, died from sabre cuts and trampling, with almost 700 people seriously injured.
That dark day was influential in ordinary people in the UK winning the right to vote, and the values of equality and sacrifice can be seen in the square today, from the statue of Suffragette Emmaline Pankhurst to the Manchester Cenotaph.
It was, therefore, a fitting setting for Manchester’s Ukrainian community to lead a vigil on Thursday night following the Russian invasion of their homeland.
Among their number was Manchester City full-back and Ukraine international Oleksandr Zinchenko, who looked visibly emotional.
“What would you do if someone abroad attacked the UK? How would you react? It's how he feels,” Guardiola replied when asked about Zinchenko attending the event, where Manchester City Council lit up the Central Library in Ukraine’s national colours of yellow and blue.
“We spoke all of us, I spoke with him. Everyone, the friends, the staff. Oleks is an incredibly strong guy, a really brilliant guy.
“Of course, it's not easy but today and yesterday in training he was brilliant. He's ready to play in case he has to play.”
At times like this, football feels incredibly unimportant, articles like this even more so and entirety futile to boot.
But tragedies such as the war in Ukraine also compel us towards acts of solidarity and togetherness because they’re even grimmer to consider alone with our thoughts, however much the past two years have made everyone very familiar with their own company.
It is here, beneath the sheen some of them have as multi-billion pound businesses, that football clubs are valuable as ever-changing and growing communities.
Hopefully, it was a comfort, however small, to Zinchenko as his team-mates and coaches rallied around him over the past couple of days. It will be the same from fans when he emerges at Goodison Park on Saturday. Whether a starter or a substitute, his will be the biggest cheer. There will be Ukrainian flags. We’re with you, Oleks.
Guardiola was right to touchingly describe him as “an incredibly strong guy, a really brilliant guy”, but he didn’t need to because we already know that. City fans love Zinchenko because he’s very easy to love.
We love how he skews tiresome graphics and discussions about the overall cost of a starting XI because he only cost £1.7m.
We love how he has repeatedly refused to entertain the idea that he might not play for Manchester City.
We love that he was the unheralded CFG signing who broke into the first-team squad after a rubbish loan spell. That increased his value, so he was going to be sold to Wolves. We love how Zinchenko decided he'd simply become Guardiola’s first-choice left-back instead.
He lost that status, only to regain it again and start a Champions League final. We love how he never actually plays in his natural position of midfield, apart from when Guardiola threw him in there against Paris Saint-Germain and he was brilliant.
Zinchenko is down the pecking order again at the moment, but we all know it would be madness to write him off. This iron will was forged when he left Shakhtar Donetsk after four years with their youth setup in 2014.
This was at the time when tensions in the Donbas region between Ukranian forces and Russian-aligned separatists spilt over. The seeds of the heinous conflict we see before us today forced an early change of course in Zinchenko’s career.
As reported by The Independent last year, Zinchenko’s uncle moved the family to Moscow, where he continued to pursue a career despite legal wranglings over his status with Shakhtar.
That scuppered a move to Rubin Kazan before a deal to join FC Ufa set him on the road to City.
The sporting adversity Zinchenko had to overcome to even get to Manchester was in part caused by the ongoing geopolitical catastrophe that now puts any frustrations over the fortunes of a football career into stark context.
Boxing greats Wladimir Klitschko and Vital Klitschko have pledged to join the fight against Russia, while current unified heavyweight champion and Zinchenko’s friend Oleksandr Usyk has returned to the country.
Seeing sports stars familiar from our television screens thrown into such a scenario is one of many aspects that is nearly impossible to compute amid waves of anger, fear and upset.
Alongside surrealness is the feeling of powerlessness. What on earth is there to do at times like this?
This brings us back to those little actions of community and kindness. Cheer Oleksandr Zinchenko loud and proud over these next few weeks, Blues. Drape yourself in his colours and bring a tiny bit of light into these times of incredible darkness.
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