Maine Road 100 – Day 16

The only abandoned Manchester derby at Maine Road… It’s day 16 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and with the FA Cup final tomorrow I thought I’d post a Manchester derby related feature.

This photo is of a section of my book The Pride of Manchester (co-written with Steve Cawley) which shows the scene at the only Manchester derby to be abandoned (without the result standing!).

The game was a League match played on 27 August 1960 (date on original book caption is a typo!) at Maine Road. It was abandoned due to a water-logged pitch with the score at 2-2. City’s scorers were Denis Law and Joe Hayes; United’s were Dennis Viollet and Alex Dawson. Attendance 51,927.

The match was replayed and ended in a 3-1 United win on 4 March 1961 before 50,479.

For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate where the photo was taken from. It was taken on the pitch, somewhere near the Kippax corner/Scoreboard End (roughly on a line from number 2 below, and in front of number 10), looking towards the Platt Lane goal (a little below number 3).

If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:

Farewell To Maine Road – Part One

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