Maine Road 100 – Day 34

It’s day 34 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game. Today – Bert Trautmann’s testimonial scenes.

In 1964 Manchester City staged a testimonial game for legendary City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. Officially there were less than 48,000 there (in a stadium that could hold in excess of 60,000) yet fans and others there that night know the attendance was much higher. My own dad told me last week how him & my mam were going to the game but when they arrived the turnstiles were closed and thousands were locked out a long time before kick off.

There are stories of some fans trying to climb walls to get in and others talk about the packed terraces and stands.

It was truly the biggest testimonial game ever at Maine Road in terms of numbers, even if officially it was short of capacity. In the 90s I often asked players and officials from that era about this attendance, including Bert. No one actually wanted to say much about the discrepancy between the numbers officially reported and the actual volume of people in attendance, so we can leave all of that to the imagination. What they did all agree on is that there must have been well over 60,000 there that night and that Bert deserved whatever was raised from the match.

This image from 1961 shows how the stadium looked at the time of Trautmann’s testimonial.

Below is a view of Maine Road from 1971. The main image of fans on the pitch (above) is taken from near the Main Stand (number 2) looking across to the Kippax (7/8).

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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