Author Archives: garyjamesfootballarchive

City 2 Norwich 1

On this day (15 September) in 1990 Manchester City defeated Norwich 2-1 with goals from Mark Brennan and Niall Quinn. Fleck scored for Norwich. You can watch highlights here:

While you’re here why not find out more about the 1990-91 season when a shock managerial departure could have disrupted the club but ultimately they finished 5th, 3 points ahead of Manchester United. Here’s a 2,700 word article on that season:

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This series of articles and features will run throughout March with indepth articles some days and smaller ‘on this day’ style posts on others. There will be flashbacks to great games, players and more. Every day in March will offer something to enjoy.

Subscribers will get access to everything, while some on this day material will be free for all to view.

If you want to know more on this incredible decade for Manchester City Football Club then why not subscribe and read it all? If you’d like to know more about subscribing then see:

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Title Rivals: Manchester City and Brentford

With City and Brentford meeting today here’s a nice reminder of a day when both teams mounted a challenge for the League. Here’s a feature on a meeting between the sides played on April 3 1937.

The early months of the season were difficult for City. Significant injuries to captain Sam Barkas, and attackers Alec Herd and Fred Tilson had hampered City’s progress during the opening months. By the end of November the Blues were 12th and somewhat off the pace. However, things were about to change for Manchester’s Blues with an incredible undefeated run that began with victory over Middlesbrough on Boxing Day.

Before the away game at Brentford on April 3, City had gone 15 consecutive League games without defeat.

Subscribers can read what happened next in this 1200 word article…

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Film of Manchester City 6-1 Brentford

With Manchester City facing Brentford today, here’s a nice bit of footage from 23 January 1932 of the two teams meeting at Maine Road. The 1930s was a good era for both clubs – in fact Brentford challenged City for the 1936-37 League title (as you’ll see if you read my programme feature in today’s match programme). The game shown here is a FA Cup tie at Maine Rd in front of 56,190.

The game is the second on this film and starts after about 1 minute 25 seconds. Watch out for some lads obviously playing up for the camera at the start of the City-Brentford clip. My favourite is the lad who larks around with his coat (below image).

There’s also a cracking City goal right at the end of the clip. Enjoy! You may need to copy the following address into your browser to get the clip to play:

https://www.britishpathe.com/video/hard-luck-for-the-wolves

City’s scorers were Tilson (3), Brook (2) and Halliday.

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ITV National News: Corinthians

Next month it will be a year since our special day when the plans I’d been working on for five years came to fruition with the unveiling of the blue plaque to recognise the pioneering Manchester Corinthians. It all came together nicely. In terms of media coverage one of the highlights was the ITV national news who did an excellent feature. You can still watch it here if you missed it:

https://www.itv.com/watch/news/manchester-honours-the-team-who-defied-an-fa-ban-on-womens-football/ckpxws1

ITV had already featured the plaque unveiling on their Granada Reports show earlier that day:

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-10-06/honour-for-one-of-the-oldest-womens-football-teams

There was also coverage on BBC North West Tonight (sadly that’s no longer visible online) and various radio stations. There was also a Channel Five News feature too.

I’ve explained frequently how I’m writing the history of the Corinthians and the plaque unveiling was all part of the longstanding project I set up years ago to highlight the incredible work of these women (and other women’s clubs in Manchester).

You can find out more on the book which will be published later this year here:

Order: Manchester Corinthians Book

There are lots of images from the unveiling on this site, along with stories about the Corinthians. You can find out more on the appeal and on their history here:

Recognising the Manchester Corinthian Ladies Football Team

Game One For Manchester City v Bradford City

The first League game between Manchester City and Bradford City was a no score draw on this day (12 September) in 1908 at a newly improved Valley Parade – the Bantams had spent almost £10,000 on improving the ground including the construction of the Main Stand (later destroyed in the 1985 fire).  The City match was Bradford’s first home game in Division One, following promotion as Division Two champions the previous season.

The return match ended 4-3 in City’s favour at Hyde Road.  Tom Holford scored a hat-trick for City that day.

First League Cup Game

The first League Cup game between Manchester City and Ipswich was on 11 September 1961 at Portman Road.  The crowd of 14,926 watched City lose 4-2 to an Ipswich side destined to win the League Championship that season.

50 Years Ago Today: Colin Bell

On this day (10 September) in 1974 the great Manchester City star Colin Bell scored three goals as his City team defeated Scunthorpe 6-0 in the League Cup. The Blues had been League Cup finalists the previous season.

Subscribers to this site can read a 1,600 word article on the entire 1974-75 season – a season which saw Denis Law score for City (he definitely had not retired following the previous season’s Manchester derby!) and Tony Book guide the club for his first full season as manager. You can read this below.

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.

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1920s Manchester Derby Day Rivals

Here’s an interesting clip from this day (9 September) in 1977 featuring two Manchester football fans. This was shown on the BBC north west regional news programme on the eve of the Manchester Derby and originally would’ve included a voiceover which, sadly, has not survived.

The BBC’s David Davies talks with Nellie Walker, a supporter of Manchester City since the mid 1920s and Charlie Swinchatt, who had supported Manchester United since that time too.

https://bbcrewind.co.uk/asset/61d8676881037f0022f61528?q=Manchesteru0026amp;size=30

The derby the following day ended in a 3-1 City win with Brian Kidd netting a couple. You can view highlights here:

Trautmann Sent Off and MCFC Demonstrations!

It was a miserable day all round as Manchester City’s Bert Trautmann was sent off for booting the ball at the referee on this day (8 September) in 1962. City lost the game with West Ham 6-1 with Trautmann’s dismissal coming after the fifth goal.

After he had booted the ball at the ref, the official took out his notebook and ordered Trautmann off. The German goalkeeper immediately took his shirt off and headed down the tunnel and straight out of the ground and into his car.

Here are Trautmann’s views, as told to a journalist the following day:

The view from West Ham was that their team was not particularly worth the 6-1 victory. This London report makes interesting reading:

Demonstrations followed the game expressing anger towards the manager Les McDowall but Trautmann managed to escape fan criticism.

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Manchester Corinthians Latest

We’re getting closer to publication of my latest book Manchester Corinthians: The Authorised History and this is possibly the last chance I’ll get to do an appeal for names of women who played for the Corinthians or any of its sister clubs (yes, there were multiple sister clubs over the years, something often overlooked). So far I have over 300 names of women who played but I know there are many more, so if you played or have a relative who played then please get in touch with details.

Also, I’m compiling a list of every game I can find so if you have a match programme, ticket, report, photo or anything else of a game that I may have missed then please let me know. Thanks again.

The book has been delayed a little due to a family bereavement & health issues, but it will be published this year. It will be the most comprehensive history ever produced on the club and it will dispel myths, correct wrongs and add significant new information to our knowledge of this pioneering Manchester women’s football club, including even the formation date and the club’s end date! Yes, myths have often been repeated about both of those (and still get repeated).

There will be a fantastic array of photographs and stories included within the book. Due to the delay there is still an opportunity to order the book in advance and get your own name published within a special roll of honour. Details via link below:

Order: Manchester Corinthians Book