Manchester City have drawn Newcastle away in the FA Cup this year and this reminds me of 4 January 1975 when City played ‘away’ at Maine Road against Newcastle United in the FA Cup. The tie should have been played at Newcastle but the FA ordered that the match be played at Maine Road following crowd disorder at St. James’ Park the previous season. City lost the match 2-0.
Were you at this match? If so why not leave your memory as a comment or email it to me for possible future use on this website?
You can read a 1500 article on the 1974-75 season here:
It’s Tottenham v City today, so an appropriate time to look back at other meetings. The two clubs first met in a FA Cup tie in January 1909 with the first League game coming at White Hart Lane on 27 December 1910. City’s first scorer in a League match with Spurs was John Smith, who netted in that first League game (a 1-1 draw). Smith played in only 18 League games (scoring 6) for City.
There are plenty of articles on my website concerning games between City and Tottenham, and here’s a link to the heatwave game played on 27 September 1913:
Here’s film of the FA Cup 4th round tie from this day (29 January) in 1955 when Manchester City defeated Manchester United 2-0. Joe Hayes and Don Revie were the City scorers. Enjoy: https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/59278/
This series on Manchester City in the 1950s includes free items and items only available to subscribers. If you’d like to find out more on the 1954-55 season then subscribe and read the following 3,400 word article on it. It’s a season when City reached the FA Cup final and Don Revie was FWA Footballer of the Year.
This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.
Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.
Here’s film of a FA Cup tie between Manchester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers from this day (12 January) in 1952: https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/52898/ The game ended in a 2-2 draw at Maine Road before 54,497. The City scorers were Jimmy Meadows and Don Revie (penalty).
The series on the 1950s includes some free articles and some subscriber only features. If you’d like to know more on this period then why not subscriber and enjoy the following article on the 1951-52 season.
This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.
Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.
It’s Christmas Day 1902 and these were the ticket prices for the big Manchester Derby match played at Clayton (the present day BMX site next to the velodrome). The game ended in a 1-1 draw. It’s so strange to think today that many of us would have headed off to a ground on Christmas Day in years gone by. Notice the seats that you could have at United – arm chairs! That’s right. It’s Christmas Day so I’ll hold off making any funny comments but imagine if Old Trafford advertised ‘arm chairs’.
Merry Christmas to all. I hope it’s a safe, comfortable and enjoyable few days for you all wherever you are.
If you’d like to read more on this season, then here’s a 1,500 word article on the 1950-51 season. Enjoy!
This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.
Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.
I’ve been sorting out my writing area and have been going through my collection. I’ll post a few odd bits on here over the coming weeks but I spotted this earlier today and thought I’d get this posted straight away. It’s the first issue of King of the Kippax and I remember buying it when it first came out in 1988. I’d previously bought Blueprint, which had included material from Dave and Sue Wallace (the editors of King of the Kippax), and used to eagerly look for any new fanzine back then. This copy remains part of my collection and probably will do for as long as I have a collection.
Dave and Sue created something special with this fanzine and who would have thought that decades later they would still be producing it. I missed the deadline for the last print edition of King of the Kippax sadly, but here’s something I wrote back in 2013 when there was a series of football anniversaries. I hope it gives a feel of how I felt about fanzines and the role of King of the Kippax over the decades.
It’s a season of footballing anniversaries this year (2013). The FA celebrates 150 years, the Football League 125 and King of the Kippax an amazing 25 years. Of these three anniversaries KK is inevitably getting the least focus but in many ways its significance to football, or at least our team, has been greater during its first 25 years than the FA’s first 25.
The FA did little to support football in Manchester for decades and it wasn’t until Manchester’s clubs started to take the FA Cup seriously that the organisation began to matter. But even then the FA did its upmost to prevent our professional clubs from challenging properly. In 1904 when City became Manchester’s first FA Cup winners how did the FA react? They decided we must be doing something illegal and sent auditors to the club to determine if we had ‘bought’ success. Okay, so they found a few irregularities with a transfer from Glossop, but for the following year or so they relentlessly pursued our club (and to be fair did something similar with Newton Heath, who became United, and with Glossop). Ultimately, we received a devastating punishment and the club could have died. I won’t go on about how unjust all of this was – City were no worse than most sides the difference being that the FA was determined to catch us out! – but if you do want to read an account of it dig out my latest book “Manchester The City Years”.
Despite all of this the FA Cup actually gave City our first success and we should ensure we celebrate 23 April 1904 (the date of the final) every year – make St George’s Day City’s day!
The Football League was more supportive of City during those early years, but prior to 1892 the League had no involvement from either Manchester side despite the League holding its first meeting in Manchester. Our celebrations of the League should really come in 4 years’ time when it’ll be 125 years since City (as Ardwick) joined the League. Although it’s worth pointing out that Ardwick and Manchester City were two separate organisations – and stressed as such at the time – and even existed alongside each other for a short while (personally though, I see MCFC as a continuation of Ardwick in spirit if not in legal terms). From 1892 to 2002 (when City last competed in the Football League) the Football League was central to City’s life. The competition became City’s lifeblood as far as competition was concerned.
What about KK? Well, unlike the other two KK was significant to City and City fans from the start. It was born in an era when fans had much to say but little opportunity to be heard. Alongside the other fanzines born in the late 1980s KK gave us a voice and a shared understanding of what the issues at City and in football were. Before the fanzines our only real outlet was the Piccadilly Radio phone-in on Saturdays which came in to its own during the time James H Reeve was at the helm. We had no forums, blogs, tweets etc. We didn’t have phone-in shows on national radio or fan columns in newspapers. We didn’t have interaction with the club, other than via supporters clubs meetings which some fans saw as being too weak to challenge the club on key issues (I won’t get into all of that here, but it’s worth noting that some fans did feel the Supporters Club was too close to Peter Swales and, as he was often the cause of fan concerns, that caused some issues).
We did also have the Pink postbag in the Saturday sports paper, sadly no longer with us. Unfortunately, journalists on the paper in the late 80s would contact the club to get their views before publishing a controversial or critical letter (this happened with one from me in 1987 which presented evidence about an issue that mattered to fans but was ultimately swept under the carpet). Censorship and club propaganda was an issue at a time when the game was dying and fans were being treated appallingly.
King of the Kippax helped to give us a voice and helped highlight the issues. Staff at City would be sent out to buy the fanzine in its early days, while others would do all they could to limit the fanzine’s opportunity to question what was going on – proving the significance of the fanzine. I don’t want to get too giddy about what KK and the other fanzines achieved but it is important that we all understand what has been achieved. It’s a bit like the electoral system – people fought hard to get the vote in the face of adversity but today we take it all for granted. We think it’s always been like this. Now with social media it would be easy to forget what KK and the other fanzines have achieved. Many fanzines have stopped being produced, which makes it all the more important to celebrate KK’s 25th anniversary and to congratulate Dave, Sue and all the contributors over the years for what they’ve achieved. I still read KK from cover to cover and find all the regular contributors interesting. I don’t always agree with everything I read but, I guess, that’s always been the point. KK has promoted debate and encouraged fans to think about issues, and that’s how it should be.
I hope King Of The Kippax continues to provide a powerful outlet for fans for years to come. It’s important that we remember that before the fanzines we didn’t have a voice. Thanks Dave & Sue, and the others, for all you’ve done and continue to do for us.
If you enjoy all the free material on my website and would like to support my research and keep this website going (but don’t want to subscribe) then why not make a one-time donation (or buy me a coffee). All support for my research is valued and welcome. It allows me to keep some free material available for all. Thanks.
Here’s film of Blackburn Rovers v Manchester City from this day (18 November) in 1950: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX5BjwHhKPs I won’t mention the score! Ray Haddington scored for City though.
If you’d like to read more on this season, then here’s a 1,500 word article on the 1950-51 season. Enjoy!
This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.
Subscribe to get access
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.
It’s worth reminding ourseleves of this game from 12 November 2023 when Manchester City drew 4-4 at Chelsea. It was heralded as a great game by the media but for fans of the teams involved they tend to feel like opportunities lost or maybe great comebacks depending on which side you support. Immediately after the game in 2023 I was asked when City’s previous 4-4 draw was and I spent a few minutes thinking ‘I’ve never seen one before involving City, or have I?’ So, I then started to scour the material in my collection and was somewhat surprised to find it was against Grimsby in September 1950! Certainly many, many years before I was born.
My favourite goal in that match at Chelsea was the one Haaland scored with his er… um… er… shorts area. The City scorers were: Haaland (25 minutes pen, 47 minutes), Akanji (45+1 minutes), Rodri (86 minutes) and for Chelsea (including two City old boys): Thiago Silva (29 minutes), Sterling (37 minutes), Jackson (67 minutes), Palmer (90+5minutes pen).
Incredibly that game wasn’t the first time City had drawn 4-4 at Chelsea and, coincidentally I’d tweeted about this before the 2023 match. I never expected history to repeat itself. You can read about the earlier match via the link below. Incidentally, the game was in 1936-37 and City won the title that year – as they did in 2023-24!
If you enjoy all the free material on my website and would like to support my research and keep this website going (but don’t want to subscribe) then why not make a one-time donation (or buy me a coffee). All support for my research is valued and welcome. It allows me to keep some free material available for all. Thanks.
David White signed professional forms for Manchester City on this day (30 October) in 1985. You can find several articles that mention David throughout this website. Start looking here:
Gary James' Football Archive 