On this day (19 August) in 2007 Sven’s Manchester City defeated Fergie’s United 1-0 in Sven’s first derby since joining City that summer. His City career ended with him having a 100% win record in the derby. Here’s a video of Geovanni’s goal:
Category Archives: Free
Chelsea v City
It’s Chelsea v Manchester City today. There are lots of features on this site about the two clubs such as this one talking about Alan Oakes’ debut:
Other features on City & Chelsea games can be read here:
Forward as Goalkeeper for 3/4 of Game v Chelsea
This weekend Manchester City face Chelsea and it’s reminded me of this newspaper cutting from the 1930s. I love this cutting showing Manchester City striker Eric Brook in nets v Chelsea. He was deputising for the Blues’ injured goalkeeper. It looks like Brook had a bandana on his head here too! The photo was taken on December 17 1932. You can read the match report here.
City were losing 1-0 when Nicholls was injured 15 minutes into the match and the scoreline became even more convincing as the game progressed. However this report (from a London edition of a national newspaper) states that City were the better team in both halves.
4-4 at Chelsea X 2
It’s Manchester City at Chelsea this weekend. Last season that same fixture ended in a 4-4 draw and this was heralded as a great game by the Sky TV pundits. As fans, these sort of games never feel like great games at the time but neutrals obviously love them. 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 last year 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 last season’s 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 last season’s game wasn’t the first time City had drawn 4-4 at Chelsea and, coincidentally I’d tweeted about this before last year’s 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!
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DonateStadium Opener
On this day (14 August) in 2003 the City of Manchester Stadium (now Etihad Stadium) staged its first competitive game as City defeated TNS 5-0 in the UEFA Cup. Relive that night (and Granada TV!) with this video of the game:
The report above talks of the UEFA Cup draw with TNS.
50 Years Ago Today: Asa Hartford
Asa Hartford signed for Manchester City on this day (13 August) in 1974. You can find several articles that mention Asa throughout this website. Start looking here:
A New Era: Keegan
On this day (11 August) in 2001 new Manchester City manager Kevin Keegan guided the Blues to a 3-0 victory against Watford at Maine Road. You can watch highlights of that win here (and relive the season):
Video of History Of Women’s Football Talk
If you’re interested in women’s football or in football in Trafford or Manchester then get your self a brew, settle down and enjoy this video of my talk. It was part of my work on the #WEuro2022 Heritage Lottery funded project and my long standing project into the history of women’s football in Manchester. Here goes:
This talk on the history of women’s football was staged at the National Football Museum a few years back. The talk lasts about 47 mins. Enjoy!
The Trafford Archive website I mention during my talk is available here:
https://exploringtraffordsheritage.omeka.net/exhibits/show/traffordwomensfootball
The work on the Manchester Corinthians continues and you can find out about the Authorised History here:
Historic Name That Ground
Recently I’ve mentioned about a series of name that ground features I posted on to the site a while back. They’re all still up there and free to access but if you want to test yourself here’s a few:
You can find the answers to these on this page:
Historic Name That Ground
Recently I’ve mentioned about a series of name that ground features I posted on to the site a while back. They’re all still up there and free to access but if you want to test yourself here’s a few:
You can find the answers to these here:
I’ll post some of the others soon.
Gary James' Football Archive 