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Vivianne Miedema Joins Manchester City

Exciting news for fans of Manchester City Women: I’ve received this media release… Vivianne Miedema joins Manchester City on a three-year deal 

  • Vivianne Miedema joins Manchester City on a deal that will keep her at the Joie Stadium until the summer of 2027. 
  • Regularly commended as one of the best strikers in modern football, the 27-year-old is the all-time leading goalscorer in the Barclays Women’s Super League and has scored more goals at international level for the Netherlands than any other player across both the women’s and men’s teams. 
  • The 27-year-old becomes City’s first signing of the summer transfer window. 

Manchester City are delighted to announce the signing of Netherlands international Vivianne Miedema on a three-year deal. The 27-year-old forward makes the move to Manchester after seven seasons at Arsenal. 

Miedema is the record goalscorer in Barclays Women’s Super League history and for the Netherlands, netting 80 and 95 times respectively for Club and country – more than any other player across both the women’s and men’s teams. 

Miedema will wear the number six shirt and reunites with Dutch teammates Jill Roord and Kerstin Casparij. Miedema said: “The reason I chose City is because they have the same ambitions as me. They want to win the league and titles. 

“Looking to the future, I’ve always said I want to play with best players in the world and I think City have got that. I haven’t played as much football as I would have wished over the past two years, but I think and hope my best years are still to come. I hope I’m going to be able to help the team as much as I can do. 

“I am just really excited to be part of the team and for the girls to hopefully help me and get me back to my best. If I get back to my best again then we can achieve really nice things together. I do think this is the place to be right now. In the end, it was an easy choice for me. I want to challenge myself every day in training, but also every single week in the games we play.” 

Manchester City Women Managing Director Charlotte O’Neill added: “Our North Star is to become the best women’s sporting organisation in the world, and key to achieving our ambitions, on and off the pitch, is to recruit, retain and develop the world’s best players and consistently challenge for major titles. 

“Viv’s signing is very much part of that plan, and we’re delighted to be bringing another icon of women’s football to the Joie Stadium for our fans.” 

Head Coach Gareth Taylor continued: “We’re really looking forward to welcoming Viv to City and seeing her flourish over the next three years. Our ambition is to compete on the highest stage and for the highest honours, and Viv is aligned to this desire. 

“She’s a top talent that I’m excited to work with as she’s a player I’ve always admired. Viv will be a real asset to the team.” 

Miedema will link up with her country for UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 qualifying matches against Italy and Norway before joining up with City for pre-season training at the end of July and the first-ever Perth International Football Cup in preparation for the 2024-25 season. 

40 Years Ago Today: David White

David White signed apprentice forms for Manchester City on this day (4 June) in 1984. You can find several articles that mention David throughout this website. Start looking here:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/david-white/

40 Years Ago Today: Paul Moulden

Paul Moulden signed apprentice forms for Manchester City on this day (4 June) in 1984. You can find several articles that mention Paul throughout this website. Start looking here:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/paul-moulden/

The New Badge & Pep’s Arrival

On this day (3 July) in 2016 the new Manchester City badge was officially launched at the Cityzens Weekend. It was also the formal official welcome for new manager Pep Guardiola. There was a surreal moment for me when I was asked to go on stage to be interviewed about the new badge.

I had been consulted by the club on the history of all of City’s badges, emblems and similar for about a year or so, and had performed a series of talks to fans throughout the consultation period.

https://gjfootballarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/img_2377.mov

This was the most detailed badge consultation had ever performed with fans at any club – sadly too many clubs impose a badge without listening to fans. Doing the talks as part of the consultation helped bring out the stories of each emblem and why it was significant – or not! Understanding why, for example, the red rose was introduced in 1972 following the takeover of the club by Joe Smith & Co. or how the 3 emblazoned lines had always been a part of City’s badge (apart from 1972 and the Swales years that followed) helped some determine what elements mattered most to them.

You can find out more about City’s badge history here:

Manchester’s Emblems

In 2016 I was the warm up act for Pep so it’s a wonder anybody listened. It was a great, positive day for the club and for all of us there. The years since Pep’s arrival have been truly outstanding. We all had hope on this day in 2016 but who’d have thought it would have been as great as it has been?

50 Years Ago: Peter Barnes

Peter Barnes signed professional forms for Manchester City on this day (1 July) in 1974. You can find several articles that mention Peter throughout this website. Start looking here:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/category/peter-barnes/

Jeremy Vine and Media Today

If you missed myself and Pete Boyle on BBC Radio 2 today at 1.30pm (UK time) talking about City and United then you can play it here

It was the Jeremy Vine show (after 1hour 40mins):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00209p6

Enjoy! I was on as a City supporter and Pete Boyle represented the United angle.

Sadly, our time was reduced and so I didn’t have chance to mention Sir Howard Bernstein, who died this weekend. Howard was a key figure behind Manchester’s redevelopment and was hugely influencial in the regeneration of east Manchester, including the stadium and the wider Etihad campus.

His death is a sad loss to Manchester. A politician who did what he said he’d do and helped improve the city.

Something that has been getting a bit of attention this weekend concerns MCFC sponsorship deals back in 2011. The journalist Nick Harris was complaining about it yesterday and implied the value was inflated and so on. It’s all fairly typical stuff but it is worth noting that Harris’ view has changed significantly since 2011. Back then he actually claimed City’s sponsorship was fair, and possibly even undervalued!

I won’t go into it all but here’s how his August 2011 piece was headlined:

Sir Howard Bernstein is mentioned in other articles on this site such as:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/sir-howard-bernstein/

The Financial Significance of Football to Manchester

Over the years I’ve done quite a few talks on the history of football to Manchester and have also focused on the financial significance of the sport to Manchester. Here are a few slides that spell out a few facts. Obviously, I normally include explanation behind a lot of this when I talk but nevertheless I think they may be of interest as stand alone slides.

These slides were from 2019 and so the figures will have changed since then but they do give a general feel for the financials:

A Wembley for the North?

This story gets repeated often over the decades as individuals, clubs and authorities talk about building a ‘Wembley of the North’. Back on 20 June 1992 the latest version of the story was that a new stadium would be built as Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Olympics. The article claimed that work on this stadium would start whether Manchester was awarded the Games or not.

In the end Manchester was not awarded the Games but the city did stage the 2002 Commonwealth Games and a new stadium, present day Etihad, was built for that.

The article was published in a Liverpool newspaper and it’s interesting that there’s talk in this of building an arena at King’s Dock, which of course has also happened.

There are some errors in the article, for example it claims that neither City nor United had expressed an interest in moving to the stadium but City had been in discussions for several years about supporting the Olympic bids. In fact in 1989 the club had announced it was interested in a move if a stadium was ever to be planned.

Corinthians Defeat ‘Batt’s England’

On this day (21 June) in 1970 the Manchester Corinthians women’s team defeated a team calling themselves Internationals in West Yorkshire. The team was actually Harry Batt’s team of players from Chiltern Valley who went on to play unofficially as England in both Copa 70 and Copa 71 (the unofficial women’s World Cups). There’s been a documentary made recently on Copa 71 which talks of what this team did.

Worth noting that Manchester Corinthians, who defeated Batt’s team 3-1 (or 4-1 depending on reports), had also played in unofficial international tournaments as England and in 1960 had won a prestigious global tournament in Venezuela.

You will be able to read more on the victory over Batt’s team and on the Corinthians’ ground-breaking international trophy successes of the 1950s, 60s & 70s in my new authorised history of the club. Written following years of painstaking research the book will be published later this year, but you can subscribe to it now and get your name published in a special roll of honour at the back. For details:

Order: Manchester Corinthians Book