Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
A dramatic added time winner by Gabriel Jesus lifted Premier League champions Manchester City to an incredible 100-point mark on this day (13 May) in 2018. The 1-0 win over Southampton was the perfect end to a perfect season for City. You can see highlights here:
https://www.mancity.com/citytv/match-highlights/2018/may/southampton-v-city-extended-highlights
Manchester City became Premier League champions on this day (12 May) in 2019 when they defeated Brighton 4-1 after going behind. It became a day of great celebration after a nervy opening when Brighton took a 27th minute lead. That goal had meant Liverpool were top of the table in the ‘live’ table on TV and websites. Fortunately 83 seconds later Aguero made it 1-1.
City’s other scorers were Laporte, Mahrez and Gundogan. Highlights can be seen here:
On this day in 2021 Manchester City became Premier League champions. They won the League after nearest rivals Manchester United lost 2-1 at home to Leicester City. One nice quirk of fate was that this was also the anniversary of City’s 1968 League title success.
The 2021 success was the Blues seventh League title with their first coming in 1937. Others have followed since of course!
It was an astonishing season with City already winning the League Cup that season, plus they also reached the Champions League final where they were defeated in Porto by Chelsea. Manchester’s Blues also appeared in the FA Cup semi-final season but sadly lost to Chelsea.
The League and League Cup double meant that City had won six major trophies in three seasons.
City’s trophy success in 2021 meant that domestically counting the League, FA Cup and League Cup only United, Liverpool and Arsenal have won more English major trophies. Similarly, only United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Everton havd won more League titles than Manchester’s Blues.
2020-21 was an odd season because of Covid (as was 2019-20) and no fans in the stadium (though some clubs, including those on Merseyside, were allowed a limited number of fans in earlier this season), but the football City played was breathtaking.
Apart from a difficult opening period and a few odd results along the way, City delivered week after week (or should that be weekend after midweek after weekend after midweek – it was a busy season!). They thoroughly deserved the title.
So, by the end of the 2020-21 season City had won the following major honours:
European Cup Winners’ Cup (1)
1970
League/Premier League (7)
1937, 1968, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019 & 2021
(runners up: 1904, 1921, 1977, 2013, 2015 & 2020)
FA Cup (6)
1904, 1934, 1956, 1969, 2011 & 2019
(runners up: 1926, 1933, 1955, 1981 & 2013)
League Cup (8)
1970, 1976, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021
(runners up: 1974)
In 2019 the Blues became the first English men’s team to win a domestic treble. In 2020-21 City achieved a domestic double of the League Cup and the League (a feat they also achieved in 2014 & 2018). Back in 1970 they achieved a European and domestic cup double when they won the League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
City’s trophy haul made them the fifth most successful English club of all time based on major domestic and European trophies won (United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea are ahead of the Blues). In addition only Liverpool and Blackburn had a greater span between their first English trophy and their most recent.
Since 2020-21 so many other trophies have come of course, including in 2023 when City became the first team ever to win the FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup, UEFA Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup in a calendar year.
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DonateI’m absolutely delighted with this from Matt Williams, a longlist judge for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2025 award. He has posted the following video about the Manchester Corinthians book as his ‘What are we reading this week?’ post on social media. It really does please me and demonstrates why I’ve been so keen to get the Corinthians story out there.
My new book, Manchester Corinthians: The Authorised History, is a must for anyone interested in Manchester or women’s football and consists of 356 pages.
It is illustrated throughout and you can order it now for £25 (including UK postage and packaging). I’ll sign all copies ordered direct from me below.
If you live outside the UK then please contact for details of additional postage costs.
You do not need to have a PayPal account to order – use the ‘Pay with PayPal’ button above and it will give you the option to pay by credit/debit card without creating a PayPal account.
UK ONLY – Manchester Corinthians: The Authorised History
The story of a pioneering women’s club as told to Gary James by those who were there. This will be published in late December 2024. This is UK only at £25 (incl UK postage and packaging). Outside UK contact for additional postage costs.
£25.00
On this day (7 May) in 1927 Manchester City went goal crazy and defeated Bradford City 8-0 in their bid for promotion from Division Two. In the end the Blues missed promotion by the narrowest goal average margin ever. City’s stood at 1.7705 while promoted Portsmouth’s was 1.7755. Portsmouth had achieved the better goal average after a 5-1 defeat of Preston, in a game that kicked off fifteen minutes after City’s. At both Maine Road and Fratton Park the fans celebrated with City not realising their failure until the directors were informed via ticker-tape of events on the south coast. Portsmouth’s four goal hero, Willie Haines, left the Fratton Park pitch to celebratory chants of “Farmer’s Boy”.
Amazingly, Bradford’s ‘keeper Leonard Boot – playing the last of only 7 appearances for the club – was acclaimed man of the match after pulling off a string of fine saves. The 8-0 defeat didn’t do Bradford much good as it relegated them to Division Three (North) for the first time.
Here’s film of the FA Cup final from this day (7 May) in 1955 when Manchester City were defeated by Newcastle 3-1 at Wembley. Bobby Johnstone was the City scorer. Enjoy: https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/59534/
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.
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.
On this day (5 May) in 1957 the Manchester Corinthians and their sister team the Nomads played out a 3-3 draw at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon, before a crowd reported as 60,000 by some. This photo shows action from that game with Veronica Bailey on the ball, watched by Mary Bee and under pressure from Barbara Tooth. Two of the three women mentioned have been interviewed for my new book. Manchester Corinthians: The Authorised History. It is a must for anyone interested in Manchester or women’s football and consists of 356 pages.
It is illustrated throughout and you can order it now for £25 (including UK postage and packaging). I’ll sign all copies ordered direct from me below.
If you live outside the UK then please contact for details of additional postage costs.
You do not need to have a PayPal account to order – use the ‘Pay with PayPal’ button above and it will give you the option to pay by credit/debit card without creating a PayPal account.
UK ONLY – Manchester Corinthians: The Authorised History
The story of a pioneering women’s club as told to Gary James by those who were there. This will be published in late December 2024. This is UK only at £25 (incl UK postage and packaging). Outside UK contact for additional postage costs.
£25.00
On this day (May 1) in 1934 Manchester City, who had won the FA Cup for the second time in their history, took part in an incredible home coming parade. Over a million people were on the streets to welcome back the club. You can see film of that below:
That commentary is a bit cringeworthy but listen out for comment about a million people on the streets; the scenes certainly suggest there was too.
Deservedly Manchester took time out to celebrate and what seemed like the whole of Manchester lined the city’s streets. The authoritative Pathe News claimed there were over a million on the streets. The film company was not known for exaggeration and if that figure is accurate – and their footage suggests it is – then this remains the largest homecoming in Mancunian football history (It was claimed in 1999 that 700,000 people had welcomed Manchester United’s treble winning team through the streets).
Various speeches were made into a microphone set up on the Town Hall steps (the BBC were broadcasting this live on radio), and the players and officials were given a civic reception. Mancunians enjoyed the success and wanted more.
In Albert Square Mancunians sang their celebratory songs including “Who Said City Couldn’t Play” – the earliest known recording of a City specific song:
Who Said City Couldn’t Play,
City Couldn’t Play, City Couldn’t Play,
Who Said City Couldn’t Play,
City Couldn’t Play football?
You can hear a recording of the song and read more about it here:
Who Said City Couldn’t Play?
The 1933-4 League programme still had two games left for the Blues. On 2nd May – the day after the parade – City suffered a 3-2 defeat at Liverpool, and then on 5th May City demolished Wolves 4-0 at Maine Road. Before the game City staff, assisted by a couple of police officers, carried the trophy around the ground on some kind of wooden board. The fans were delighted.
During a week of FA Cup celebrations an illuminated bus journeyed around the city covered in City’s colours. On the front above the bus number, ‘City 2 1’, was the Manchester coat of arms. On the side the message ‘Welcome to the victors’ proudly illuminated next to a picture of the FA Cup and a drawing of Sam Cowan.
You can see film of this illuminated ‘Victory Bus’, preserved by the North West Film Archive at Manchester Metropolitan University, here (the bus can be seen after 5 mins 38 seconds but other scenes connected with the homecoming can be viewed after about 3 minutes):
https://www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/viewVideo.php?token=2495agw5666w7h114804aP5nxZYm4638b49Hq2dw
This has been a taster of the material on this site. Subscribers have access to over 500 articles and posts, with many more scheduled over the coming weeks. Posted already for subscribers are exclusive audio interviews I have performed with Malcolm Allison, John Bond and George Graham (more to follow); the entire Manchester A Football History book (now out of print) and various other long read articles. It costs £20 a year (that’s about £1.67 a month) or £3 per month if you want to sign up a month at a time. Whichever subscription is taken out subscribers get full access to everything posted for as long as they are subscribers. You can subscriber here:
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On this day (30 April) in 2023 goals from Haaland (his 50th of the season – see image) and Alvarez gave City a 2-1 victory at Fulham. You can watch highlights here:
https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/fulham-city-extended-highlights-63818471
With City and Palace now scheduled to meet in the FA Cup final it’s worth remembering that on 20 February 1926 City recorded an amazing victory over Palace in the competition. It was a fifth round FA Cup tie with Crystal Palace at Maine Road. The Blues, without a manager since November, were being managed by committee with director Albert Alexander senior making the final decisions. It’s an incredible thought that a director without ever being known as a player, could make these decisions but Alexander was a knowledgeable football man and had been with the club since formation in 1894.
By half-time the score was 7-0 to the Blues, but Palace would not give up and quickly pulled back four goals. City were knocked out of their period of complacency and soon found their goalscoring touch again. By the end it was 11-4 and, according to a number of spectators present on the day, Manchester fans rushed on at the final whistle and carried off the Palace ‘keeper shoulder high. Apparently he had played extremely well and, somehow, managed to keep the score down, although one cannot help wondering if he’d have been given such a reception had the scores been reversed.
Frank Roberts was the City star for this particular game, scoring a remarkable five, while Tommy Browell also earned a few plaudits with his hat-trick. The other scorers were: Billy Austin, George Hicks and Tommy Johnson.
With no management and such a miserable time in the League, no one could believe how City had been able to deliver such strong cup performances. Here’s film of the game:
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/crystal-palace-overwhelmed
Gary James' Football Archive 