Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
On this day (28 October) in 1981 Manchester City faced their first competitive penalty shoot-out. The League Cup tie with Stoke ended 2-2 on aggregate but it took some considerable effort for either side to progress in the competition. With the penalty shoot-out reaching 8-8 goalkeeper Joe Corrigan saved. Norwegian Aage Hareide made it 9-8 for City and the Blues progressed. You can read what John Bond thought about penalties below.
Today’s the day (27 October) in 1965 when Malcolm Allison won a significant bet with Pat Crerand about attendances at Manchester City. The Blues had drawn 0-0 with Norwich at Maine Road, ensuring City were top of Division Two and looking like promotional hopefuls. A crowd of 34,091 watched the match and Allison was delighted with that figure. The attendance had won him ten pounds off Manchester United’s Paddy Crerand who had told the City coach that City were a ‘dying club’ and bet him the Blues would never get a crowd above 30,000 at Maine Road again! Later that season 63,034 watched City play Everton – an attendance greater than any domestic crowd at Old Trafford that season. Allison had the last laugh of course!
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Today (26 October) in 2011 Manchester City won 5-2 at Wolves in the League Cup before 12,436. Edin Dzeko scored twice of course that day. You can see highlights of the game here:
A couple of days ago I posted about the birth of the MCFC Viking Call in 1976, well today lifelong City fan Bobby Ward has been in touch with a video he caught during City’s last home game of fans chanting a new Erling Haaland chant. Here’s the video (look out for the actions):
https://gjfootballarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/img_4796-1.mov
The words, if you can’t work them out, are:
What shall we do with a big Norwegian, What shall we do with a big Norwegian, Can’t stop him from scoring, Erling, Erling Haaland, Erling, Erling Haaland…
The game v Brighton on 22 October 2022 ended in a 3-1 City win with Haaland scoring twice.
I’m always keen on the development of football chants, so if you’re one of the guys who started this please get in touch with your story of the chant, the actions and so on. I’d be happy to say more about it here. You guys were certainly persistent.
On this day (25 October) in 1994 Manchester City faced QPR in the League Cup in what was an incredible game that kept fans on the edge of their seats. The Blues had already disposed of Barnet 5-2 on aggregate in the second round and clearly expected to put in a good performance at Loftus Road. Sadly, within a minute they conceded a goal just as they had in the earlier League Cup match at Barnet and Brian Horton’s side suffered for a while. By the 37th minute they managed to get their act together a little and Summerbee equalised with a 20 yard volley. A minute later Rangers took the lead again.
Fortunately, in the 46th minute Keith Curle netted a penalty to bring City level once again, followed eight minutes later by a magnificent Beagrie volley which made it 3-2 and brought a series of somersaults from the popular ex-Evertonian. Five minutes later, the same player headed through to Lomas who made it 4-2.
In the 87th minute Rangers pulled a goal back to keep City on their toes, but the referee’s whistle signalled the start of a party for the fans while their QPR equivalents began to demonstrate against their chairman. Apparently, some unhappy QPR fans were keen to listen to the advice of a few experienced Mancunian demonstrators!
You can watch highlights of the game here:
If you’d like to support my research then why not subscribe? Every subscription directly helps support my research and provides the subscriber with access to everything posted on this site, including the entire Manchester A Football History and From Maine Men To Banana Citizens books, plus interviews, articles and more. I am not employed by anyone and all my research is self funded or comes from subscriptions to this site.
On this day (24 October) in 1956…
Attendance: 30,495; City 0 United 1 (first Charity Shield match between the sides)
The Champions beat the Cup holders under floodlights with a goal from local lad Dennis Violet. United are the better side while City seem a little pedestrian. Charity is much in evidence, however, as the Reds are allowed to replace ‘keeper Wood with their reserve David Gaskell when injury strikes.
On this day (21 October) in 1953 the second game played under floodlights at Maine Road occurred with Turkish side Fenerbahce (later famous for being Manchester City’s opponents in the Blues first European cup match) defeated 5-1 by City. You can read more about these first floodlights and the opening games here:
Floodlights
The photo is from the Hearts floodlit match.
On this day (20 October) in 2007 a 37th minute goal from Elano gave Manchester City a 1-0 victory over Birmingham City. Here’s film of that goal:
I’ve recently been asked if I can help identify a Manchester City victory for a follower on twitter who asked about a Christmas victory over Scunthorpe. The game was actually an 8-1 Manchester City win. The following details the date, scorers and provides a report:
26/12/1963 City 8 Scunthorpe 1 in Division Two. City scorers: Gray (3), Murray (3) and Kevan (2). Attendance 26,365.
My website contains subscriber only posts that can be accessed by subscribing either on an annual basis or monthly. Annual subscribers pay £20 to view all content posted since December 2020 and all to be posted during their subscription period. For monthly details see below. I am not employed by anyone to research and all subscriptions help fund my ongoing research into football. Thanks
My website contains subscriber only posts that can be accessed by subscribing either on an annual basis or monthly. Monthly subscribers pay £3 per month to view all content posted since 1st october 2022 and all to be posted during their subscription period. Cancel any time. For annual details see above. I am not employed by anyone to research and all subscriptions support my work help fund my ongoing research into football. Thanks
Recently an academic article of mine offering advice and examples to those researching sports history or working within the industry was published. Normally, it is behind an academic paywall but you can download it for free during October here (it’s free, you may as well have a look):
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2022.2117731?src=
The article has received publicity in publications/websites of football clubs including Middlesbrough and Manchester City. Here’s what City have said:
https://www.mancity.com/news/club/sport-in-history-academic-journal-manchester-city-63800643
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