Day 41 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game follows on from yesterday’s feature. Today I cover ticket prices for Maine Road’s last season and provide a bit more on the additional temporary seating. This was of course a Premier League season, but the temporary seating had started to be added several years before, being used in 1998-99 as mentioned yesterday.
The most expensive seat was in the centre blocks B & C at £29 for the highest category game. The cheapest adult seat was £16 for the uncovered temporary stand UU, also known as the Gene Kelly Stand (see yesterday for naming details), and HH (dubbed the ‘Alan Ball Stand’ by one fanzine as it was small and didn’t make much noise!).
Other temporary stands were now in place in the tunnel between Platt Lane and the Main Stand (block G1 on the plan) and behind the security box (block H1 on the plan). As these were covered they were more expensive than the uncovered temporary stands.
You can see the temporary seating behind the stadium control box here – this would have been an empty space in previous years.
Photo by Ed Garvey
People often forget about these extra temporary stands, focusing only on the Gene Kelly and ‘Alan Ball’ (or Gene Kelly 2 as it was sometimes called). Even those two uncovered stands increased in size over the years. I typically sat in block Y of the Platt Lane this season but I did sit in the ‘Alan Ball’ for the Newcastle game early in the season. It poured down!
This image shows the ground before any temporary stands were built. This was 1995 (the Kippax is still being completed).
Compare the two plans from 2002 (above) and from 1998 (below) to see the additional temporary stands.:
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
It’s day 40 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s feature concerns ticket prices for the 1998-99 season: The only season MCFC spent in the third tier.
Maine Road was all-seater by this point and the most expensive seat was in the centre blocks B & C at £18 for the highest category game. The cheapest adult seat was £9 for the uncovered temporary stand UU, also known as the Gene Kelly Stand as fans there were used to ‘singing in the rain’ – do an internet search on the reference if you’re baffled or think that Gene Kelly played in the 1937 title winning season. Actually, when I set up the original museum in 2003-04 a Manchester tourist using our ‘Virtual Tour of Maine Road’ interactive asked if Gene Kelly had played international football for Scotland!).
Other temporary stands were erected over the next couple of years as Maine Road struggled to cope with demand. This ticket price plan shows that there isn’t yet an uncovered stand between the Kippax and the Platt Lane for example. It also shows where away fans were housed – this had varied over the years but for most of Maine Road’s last 25 years they had been housed in the Kippax away section of the old stand with some seats in either the Main Stand or in block J (there’s a whole series of possible articles on where the away fans were placed game after game – it did vary and I do remember arriving one day and being surprised at a group segregated in a section of the Main Stand that was normally home fans only).
To help with the flashback to 1998 here’s a newspaper cutting on Ian Bishop’s return in 1997-98:
The Manchester Metro News highlights the return of Ian Bishop
Of course the 1998-99 season ended with promotion at Wembley – a stadium that had been built by the same builders as Maine Road and in the same year.
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
It’s day 39 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s feature follows on from yesterday’s. It’s the demolition of the Platt Lane Stand during 2003-04.
Here are some images of that end at other times. This was the 1935 version of the stand:
The Main Stand’s benches with the Platt Lane Stand’s maroon and yellow benches in the backgroundThe Platt Lane Stand, 1991
Here’s the 1930s stand during demolition in 1992:
I went with club photographer Ed Garvey and secretary Bernard Halford to have a look at the old place in 2004 as it was being demolished. It was a sad sight.
During the 2022-23 season I did a feature on Maine Road for the match programme at City and included a photo of Bernard Halford from our visit.
For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate the Platt Lane Stand. The 1930s stand is number 4 & 5 on this image taken in 1971.
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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 for subscribers is the sixth part of Farewell To Maine Road as planned. Subscribers to my website are able to download PDFs of the first four sections of my Farewell To Maine Road book (which retailed at £25) here. So if you’ve not yet had chance, take a look now. Enjoy!
Subscribe to get access – Monthly
If you would like to read the book and download a PDF of it then you can subscribe now at £3 per month or £20 a year. Monthly subscribers access everything posted to the site since 1 October 2022. All subscribers get everything else posted during their subscription too. You could always try a monthly subscription to see what you think (cancel any time).
As well as Farewell To Maine Road annual subscribers get access to everything posted since the site was created in December 2020 (that’s 100s of articles, videos, history talks and PDFs of two other books: Manchester A Football History and my first book From Maine Men To Banana Citizens).
The book has been out of print since 2004 with every copy sold within about six months of publication. Since then I’ve been keen to bring it up to date with stories about the site and the Etihad but that’s not been possible as no publisher has been prepared to invest in the way that Polar Publishing did to ensure it was the right quality.
Copies occasionally appear in second hand book shops or at online retailers but these often sell for ridiculous sums of money. The last time I checked there was one for about £100 here:
When it was published in 2003 apparently, I commented (though I can’t remember saying this, mind you it was 20 years ago): ‘On 320 beautifully illustrated A4 size pages this book tells the story of Maine Road from conception, right through to its final days as a sporting venue. With excellent photographs – including rare illustrations of the stadium during construction never previously published and images from every era – this has been a very interesting book to research, write and compile. I’ve also tried to ensure the views of ordinary fans are included, and some of the most powerful Maine Road moments are captured by the fans who saw them happen.’
In a review, Hugh Ryden wrote in King of the Kippax: ‘The architecture, the moving memories, the reproduction of rare photos and memorabilia and its extensive quotations, make FTMR a must.’
Another King of the Kippax regular Steve Worthington wrote: ‘Following on in the winning formula of his epic “Manchester The Greatest City”, the highly acclaimed author and Manchester City Football Club Historian Gary James has rolled up his sleeves once more and has produced yet another fabulous football book for all to treasure and enjoy. “Farewell to Maine Road” is not only a must for all Manchester City supporters, it is also an essential for all football fans who possess a genuine interest and passion for the history of our great British past time. It catalogues the birth, evolution and ultimate decline of what was once England’s premier and revolutionary provincial football stadium; Maine Road, Moss Side, Manchester M14. Soon to be demolished into oblivion, Maine Road is vividly remembered in all its former glory in this classic portal to the past. Beautifully written with the knowledge and passion you would expect from a lifelong Moss Side Pilgrim, the book provides a definitive literate and graphic illustration of Maine Road’s long and varied history. It contains a rich tapestry of previously unpublished photographs, one of which, a unique atmospheric shot of the famous ‘Ballet on Ice’ (a famous Manchester City V Spurs clash in the late sixties), is arguably worth the cost of the book on it’s own. Having consumed and digested every morsel of information contained within, it is difficult for me to imagine how much painstaking work and dedication it must take to produce and compile a book of such quality. Whilst they continue to produce triumphs such as this, the marriage of Gary James and Polar Publishing is truly one made in a Sky Blue Heaven. This 320-page masterpiece has pushed the boundaries of football publications to a new and higher level and has already prompted tears of nostalgia in my eyes. But don’t take my word for it, sign up a copy and see for yourself, you’ll not be disappointed.’
The publicity blurb said: ‘The only officially approved history of Maine Road is the perfect book for any supporter of City; Maine Road attendee; or general football enthusiast.
‘The book details the history of the stadium focussing on its development, and on the key games and events which have made Maine Road such a famous and important venue. Using first hand accounts, as told by supporters, players, administrators, and the media this book has been written and designed to the same high quality used in the highly acclaimed Manchester: The Greatest City. With special features on all the big City matches, international games, FA Cup semi-finals, League Cup finals, Rugby finals, concerts, religious meetings, and even on United’s use of the stadium during the forties and for European Cup games in the fifties. In addition both City’s former ground Hyde Road and future venue the City of Manchester Stadium have been covered to provide the complete history of City’s three homes.
‘As with earlier works by Gary James & Polar Publishing this book is destined to be regarded as the definitive history of Maine Road & Manchester City’s other grounds.’
My publisher, Julian Baskcomb, commented: ‘Gary James is the appropriate man to write this work after a lifetime’s research on the club and its stadium. As a boy Gary was a regular in the Platt Lane Stand; then at the age of 16 he bought his own season ticket for the Kippax Stand and has been a season ticket holder ever since. He is also a respected journalist with articles for a wide range of publications including The Times and has recently managed the development of Manchester City’s new museum.’
It’s day 38 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s feature is of a sad scene: The demolition of the Main Stand during 2003-04. Apologies but it had to be shown one day.
I went with club photographer Ed Garvey and secretary Bernard Halford to have a look at the old place in 2004 as it was being demolished. It was a sad sight.
Ed Garvey photographThe directors’ box during demolition 2004. Ed Garvey photograph
During the 2022-23 season I did a feature on Maine Road for the match programme at City and included a photo of Bernard Halford from our visit.
Ed Garvey photographEd Garvey photograph
Warning: tomorrow I’ll post another demolition image.
For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate the Main Stand. It’s number 1 on this image taken in 1971.
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
It’s day 37 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s feature is – don’t get too excited – on this corner! I’ve said before that a photograph can say so much if you look closely at it and learn how to ‘read’ images like this. This is true for this simple photo of the corner between the North Stand (left) and Kippax (right). So what does this picture tell us? Well….
This was built as part of the North Stand development back in 1971 but it remained part of the Kippax. It was never roofed – meaning that this corner and the one on the other side of the Kippax were the only areas of Maine Road never to have a roof over them. If you’re counting the Main Stand had 3 roofs/roof developments during its life; the Platt Lane had 2; the North Stand one, and the Kippax two.
This corner was always accessed via Kippax turnstiles and it was always within the Kippax boundary walls. When the North Stand was built the exterior wall behind the stand was removed and turnstiles built into the stand but this corner never had any of that.
I’m not certain why the original corner terracing was ever demolished. Originally this corner had a large tunnel (like those in the other corners) and maybe they demolished that and built the new terracing because they felt it would increase capacity, but the corner is actually a little smaller than the one it replaced.
The rake of the steps is steeper than the rest of the Kippax and is the same as that in the North Stand. This suggests that there may have been plans to carry the North Stand around the corner. Former chairman Eric Alexander, who was primarily responsible for the new North Stand, had a vision of rebuilding the Kippax next but the arrival of Peter Swales as chairman killed that off. Maybe Eric was thinking ahead?
Strangely, there’s a concrete wedge in the middle which looks like newer concrete, roughly where the original tunnel would have been (though somewhat narrower).
Notice the loudspeaker (top right) pointing to this corner from the Kippax to ensure those standing here could hear the tannoy system. They used to test it in an empty stadium and never understood why fans couldn’t hear it in the Kippax on match day!
The floodlit pylon can be seen at the back, left. Also the blue fence on the left trying to stop fans climbing in to the North Stand – I do remember fans sneaking in occasionally.
There’s also the first pitch side fence on the right. This was positioned in front of the Kippax to stop fans getting on the pitch but all they needed to do was climb into this corner and go through the gate in the wall!
The white wall contains a gate where the old police/first aid dug outs used to be (see photo below of the same corner in the early 1960s) and the small seats built into the wall that the police and first aid people used to sit on at the time this photo was taken.
There’s also the corner flag visible.
The following is the Platt Lane/Main Stand corner when first built in 1923. It gives an impression of how the North Stand/Kippax corner would’ve looked at that time too.
1923 Platt Lane/Main Stand corner tunnel
The North Stand/Kippax corner was demolished in 1994 and later the ‘Gene Kelly’ temporary stand was located there.
For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate the terraced corner between the North Stand and Kippax. It’s number 9 on this image and you can see the Kippax wall behind it. Note the wall behind the North Stand has yet to be removed from this image, taken in 1971.
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
It’s day 36 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game. Yesterday I featured Maine Road’s first derby match and today’s images are a reminder of the last Manchester derby played at Maine Road.
The game, played on 9 November 2002 saw City defeat United 3-1 with goals from Anelka and Goater (2). United’s historic last goal at Maine Road was scored by Solksjaer.
Fan memories of that day in Farewell To Maine Road
These images are taken from Farewell To Maine Road and subscribers can now download a PDF of that book. The feature on Maine Road’s last derby was in chapter one: End of an Era. See below for details of how to get that book.
Goater’s 100th goal, scored v MUFC in November 2002.
For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate the the tunnel image (number 1):
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
So far there have been 35 days in my 100 day Maine Road countdown series of free to read features. I know some have dipped in and out and not had chance to see them all so, to make life easy, here they are so far in one handy place. Enjoy following the links to read them all. It’s a monumental series of articles on the old stadium and I hope it gives those who attended a nice reminder of the old place and those that didn’t (and it was 20 years ago!) a feel for what it was like.
There are another 65 articles to come. Check my website every day for the next one. As well as these free articles subscribers to my website can download the entire Farewell To Maine Road book I wrote in 2003. It’s been out of print since 2004 and was originally priced at £25. Subscribers can pay £20 a year to get that and PDFs of my 2010 book Manchester A Football History and 1989 book From Maine Men To Banana Citizens. They also get access to exclusive articles, interviews and content. For details see:
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.
It’s day 35 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s images are a reminder of the first Manchester derby played at Maine Road.
The game, played on 12 September 1925 (United had been in the Second Division when City first moved to Maine Road), saw City & United draw 1-1 before 66,000. This was at the time the highest Manchester derby crowd ever. It was later eclipsed with the record on a club ground being 78,000 (Maine Road). There have been higher at Wembley of course.
Sam Cowan scored for City and Clatworthy Rennox for United. Later this season the return derby at Old Trafford saw City win 6-1:
These images show Cowan’s goal and a drawing of the game’s highlights. Note the crowd references in the drawing.
Guess which game I’m going to cover tomorrow…. This was the first derby at Maine Road. Maybe it’s time to remember the last one?
For those unfamiliar with Maine Road this photo may help locate the end Cowan’s goal was scored at. In the days before the Popular Side (later Kippax) was roofed this was the goal mouth at the Platt Lane end (number 3/5) with the unroofed terracing beyond the players being located around number 8.
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
It’s day 34 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game. Today – Bert Trautmann’s testimonial scenes.
In 1964 Manchester City staged a testimonial game for legendary City goalkeeper Bert Trautmann. Officially there were less than 48,000 there (in a stadium that could hold in excess of 60,000) yet fans and others there that night know the attendance was much higher. My own dad told me last week how him & my mam were going to the game but when they arrived the turnstiles were closed and thousands were locked out a long time before kick off.
There are stories of some fans trying to climb walls to get in and others talk about the packed terraces and stands.
It was truly the biggest testimonial game ever at Maine Road in terms of numbers, even if officially it was short of capacity. In the 90s I often asked players and officials from that era about this attendance, including Bert. No one actually wanted to say much about the discrepancy between the numbers officially reported and the actual volume of people in attendance, so we can leave all of that to the imagination. What they did all agree on is that there must have been well over 60,000 there that night and that Bert deserved whatever was raised from the match.
This image from 1961 shows how the stadium looked at the time of Trautmann’s testimonial.
Below is a view of Maine Road from 1971. The main image of fans on the pitch (above) is taken from near the Main Stand (number 2) looking across to the Kippax (7/8).
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
Gary James' Football Archive 