The 1940s: The 1939-40 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1940s starts today with this 1,400 word article on the 1939-40 season. The season started as any other but then world events intervened!

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The 1950s: The 1958-59 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1950s continues today with this 1,500 word article on the 1958-59 season. Enjoy!

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The 1950s: The 1957-58 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1950s continues today with this 2,200 word article on the 1957-58 season. Enjoy!

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Manchester City’s Record League Crowd

On this day (23 February) in 1935 Manchester City established a new Football League record crowd of 79,491. Here’s the story of that day and cuttings. Enjoy!

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The 1960s: FA Cup Draw

On this day (11 January) in 1961 a Maine Road crowd of 39035 watched Les McDowall’s Manchester City play out a goalless draw with Cardiff City in a FA Cup 3rd round replay. The original fixture had ended 1-1. These were the days when drawn FA Cup games would go to a replay and another (and another and another etc.) if necessary.

The draw meant the replay would be played at a neutral venue and Arsenal’s Highbury ground was selected to stage the replay on 16 January. If you’d like to know how that ended (and the rest of that season) have a look at the following subscriber content. If you’d like to read this 1200 word article, plus all other articles on the site, then please subscribe (see below).

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Fogged Off: Manchester City V Brentford

On this day (November 28) in 1936 Manchester City’s game with Brentford was abandoned due to fog. The two were rivals for the League title and the rearrangement of that game did ultimately have a bearing on the title. More on this for subscribers below…

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The New Kippax

On this day (25 November) in 1995 Manchester City’s legendary goalkeeper Bert Trautmann officially opened the new Kippax Stand at Maine Road. You can see the new stand at the top of this photo, with the Manchester City lettering on it. If you’re interested, you can now read more on City’s 1995-96 season below. This was a hugely significant season and this article is almost 5,500 words long.

Yes, I know but we can look back and remember from a position of relative comfortability now!

1994-95 the new Kippax takes shape

It’s available to subscribers, so why not subscribe and relive this extraordinary season? As with many of these subscriber features it contains material from interviews I’ve performed with key figures from that time.

Here’s the 5500 word article on that season:

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Manchester City 1 Australia 3

40 years ago today (14 November 1984) Australia visited Maine Road for a friendly. It was part of a series of matches against British clubs. City announced that the Blues would field a team of senior players but in the end this was a mixed team, containing several youth/fringe players.

The game ended in an Australian win. Here’s how the match was previewed in the City programme:

14 November 1984 MCFC v Australia

More on the 1984-85 season here:

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Allison Wins Bet With Crerand!

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!

Allison For England

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MCFC v Sparta Prague 1967

Last night’s Champions League victory over Sparta Prague was not the first time the Czech side travelled to Manchester to face the Blues. Back on 11 December 1967 Sparta were at Maine Road ready to face City but the game was called off that evening as fans queued to enter the ground. The pitch had been frozen earlier but as the ground thawed it became waterlogged.

That night Sparta invited City to a friendly in Prague but that game never occurred either.

Of course the 1967-68 season ended with City as League champions.