On this day (21 August) a Wednesday night meeting with Liverpool ended in a 2-1 victory for Manchester City. You can see highlights of the game (and relive the days of night matches on the Kippax/at Maine Rd) including two David White goals here:
Category Archives: Maine Road
Home in Barnsley
On this day (31 July) in 2008 Manchester City played a home game at Barnsley. This game made history as it was the first occasion the Blues had played a home European tie outside of Manchester. Previously City had played home European games at Maine Road and at the City Of Manchester Stadium, but work at Eastlands following a concert by Bon Jovi prevented the Club from staging the game at home. The decision was taken to stage the match at Barnsley. Subscribers can read about both legs of the European tie here:
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.
Bernard’s Manchester City Global PR Push!
Today (20 June) in 1992 while English football was gearing up to the first season of the newly established Premier League, Manchester City’s Club Secretary Bernard Halford claimed to have an army containing some of the world’s biggest music stars promoting the club. I’m not entirely convinced this was the truth but Bernard seemed to believe it according to this report.
It makes interesting reading – especially the bit about Mick Jagger, Axl Rose and others asking for a City shirt in their quest to promote Manchester’s Blues.
Over the years I interviewed Bernard quite a bit and I do remember him telling me how he’d given Freddie Mercury a City shirt after the legendary Queen concert at Maine Road. This article suggests the same happened with others. I’ve posted previously the David Cassidy image of him in a City shirt at his 1970s Maine Road concert.
I’d love to see a music hall of fame somewhere with an exhibit ‘City shirts worn by rock legends’ – who knows? Maybe they all used to meet up for City chat after Top of the Pops finished?
England at Maine Road
As we’re in a period of International football, I thought it would be worth remembering that there were four full internationals played at Maine Road.
Each of these took place during a six year spell in the 1940s.
FULL INTERNATIONALS AT MAINE ROAD
| Date | Type of game | Against | Score | Scorers | Crowd | Team |
| 16 October 1943 | War Interna-tional | Scotland | W 8-0 | Lawton (4), Hagan (2), Carter, Matthews | 60,000 | Swift, Scott, Hardwick, Britton, Cullis, Mercer, Matthews, Carter, Lawton, Hagan, Compton |
| 24/4/46 | Burnden Park Disaster Fund Match | Scotland | D 2-2 | Welsh (2) | 70,000 | Swift, Walton, Hardwick, Wright, Leuty, Mitchell, Matthews, Welsh, Lewis, Fielding, Mannion |
| 13/11/46 | Home International | Wales | W 3-0 | Mannion (2), Lawton | 59,121 | Swift, Scott, Hardwick, Wright, Franklin, Johnston, Finney, Carter, Lawton, Mannion, Langton |
| 16/11/49 | Home International/ World Cup qualifiers | N. Ireland | W 9-2 | Rowley (4), Froggatt, Pearson (2), Mortensen (2) | 69,762 | Streten, Mozley, Aston, Watson, Franklin, Wright, Finney, Mortensen, Rowley, Pearson, Froggatt |
In addition to these matches various other representative matches have been played at Maine Road. These include the following inter-league games, under-21 fixtures and B Team games.
You can read more on the 8-0 victory over Scotland in 1943 here:
69,463 watch MCFC and Burnley in Division Two But Attendances Understated
On 10 May in 1947 a solitary goal from Alec Herd against Burnley was enough to give Manchester City promotion. The attendance for this Second Division game was recorded by the media at the time as 67,672 but official records reviewed almost sixty years later showed that City actually recorded the attendance as 69,463.
Typically, the attendance figures City used to give the media for League games through to the 1960s tended to exclude season tickets. So the Blues’ management would give the figure of tickets or pay on the gate admission for the game but exclude season ticket holders. Back in 1946-47 City had around 1,800 season ticket holders and almost every League attendance back then is understated by that amount.
FA Cup games were the actual attendances as these were always sold game by game.
As this practice of excluding all season ticket holders continued for many, many decades at Maine Road attendance figures for League games are usually understated (they were often understated in the 1970s & 1980s as well but for different reasons and back then Peter Swales, Bernard Halford and the others involved in calculating attendances would deny any discrepancy despite many fans, fanzines and others challenging them often).
For comparison purposes it’s worth looking at the attendances of the Division One champions in 1947 to see how the Blues compared. This attendance against Burnley was almost 17,000 higher than Division One champions Liverpool’s highest crowd that season (52,512 v Wolves in December) and the Merseyside Reds nearest home game to City’s Burnley match was watched by 48,800 and that was Liverpool v Manchester United (May 3). Liverpool did average 45,732 that season, whereas City averaged 39,283 but they were a Second Division club.
The City-Burnley crowd was the Second Division’s record at the time and it was higher than every First Division crowd since the 1937-38 season (The Second Division record is now held by Tottenham v Southampton which had 70,302 in 1949-50).
Film of City v Burnley does exist but it’s in a most unlikely place. It was actually filmed as part of a Mancunian Films drama called Cup Tie Honeymoon. The company was run by a Manchester City fan who made this film, which starred Sandy Powell and Pat Phoenix (under her original name of Pilkington). A football game is crucial to the plot and scenes were filmed at Maine Road and interspersed with real action from the City-Burnley game to add credibility.
Myself and Will McTaggart have shown these scenes in our Boys In Blue film shows which have been staged at the Dancehouse and Cornerhouse in Manchester over the last decade. Maybe I’ll explain more about the film and those talks another day.
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Manchester City Chants
I’ve posted a lot on this in the past but it’s always worth revisiting, especially as recent years have seen dozens of new chants established at Manchester City. Successful eras often bring new chants – and that’s definitely happened recently – but failing periods can also generate new supporter songs.
Chanting at football games is rarely documented correctly with many myths, rumours and stories developing over the years. This feature is designed to give a potted overview of the development of singing at City.
I explained about some of the chants in this talk I did a couple of years ago. If you’ve got time watch it:
Now, for subscribers is an 1800 word article on the history and development of chants at Manchester City:
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Foe Scored in Maine Road’s last MCFC victory
On this day (April 21) in 2003 a goal from Robbie Fowler and two from Marc-Vivien Foe brought a 3-0 Manchester City win over Sunderland. The game became significant as it was to be the last City victory at the old stadium and Foe’s 80th minute goal was the last scored there by a City man.
Understandably, during 2002-03 the focus for many Manchester City fans was Maine Road’s final season, especially the final month or so of the season. With every game at the stadium a sell-out – only the size of the away support varied – supporters were desperate for the final season to see the old venue at its best. They also wanted a few memorable results in those final weeks.
Ultimately, the Sunderland game was the best Maine Road match of the final weeks.
Pre-match Sunderland presented the Blues with a rose bowl commemorating their final visit to the stadium. Significantly, the time span between their first appearance at Maine Road and their last was greater than any other visiting club. Co-incidentally City’s last victory at Hyde Road was also against Sunderland in April. You can read about that game elsewhere on my website.
21/4/2003 MCFC 3 Sunderland 0, Attendance 34,357
The 1970s: A European Semi Final Victory
Today (15 April) in 1970 German side Schalke 04 were defeated 5-1 in the ECWC semi-final second leg at Maine Road by Manchester City. You can read the story of that game (and watch video highlights) below.
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You can read more on the 1969-70 season here:
The 1990s: Season Ticket Sales
The series of features covering Manchester City in the 1990s continues today with this reminder of the loyalty of fans. This cutting is from today (8 April) in 1997 and highlights that season ticket sales had increased to 11,000 at this stage of the season. In those days there wasn’t a cut off but there were different pricing structures, so if you bought early you’d get the best benefit.
11,000 is far from the final tally (City had more than double that number of season ticket holders and actually capped it due to segregation and ticket sales needs for FA cup games etc.), but it does show that even though this was a particularly dark period for the club fans would commit month many, many weeks before knowing which division the club would play in the following season.
While you’re here why not read a 4,900 word long article on the 1996-97 season? It’s available to subscribers, so why not subscribe and relive this season and an extraordinary decade? As with all these 1990s subscriber features it contains material from interviews I’ve performed with key figures from that time, including Phil Neal who talks about Steve Coppell’s shock resignation.
Here’s the 4900 word article on that season:
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This series of articles and features will run throughout March with indepth articles some days and smaller ‘on this day’ style posts on others. There will be flashbacks to great games, players and more. Every day in March will offer something to enjoy.
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If you want to know more on this incredible decade for Manchester City Football Club then why not subscribe and read it all? If you’d like to know more about subscribing then see:
Gary James' Football Archive 