Category Archives: Manchester City

The 1890s: 1892-1893 League Leaders

The series of features on Manchester City in the 1890s continues today with a 1800 word article on Ardwick’s first season in the Football League, 1892-93

Ever wondered how MCFC came into being and what happened to Ardwick AFC? Well, now’s your chance to find out. This series covers the final years of Ardwick and the birth of Manchester City.

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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More on the 1890s tomorrow. Why not subscribe and read this and all the other subscriber features?

The 1890s: 1891-1892 A Second Manchester Cup

The series of features on Manchester City in the 1890s continues today with a 1100 word article on Ardwick’s exploits in the 1891-92 season. The last season before the club joined the Football League.

Ever wondered how MCFC came into being and what happened to Ardwick AFC? Well, now’s your chance to find out. This series covers the final years of Ardwick and the birth of Manchester City.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

Subscribe

More on the 1890s tomorrow. Why not subscribe and read this and all the other subscriber features?

The 1890s: 1890-1891 The Brewery Men

The series of features on Manchester City in the 1890s continues today with a 1300 word article on Ardwick’s exploits in the 1890-91 season. This team image has been coloured to show the club’s colours of that season. Note: the story of City adopting blue and white for the first time due to Masonic influence in 1894 is a myth. The Club had been wearing blue and white from as early as 1887.

Ever wondered how MCFC came into being and what happened to Ardwick AFC? Well, now’s your chance to find out. This series covers the final years of Ardwick and the birth of Manchester City.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

Subscribe

More on the 1890s tomorrow. Why not subscribe and read this and all the other subscriber features?

The Financial Significance of Football to Manchester

Over the years I’ve done quite a few talks on the history of football to Manchester and have also focused on the financial significance of the sport to Manchester. Here are a few slides that spell out a few facts. Obviously, I normally include explanation behind a lot of this when I talk but nevertheless I think they may be of interest as stand alone slides.

These slides were from 2019 and so the figures will have changed since then but they do give a general feel for the financials:

The 1890s: 1889-1890 Illuminated Ardwick

Starting today: A new series of features on Manchester City in the 1890s! Ever wondered how MCFC came into being and what happened to Ardwick AFC? Well, now’s your chance to find out. This series covers the final years of Ardwick and the birth of Manchester City. It starts with the second half of the 1889-90 season for Ardwick and includes a story of a floodlit game.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

Subscribe

More on the 1890s tomorrow. Why not subscribe and read this and all the other subscriber features?

The 1890s: Ardwick and Manchester City

A new series of features starts tomorrow. This series provides a season by season account of Ardwick AFC and Manchester City FC in the 1890s. Some are 2000+ word articles, others are a bit less, but each adds to the story of how the club evolved. So, if you’ve ever wondered how MCFC came into being and what happened to Ardwick AFC, here’s your chance to find out. This series covers the final years of Ardwick, the birth of Manchester City and Manchester’s first national title.

Watch this space tomorrow for details.

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?

Status Quo (left) & Queen 1986 concert at Maine Road. Copyright Garry Lippett

Manchester City v TNS in Wrexham?

On 20 June 2003 following the UEFA Cup draw, which had seen Manchester City drawn against Welsh Club TNS, discussions were being taken as to where the Welsh leg of the game could be played. Initially reports like this one suggested Wrexham but ultimately the game was moved to Cardiff. With the City leg played at the new City of Manchester Stadium (now Etihad) this meant both legs were played in the two newest major stadia in the UK.

This cutting has some interesting quotes on the European status of the two clubs at the time.

Manchester City 2024-25 Fixtures


18/08/2024 – 16:30 – Chelsea (a) (4.30pm kick-off time confirmed)

24/08/2024 – 15:00 – Ipswich Town (h)

31/08/2024 – 15:00 – West Ham United (a)

14/09/2024 – 15:00 – Brentford (h)

21/09/2024 – 15:00 – Arsenal (h)

28/09/2024 – 15:00 – Newcastle United (a)

05/10/2024 – 15:00 – Fulham (h)

19/10/2024 – 15:00 – Wolverhampton (a)

26/10/2024 – 15:00 – Southampton (h)

02/11/2024 – 15:00 – A.F.C. Bournemouth (a)

09/11/2024 – 15:00 – Brighton (a)

23/11/2024 – 15:00 – Tottenham Hotspur (h)

30/11/2024 – 15:00 – Liverpool (a)

04/12/2024 – 19:45 – Nottingham Forest (h)

07/12/2024 – 15:00 – Crystal Palace (a)

14/12/2024 – 15:00 – Manchester United (h)

21/12/2024 – 15:00 – Aston Villa (a)

26/12/2024 – 15:00 – Everton (h)

29/12/2024 – 15:00 – Leicester City (a)

04/01/2025 – 15:00 – West Ham United (h)

14/01/2025 – 19:45 – Brentford (a)

18/01/2025 – 15:00 – Ipswich Town (a)

25/01/2025 – 15:00 – Chelsea (h)

01/02/2025 – 15:00 – Arsenal (a)

15/02/2025 – 15:00 – Newcastle United (h)

22/02/2025 – 15:00 – Liverpool (h)

25/02/2025 – 19:45 – Tottenham Hotspur (a)

08/03/2025 – 15:00 – Nottingham Forest (a)

15/03/2025 – 15:00 – Brighton (h)

02/04/2025 – 19:45 – Leicester City (h)

05/04/2025 – 15:00 – Manchester United (a)

12/04/2025 – 15:00 – Crystal Palace (h)

19/04/2025 – 15:00 – Everton (a)

26/04/2025 – 15:00 – Aston Villa (h)

03/05/2025 – 15:00 – Wolverhampton (h)

10/05/2025 – 15:00 – Southampton (a)

18/05/2025 – 15:00 – A.F.C. Bournemouth (h)

25/05/2025 – 16:00 – Fulham (a)