Category Archives: 1968-69

Showing Your Colours

In January this year the Newcastle Chronicle published a story that intrigued me. It talked of the history of fans wearing football scarves and suggested that a Newcastle fan in 1932 was the first to be photographed wearing a football scarf. The article explained that previously it had been claimed that an Arsenal supporter at a 1934 FA Cup tie had been the first filmed/photographed wearing a traditional bar scarf.  This set me off looking into the history of football scarves and of fans showing their colours.

So, here for subscribers to my site is a 1400 word article on showing your colours, focusing on the stories associated with Manchester City…

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The 1969 FA Cup Final

On April 26 1969 Manchester City defeated Leicester City in the FA Cup final. It is worth pausing to consider how the Blues compared to football’s other successful sides in the competition at this point.  City’s four FA Cup successes placed them behind Aston Villa (7), Blackburn Rovers (6), Newcastle United (6), Tottenham Hotspur (5), The Wanderers (5) and West Bromwich Albion (5).  Bolton, Sheffield United and Wolves had, like City, each won four FA Cups, while Manchester United had only won three, Liverpool one and Chelsea had not yet won the trophy.  In fact Chelsea had only won one major trophy (the League Championship) at this point in their history.  

Here for subscribers is a long read on that final and the events surrounding it:

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MCFC 20TH CENTURY CHRONICLE SEASON 1968-69

The League Matches

As League champions, the Blues were expected to coast through the 1968-9 season, particularly as the Charity Shield match against Cup winners West Bromwich Albion ended in a comfortable 6-1 City victory.  Unfortunately life is rarely that easy and only one of the first nine games ended in victory – a 3-2 win over Wolves.  The Blues simply could not get into the rhythm they had enjoyed the previous season.  One of the reasons for this was that they had embarked on a rather disastrous tour of America during the summer which, amongst other problems resulted in an injury to captain Tony Book  He was kept out of action until January.

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Malcolm Allison

Manchester City at Sporting tonight… The great coach Malcolm Allison was a major trophy winner at both clubs, so here’s a feature on Allison’s Manchester City career with particular emphasis on his boasts, and City’s first European days for the Blues.

This article is available to subscribers to this site. If you’re not a subscriber, do a few searches on here and see what content is already on my site. This includes audio interviews with John Bond and others, plus the entire contents of two of my books.

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One-nil in your semi-final

From World War Two up to and including 2011 Manchester City won every FA Cup semi-final they played with a 1-0 scoreline.  That’s five games.  In 2013 I caught up with two of the goalscorers – Tommy Booth (1969) and Paul Power (1981) – to discuss their memories of those games. Here for subscribers is what they said:

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The Player of the Year Awards

This season has seen Manchester City players win several prominent player of the year awards with Kevin De Bruyne winning the PFA player of the year award; Phil Foden the PFA young player of the year and Lauren Hemp won the women’s PFA young player of the year award. There was also Ruben Dias won the FWA footballer of the year award and the Premier League player of the year award.

This is an incredible array of awards. The following subscriber post details all the Manchester City winners of these awards since their formation:

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Manchester City’s “European Heritage” – Facts Not Fiction

With the 2021 Champions League final looming, most City fans know that the Blues possess a great history but in recent years some of the club’s rivals have tended to play down City’s European heritage suggesting the Blues are relative newcomers to the continent’s biggest competitions. So in this article I thought I’d take the opportunity to spell out a few of City’s earliest connections with European competition:

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