Back in 1989 the 11 February saw goals from Wayne Biggins (2), Brian Gayle and Trevor Morley to give Manchester City a 4-0 Division Two win at home to Ipswich Town. Those were the days hey?
Category Archives: 1988-89
A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download
Back in 1989 my first book was published and subscribers to this site (both annual and monthly) can now download a PDF of that entire book. The original book cost £6.95 when it came out; you can subscribe at £3 per month and get the PDF free here then cancel the subscription if you like). Ignoring yearbooks, this was only the 6th book (and two of those were more like pamphlets published in the 1930s & 40s) ever published specifically on Manchester City Football Club.
Subscribe to get access – Annual
To access the book and everything else on my website please take out an annual subscription here or, alternatively, scroll a little further and take out a monthly subscription. It’s £20 a year (about £1.67 per month) or £3 a month (cancel anytime).
Subscribe to get access – Monthly
To access the book and everything published since 1st October 2022 take out a monthly subscription here. It’s £3 a month (cancel anytime).
The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:
The 200th Post – Joe Mercer
and here:
A Writing Flashback!
I do not have the original layouts and so I’ve scanned my only surviving copy of the book and put the pages together on a PDF. The pages appear in the order they did in the original but, obviously, as I’ve just placed images of the pages on a word document it’s not as it all appeared. Nevertheless, for those who have never seen it you can now.
There were all sorts of issues with the original publication. My co-author had died and the book was delayed by a year. It was originally due out when I was 20 in 1988. As Keith, my co-author, had died mistakes were made. Keith was also a key figure at the publisher and, without his expertise, the quality of the images and other areas was not as great as it should have been. Even the title was incorrectly published (I’d agreed a different title). Ah well… I got enough of a bug to have started writing my second book within about a month of this coming out.
If you’d like to download the book then you do need to be a subscriber to this site. Subscribers pay £20 a year (works out about £1.67 a month) or £3 a month at a time (cancel anytime). For that annual subscribers now get the entire From Maine Men To Banana Citizens plus my 2010 edition of Manchester A Football History AND all articles/interviews posted so far. These include audio interviews I did with John Bond, Malcolm Allison and George Graham in the 1990s. Monthly subscribers get all content posted since 1st October 2022. All subscribers get access to all new material posted during their subscription too.
The 1st and Latest Women’s Manchester Derby in the League
Tomorrow is the latest Manchester derby in the Women’s Super League. There’s a long history of competition between teams representing the women of Manchester City and Manchester United. City’s team has been in existence continually since November 1988 when Donna Haynes and Heidi Ward both scored two goals in their first game (v Oldham Athletic at Boundary Park).
I was at the City Ladies (as they were then known) first game and I was also at their first league derby in September 1990 when City defeated United 4-3. It was a fantastic day, watched by around 150 people.
City’s goals came from Rhoda Taylor (8 min), Rachel O’Shaughnessy (43 mins), Jenny Newton (50 mins) and Lesley Peters. City’s manager Neil Mather told me as part of my research for the Manchester City Women book: ‘United were the top side, you know, and beating them was so good for morale. The men’s team were a good side in the early 90s when City Ladies carried on developing, you know. This was the Howard Kendall era, and City had top five finishes. City were one of the top five or six teams in the country at the time, so it was fabulous for women’s football to have Man City, you know.’
Helen Hempenstall played for City that day and she described her memory of the day for my book: I remember when we played United (30/9/90) and Neil (Helen’s boyfriend, now husband) and all his mates came to watch us. There were a lot of people there that day. United had a decent team then. It was always a difficult game against United. They had a right-winger… We never got on. Every time we played each other we were at each other all the way through the game. Me and Carol Woodall were having a go at her. The referee told Lesley Wright “Tell both your full backs to shut their mouths otherwise they’ll both be off!” We just didn’t get along and before every game I thought I’ll get in their first. ‘I’m having her.’ Neil Mather still talks about it.
‘I think Lesley Wright kept the team together. She kept it all tight at the back. I played at the back with her and I learnt a lot from her. Because I was next to her I knew how important she was. If I missed something she always got it. She always encouraged me and kept shouting ‘different class, different class’. You learn from the people around you and I listened to her. Before every game she came to speak to me. She’d put her arm around me and reassure me. She’d tell me not to worry about anything. Most of the time travelling to away games I’d go with Lesley in the car. We used to have a laugh. I remember one day we were travelling to an away game some distance away and we stopped for petrol and all got out. I lit up a fag and everyone else jumped back in the car screaming! I didn’t even think! When we got to the ground they all told Neil Mather and I think he worried that he could’ve lost half his team. At another game I was sat in the middle and as we got out the person before me slammed the door back. It hit my head and I had a big lump for the game.’
The story of that game and of the first 30 years or so of City Women’s existence can be read in my book on the club. It’s called Manchester City Women: An Oral History and is basically the women telling their stories of playing for the club and how they got into football, plus statistics covering the journey from friendlies in 1988-89 through to competition and the modern day successes.
You can buy the book via this link (every copy is signed by me):
Manchester City and Women’s Football Before and During the FA Ban
December 5 each year marks the anniversary of a FA decision that was to have an impact for decades, many would argue that the effects of it are still being felt today. On December 5 1921 the FA leaders decided to ban women’s football from FA affiliated grounds. This ban was to remain in place for almost fifty years and stifled the development of the women’s game. Here’s a feature on the connections between Manchester City and the women who played before and during the ban.
This is available to subscribers to my website.
Subscribe to get access – Annual
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or £20 per year. Annual subscribers get access to everything posted since December 2020 and throughout their subscription.
Subscribe to get access – Monthly
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or £20 per year. Monthly subscribers get access to everything posted since 1st October 2022 and throughout their subscription. Why not sign up for a month and give it a try?
Goalden Moulden
On this day (19 November) in 1988 Paul ‘Goalden’ Moulden scored the only goal of Manchester City’s win at Bournemouth in Division Two. Subscribers can read an interview I performed with Paul here:
A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download
Back in 1989 my first book was published and subscribers to this site (both annual and monthly) can now download a PDF of that entire book. The original book cost £6.95 when it came out; you can subscribe at £3 per month and get the PDF free here then cancel the subscription if you like). Ignoring yearbooks, this was only the 6th book (and two of those were more like pamphlets published in the 1930s & 40s) ever published specifically on Manchester City Football Club.
Subscribe to get access – Annual
To access the book and everything else on my website please take out an annual subscription here or, alternatively, scroll a little further and take out a monthly subscription. It’s £20 a year (about £1.67 per month) or £3 a month (cancel anytime).
Subscribe to get access – Monthly
To access the book and everything published since 1st October 2022 take out a monthly subscription here. It’s £3 a month (cancel anytime).
The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:
The 200th Post – Joe Mercer
and here:
A Writing Flashback!
I do not have the original layouts and so I’ve scanned my only surviving copy of the book and put the pages together on a PDF. The pages appear in the order they did in the original but, obviously, as I’ve just placed images of the pages on a word document it’s not as it all appeared. Nevertheless, for those who have never seen it you can now.
There were all sorts of issues with the original publication. My co-author had died and the book was delayed by a year. It was originally due out when I was 20 in 1988. As Keith, my co-author, had died mistakes were made. Keith was also a key figure at the publisher and, without his expertise, the quality of the images and other areas was not as great as it should have been. Even the title was incorrectly published (I’d agreed a different title). Ah well… I got enough of a bug to have started writing my second book within about a month of this coming out.
If you’d like to download the book then you do need to be a subscriber to this site. Subscribers pay £20 a year (works out about £1.67 a month) or £3 a month at a time (cancel anytime). For that annual subscribers now get the entire From Maine Men To Banana Citizens plus my 2010 edition of Manchester A Football History AND all articles/interviews posted so far. These include audio interviews I did with John Bond, Malcolm Allison and George Graham in the 1990s. Monthly subscribers get all content posted since 1st October 2022. All subscribers get access to all new material posted during their subscription too.
Bananarama – The Inflatables Craze
In the 1980s Manchester City fans demonstrated the positive side of football during a troubled decade for the sport. Despite being one of England’s top four clubs and the third best supported side in the League, the Blues suffered a shock relegation in 1983. Financial issues and an inability to invest meant the club relied on two of its greatest strengths – youth football and the loyalty of City’s fans. Young players like Paul Simpson, Paul Moulden, Ian Brightwell, David White, Paul Lake and Andy Hinchcliffe, ensured the Blues had a chance of re-establishing themselves on the pitch, while off the pitch a dedicated following was the envy of the majority of clubs.
City fans not only turned out in their numbers – they were the sixth best supported side in 1983-84 and 1988-89 (second tier seasons) – but they also brought great humour to football. The most newsworthy story involving fans during this period was the inflatable banana craze.
Rather than spell out every moment from that era, here are a few snippets on how the craze started and how it progressed.
– A dedicated City fan called Frank Newton took a 5ft 6in demonstration banana to City V Plymouth on 15 August 1987. It caused some amusement.
– Newton took the banana to away games, including the match against Oldham at Boundary Park. The fans were drenched; morale was low as Oldham equalised; and yet the banana continued to be waved throughout the game, bringing much needed humour to a depressing game.
– Other inflatables began appearing and by the end of the season a chant for striker Imre Varadi to the tune of the Israeli folk song Hava Nagila was adapted with the word banana replacing Varadi. The banana craze was not a tribute to Varadi (this has frequently been misreported in recent years due to an incorrect news report from the period that wrongly claimed the craze was a direct tribute to Varadi – it wasn’t), but chants utilising his name could easily be adapted to use banana instead of his surname.
– For the last game of the 1987-88 season the City fanzine Blue Print, edited by Mike Kelly, urged fans to take a blow up banana to Crystal Palace on the last day of the season. Around 50 bananas made it on to the terraces that day and the scene was set for supporters to enlarge on this in 1988-89.
– By the time the new season began the inflatable bananas had grown in number but so too had the variety of inflatable – sharks, Frankensteins, crocodiles, dinosaurs plus many more.
– The craze grew throughout 1988-89 and then on Boxing Day an appeal by the fanzines led to over 12,000 City fans in fancy dress and carrying inflatables, descending on Stoke’s Victoria Ground. The capacity was a little over 24,000 and Stoke handed over two full sides of the ground to City fans. Even the players came on to the pitch with inflatables (which they also did v Leicester in January 1989).
– A company that made inflatable bananas increased production to help satisfy the craze, while Fyffes began to sponsor games at City. Thousands of inflatables appeared at some games.
– The craze was copied across English football but it was City fans that were heralded as the ones who had put the fun back into football.
During a decade of disaster, tragedy and much negativity within football City fans demonstrated there could be another way and fans became internationally renowned for their humour. The craze ultimately died out, although bananas continued to appear on occasion or in limited numbers over the years.
In 2010-11 City’s FA Cup run brought the bananas back as a nostalgia craze and this has continued to some extent, though nowhere near in the numbers of the late 1980s.Maybe it’s time to bring back the inflatables in great numbers?
A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download
Subscribers to my site can download a PDF of my entire first book. It was published back in 1989. Here are more details:
The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:
The 200th Post – Joe Mercer
and here:
A Writing Flashback!
Manchester City Ladies – The Earliest Film
On this day in 1989 Manchester City Ladies (now Manchester City Women) played their third friendly after formation in 1988. Here for subscribers to my blog is exclusive film of the women lining up for their team photo at Burnley. This is the earliest known surviving footage of the team.
Subscribe to get access
If you would like to see this footage then please subscribe. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Each subscriber gets full access to the 160+ articles posted so far, plus the daily serialisation of Manchester A Football History, and the hundreds of articles scheduled to be posted in the coming months (for as long as you subscribe).
The Birth Of Manchester City Women
On this day (25th November) in 1988 the South Manchester Reporter featured Manchester City’s new women’s team for the first time. Neil Mather had set up the team and staged some training/selection sessions and, when this news article appeared, the women were about to face Oldham Athletic in their first ever fixture.
You can read all about those early days and the history of the club in my book Manchester City Women: An Oral History. You can buy the book here:
Gary James' Football Archive 