Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
Despite beating Kyiv 1-0 thanks to a Kolarov goal at home Manchester City were knocked out of the UEFA Cup on this day (17 March) in 2011. The first leg had ended in a 2-0 defeat. You can watch highlights of the second leg here:
This season would of course end in success with City winning the FA Cup.
Prior to this weekend’s game with Spurs, Manchester City have had players from 41 different nations score for the Blues in the Premier League. Can you remember them all? The following 1200 word article tells the story…
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Manchester football historian Gary James assesses what City’s 2011 FA Cup success means from a historical perspective. This was written in April 2011 and is published here to provide consideration of how that point in history was viewed at the time. It has not been altered to reflect later views.
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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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Had we all been allowed to attend matches last season I would have marked the tenth anniversary of Manchester City’s 2011 FA Cup success with a programme feature. Sadly, Covid prevented that and now, a year on, I want to commemorate the eleventh anniversary of that FA Cup success. How time flies!
There are so many angles to that first major success of the modern era for Manchester City and it is impossible to cover them all here. Elsewhere on this website I talk about the 2011 FA Cup run, especially that semi-final win over Manchester United. If you’ve not heard it have a listen to this:
Today I’ll focus on the final itself…
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The experience of attending a football match isn’t just about seeing great football (but I love those of us who support Manchester City have been blessed with that over the last few years of course!), it’s about what happens in the stands and around the stadium. Fan culture has been something that has mattered to me for decades and I love the atmosphere and mood around watching City.
City fans have had a great reputation for their humour and their ability to add something different to the match day experience. From the 1890s when fans would bring musical instruments and wear fancy dress to City games at the Blues’ Hyde Road ground, through to the 1980s banana craze and on to recent years, attending City games has always been more than simply watching a match.
So for today’s subscriber piece I want to talk about something that swept the club in 2010-11 that has this season been making steps towards returning en masse at the stadium. That is The Poznan!
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It’s FA Cup week AND Manchester Derby week, so the time seems right to post this special 1 hour long audio I produced last year on Manchester City’s FA Cup semi final victory over Manchester United at Wembley on April 16 2011. This recording looks at the game and the years between the 1976 League Cup success and the FA Cup glory of 2011. The 2011 semi-final was a crucial step in City’s journey since the 2008 takeover and I felt it was vital to do a special marking this.
So what’s in this special recording? Well, I’ve included exclusive material from interviews and recordings I’ve done over the years with Garry Cook, Brian Marwood, Roberto Mancini, Peter Barnes and Peter Swales. Why Swales? Well, have a listen and you’ll hear why. Basically though I’m trying to set the tone for why the 2011 FA Cup semi final victory and overcoming Manchester United was so significant.
On Mancini… I include a few words from him recorded in 2011 and at one point he talks about the view that was then being expressed that City were ‘trying’ to buy success (now they say City ‘have’ bought success!). His words are a reminder that City have been having that particular criticism thrown at them for over a decade! Oh well, I wonder how long those criticisms were laid at other clubs who had seen major investment which propelled them forward?
Anyway, get yourself a brew and be prepared to be transported back in time. Here’s the recording:
If you enjoy the recording then please let me know, comment or subscribe to the site. If it’s of interest then, over the coming months and years, I’ll produce others like this highlighting key points in Manchester City – and Manchester’s – footballing history. It costs £20 a year to subscribe (it works out £1.67 a month) or £3 if you’d like to sign up a month at a time to get full access for as long as you subscribe (you can always try it for a month). It’s worth bearing in mind that the 2010 Manchester A Football History cost £24.95 and all subscribers will be able to access all of that for as long as they are a subscriber (plus all the other stuff of course). You can subscribe below.
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Match Stats for the 2011 FA Cup Semi-final
City 1-0 United (HT 0-0)
Yaya Toure 52
City: 25 Hart 04 Kompany (yellow card), 05 Zabaleta (yellow card), 13 Kolarov, 19 Lescott, 11 Johnson (Wright-Phillips 79), 18 Barry, 21 Silva (Vieira 86), 34 De Jong (yellow card), 42 Y Toure, 45 Balotelli (yellow card). Substitutes 12 Taylor, 38 Boyata, 07 Milner, 08 Wright-Phillips, 24 Vieira, 10 Dzeko, 27 Jo
United: 01 Van der Sar, 03 Evra, 05 Ferdinand, 15 Vidic, 22 O’Shea (Fabio Da Silva 84), 13 Park Ji-Sung, 16 Carrick, 17 Nani, 18 Scholes (red card), 25 Valencia (Hernandez 65), 09 Berbatov (Anderson 74). Substitutes 29 Kuszczak, 12 Smalling, 20 Fabio Da Silva, 08 Anderson, 28 Gibson, 07 Owen, 14 Hernandez
Referee: Dean
Attendance: 86,549
On this day (30 January) in 2011 Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City team faced Notts County in the FA Cup. Edin Dzeko’s first City goal came on this day too!
In the build-up to the Notts County tie much was made of the fact that County were the world’s oldest League team and that they were facing the world’s richest club – as usual ignoring the hard fact that it was City’s owner that was wealthy not the club itself. Who’d have thought then that ten years later we’d still be hearing this same old claptrap!
Television, in particular, liked to build up the David and Goliath aspect to it. For neutrals it added to the interest perhaps, but for the Blues it continued to give a false impression of the stage they were at in their development.
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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 night (May 23 2011) after beating Bolton 2-0 in the final Premier League game of the 2010-11 season, Manchester City staged their first official homecoming victory parade since 1976. Here’s the story of what happened in the stadium for fans who couldn’t be there.
Here for subscribers is the story of that parade and City’s celebrations…
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