Category Archives: 2022-23

Royal Reactions (part one)

I’m sure we’ve all been watching some of the television coverage following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. With so much air time to fill we’ve often had angles put forward and debated for a few minutes or hours on TV and radio. So I thought it was time I put one (or two – part two will go into detail about royal visits to Manchester City) of my own on my website. Here goes… Someone asked me the other day about how Manchester City reacted in terms of performance in the days/weeks/months after a monarch’s death. So, if you’ve been desperate to find out, or are more likely to think ‘go on then, I’ll stick with it a bit longer’, here’s the answer:

Since Manchester City was established in the 19th Century there have been two British Queens and now five Kings. Detailed below are a few snippets from each of their reigns which may or may not be of interest. I’ll start with Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria was on the throne throughout the birth of League football until her death in January 1901. These were the years when professional football developed and Victoria died only 9 years after the club had joined the League as Ardwick.

Major Trophies Won: No major trophies were won by City during Victoria’s reign but they did win the Second Division title in 1899 – the first national success of either Manchester club. The last complete season of her life saw City compete in the top flight for the first time. the first game after her death was a 2-1 defeat at Stoke.

King Edward VII was on the throne from January 1901 through to May 1910. He died in the close season as City were about to go on tour to Germany and Denmark. During Edward’s life City won the FA Cup in 1904 (Manchester’s first major trophy) and were runners up in the League that season.

King George V was the first monarch to visit a Manchester City game when he attended a 1920 League game between City and Liverpool at Hyde Road. During his reign City won the FA Cup in 1934 and George was present for that final. City had also appeared in two other finals and had finished 2nd in the League in 1920. He died in January 1936 and the following weekend’s FA Cup games went ahead as scheduled. Over 65,000 watched City defeat Luton 2-1 at Maine Road.

King Edward VIII was only on the throne for about nine months and abdicated in December 1936. City had finished ninth in the only season completed during his reign but the 1936-37 was to be a spectacular one, though the part of the season before his abdication was not so great for the Blues.

King George VI became King on the abdication of his brother and City were to go on an incredible run shortly afterwards. A couple of defeats came within a fortnight of him taking on the role but other than those City were undefeated for the rest of the season. An incredible run of 22 games unbeaten brought City the League title in 1937.

As the Duke of York George had attended the 1933 FA Cup final and had also attended a game at Maine Road that year too. George died in February 1952. The following weekend’s games were not postponed and City drew a goalless match with Blackpool.

Queen Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952 and during her reign City have found major success time and time again. Within 3 years of her becoming Queen she attended Wembley to watch City face Newcastle in the 1955 FAC final. Newcastle won that (their last major domestic trophy) but the year after she was at Wembley again to see City beat Birmingham in the Trautmann Final. Since then City have found major glory in the League and in Europe. Their trophy haul under Elizabeth includes:

1 European Cup Winners’ Cup

7 League titles

4 FA Cups

8 League Cups

City have won 1 trophy approximately every 3.5 years of her reign. When she died games were postponed the following weekend.

King Charles III – Of course it’s too early to say what success arrives during his reign.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this slightly odd football article. There’ll be a second part published next week. Watch this space. While you’re here why not explore the rest of the website. Thanks

Raheem Sterling

I’m sad to see Raheem Sterling is leaving Manchester City but I do wish him well for the future of course. For the final MCFC match programme of the season I included a small piece on Sterling and his status/achievements at the Etihad within my regular feature. To mark his departure I’m posting what I said only a couple of months ago here. Enjoy!

Here’s the unedited original piece as it was written: I want to focus on one of our current players who has been establishing himself as one of our greatest goal scorers of all time. In recent weeks we have rightly remembered the goalscoring exploits of our legendary hero Sergio Agüero, especially that memorable day ten years ago. These achievements have to be celebrated and remembered but we should also look at our current goal scorers and recognise what they are achieving too. Legends like Agüero do not come along every day but in today’s squad we have players whose achievements are way ahead of the majority of other players who have preceded them. 

Although we may celebrate odd goals and moments, we don’t often celebrate the achievements of our players while they are playing, especially as we know we have a squad of talented players helping the club challenge for success. However, I think it’s worth pausing to recognise the achievements of Raheem Sterling during his time at City. Sterling is now the second highest scorer for City in the modern era.

For years our top ten goal scorers of all-time list was fairly static. In fact, before Agüero, the most recent player to enter our top ten goal scorers’ chart was Colin Bell, who had followed Francis Lee into the table around fifty years ago. Agüero, of course, is our number one goal scorer of all time now, followed by 1930s stars Eric Brook & Tommy Johnson, then Colin Bell. At the time of going to press Raheem Sterling is 11th in the list after scoring 131 City goals, only one behind Billy Gilliespie and Fred Tilson, our joint ninth highest goal scorers.

We really should celebrate the career statistics of Sterling. It’s an amazing achievement to have eclipsed ALL but the current top ten prior to today’s game. I’m sure some critics will say ‘ah, but how does his scoring ratio compare?’ Well, sadly, for the majority of players in City’s top ten we are unable to have accurate statistics on the number of minutes played to allow a direct comparison, but we do have goals per game ratio statistics. Sterling’s goals to game ratio is 0.388, which is better than Colin Bell’s ratio of 0.305 goals per game and Eric Brook’s 0.359. Not too shabby then, especially when you consider the nature of modern-day squad football meant that Sterling either came on as substitute or was substituted in over 150 of his 338 games too!