Happy Christmas! Here’s a great image of Tony Book, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee participating in the annual pantomime at Manchester City. These were the days before Peter Swales took the panto theme too far and turned running the club into one great big pantomime.
City’s pantomimes involving star players took place for many, many years and became part of the regular Junior Blues calendar of events. This image was published in January 1971 and shows the three players in the 1970-71 Cinderella show at the City Social Club.
Forty years ago today (21 December in 1985) the humour of Manchester City fans was in evidence at Sheffield Wednesday. That day I was stood in the away section behind the goal and Wednesday led 3-1 at half time. City had taken the lead via Mark Lillis in the 13th minute but Wednesday had equalised a minute later (Thompson) then taken the lead (future Blue Gary Megson, 25 mins & Sterland 42 mins). It didn’t look like it was to be City’s day but City fans were in good spirit overall. As the players trudged off the guy running the PA system put on ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham. The song had been released the previous year. A few City fans began moving to the music and there was a bit of laughter. Then the music stopped on the PA as the announcer began reading out the half time scores. City fans immediately began booing.
Then the chant ‘We want Wham!’ started to boom out from the Leppings Lane End and the boos and chanting grew louder and louder. It was one of those surreal football moments. When he’d finished reading out the half times the PA announcer, still drowned out to some extent by our chant of ‘We want Wham!’ said: ‘And now, just for the Man City fans it’s back to Wham and Last Christmas!’
The away section cheered and then what had been a small group of fans bopping along to the song initially was now a significant part of the away section.
I don’t know who the PA announcer was but he certainly ‘got’ the mood of the day and helped create one of those odd, surreal football fan moments that rarely get reported.
The game ended 3-2 to Wednesday after Neil McNab scored City’s second in the 66th minute before a Hillsborough crowd of 23,177. Here’s my programme from the game:
If you’d like to know more about Manchester City at this time, here’s a 2,500 word subscriber feature on the 1985-86 season. Enjoy!
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Uwe Rosler scored a memorable 17th minute penalty in Manchester City’s 2-0 victory over Middlesbrough on this day (20 December) in 1997. Paul Dickov netted the other goal. That was one of only six victories for the Blues that season as City headed towards Division Two and Boro towards the Premier League.
While you’re here, why not subscribe and read an indepth article on the 1997-98 season? The article is almost 9,500 words long – there’s so much to say! Some people write entire football club histories that are shorter than that. It’s available to subscribers, so why not subscribe and relive this season and an extraordinary decade? As with many other subscriber features it contains material from interviews I’ve performed with key figures from that time.
Here’s the 9500 word article on that season:
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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) to access everything posted since 1 October 2022 or there’s a special annual rate below which gives greater access and works out much cheaper.
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I’ve just seen the news about Åge Hareide. Manchester City’s first Norwegian player has died at the age of 72. I remember seeing ‘Oggy’, as we called him/chanted his name, when he first arrived.
Åge only managed 24 games for the Blues during an odd period for the club. He played from 1981 to 1982 and later managed Norway, Denmark and Iceland during an incredible 54 year career as player and manager. My thoughts are with his family and friends.
Here’s a nice cover from the Radio Times featuring Manchester City’s 1969 FA Cup winners. They defeated Leicester 1-0 thanks to a goal from prolific City scorer Neil Young.
If you’d like to read more on this season, then here’s a 1,500 word article on the 1950-51 season. Enjoy!
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An advert which appeared on the cover of the Manchester City match programme from today (15 December) in 1934. Back then ‘all’ the City players wore Sammy Scarves! Presumably not in games, though Sammy Scarves could have made a fortune in Sammy Snoods when Tevez was playing!
Congratulations to Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw on becoming the first Manchester City Women player to score 100 goals since the relaunch of the club. It’s a wonderful feat and she deserves immense praise. Here’s City’s report of today’s (14 December 2025) 6-1 victory over Aston Villa which saw Shaw score 4 goals:
Here’s the front of a match programme for the FA Youth Cup tie between Manchester City and Manchester United on this day (13 December) in 1965. How many names do you recognise? The match ended in a 5-0 United win.
You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).
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On this day (12 December) in 1970 a hat-trick from Francis Lee was City’s last hat-trick in a Manchester derby until Haaland and Foden in October 2022! The 1970 game also saw a goal from Mike Doyle to gave City a comfortable 4-1 victory over Manchester United before an Old Trafford crowd of 52,636. That victory meant City had won 5 and only dropped 4 points in 8 consecutive League derby meetings with the Reds. There was also a devastating injury to Glyn Pardoe (more on that in another post!). Here is the background, report and verdict of that game…
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Gary James' Football Archive 