A new daily series of articles for subscribers started last week covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 4,000 word feature on the 1987-88 season. Enjoy!
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A new daily series of articles for subscribers started last week covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 2,500 word feature on the 1986-87 season. Enjoy!
Subscribe to get access – Monthly
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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
WORLD-RENOWNED SCULPTOR REVEALED AS ARTIST BEHIND PERMANENT TRIBUTE TO CITY’S LEGENDARY TRIUMVIRATE
Unveiling confirmed for Tuesday 28 November
World-renowned sculptor David Williams-Ellis chosen following exhaustiveselection process overseen by Club Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak
Tribute will celebrate the legacy of Manchester City’s trophy-laden era of the late1960s and early 1970s Manchester City Football Club is delighted to reveal that world-renowned sculptor David Williams-Ellis is the artist behind a permanent tribute to legendary triumvirate Colin Bell, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee. A student of eminent octogenarian drawing teacher, Nerina Simi, Williams-Ellis sought out classical training in Florence where his signature style was first established. His sculptures, worked in clay, from life, are inspired by the romanticism of French sculptors Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle and are noted for their sense of movement and vitality. With exhibitions proudly displayed at Perthshire’s Scone Palace, Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum and the IFC Building in Shanghai, Williams-Ellis is perhaps most famously known for his commission of the Normandy Memorial Trust’s D-Day Sculpture. That monument was unveiled by French President Emmanuel Macron and then-British Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019. Designed and created at his Oxfordshire home studio, Williams-Ellis’s work on this commission has focused on capturing the motion and characteristics of each player and embodying the spirit of their combined 30 years representing Manchester City. This initiative is the latest in a series of tributes to key figures forming the Club’s legacy project, first announced in 2019 and directed by Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak. Modern-day legends Vincent Kompany, Sergio Aguero and David Silva were celebrated upon their respective departures from the Club, with each of their sculptures located on the east side of the stadium, in addition to permanent mosaic artworks featured throughout the City Football Academy.
This installation will be located on the west side of the perimeter and will be unveiled on Tuesday morning ahead of a UEFA Champions League meeting with RB Leipzig later that day, where fans will be invited to visit the permanent tribute to an extraordinary era in the Club’s history.
Speaking of his appointment to the project David Williams-Ellis said:
“It is a great honour to create a work of art for Manchester City Football Club celebrating the diverse, talented players, Bell, Lee and Summerbee.
“It’s been an extraordinary last two years, working on this project that celebrates these players from a great era in Manchester City’s football history.
“I hope that the work will give a sense of history and place to the legions of fans and visitors that come to the football ground from around the world and become an enduring part of Manchester’s cultural landscape.”
David Williams-Ellis – Artist Biography
David Williams-Ellis’ sculptures, worked in clay directly from life, are inspired by the romanticism of Rodin and Bourdelle and are noted for their sense of movement and vitality.
David was classically trained in Florence under drawing teacher, Nerina Simi. From there he went on to be an apprentice wood carver and then joined a community of marble carvers beneath the Carrara Mountains in Pietresanta.
David’s reputation was cemented after his time in Italy. Today, his work is in private and public collections across the globe and can be seen in flagship buildings including Scone Palace in Perthshire, Aberdeen’s Maritime Museum, the IFC Building in Shanghai and Oxford House, Swires, Hong Kong.
Amongst his most notable work includes the D-Day Memorial Sculpture, unveiled on 6th June 2019 above Gold Beach in Normandy to commemorate the 22443 service men and women who fell on D-Day and in the Normandy campaign under British command.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers started last week covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 2,500 word feature on the 1985-86 season. Enjoy!
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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers started last week covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 2,600 word feature on the 1984-85 season. Enjoy!
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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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers started last week covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 2,500 word feature on the 1983-84 season. Enjoy!
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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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers started a few days ago covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 3,500 word feature on the 1982-83 season. Enjoy (well, if you know the outcome of this season you can enjoy this memory refresh while reflecting on the modern day successes of the Blues!).
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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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers started yesterday covering the 1980s. This is a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a 2,500 word feature on the 1981-82 season. Enjoy!
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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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
A new daily series of articles for subscribers starts today covering the 1980s. This will be a seasonal journey through a truly important decade in the history of Manchester City Football Club. Today’s article is a ten thousand word long read on the 1980-81 season. Enjoy!
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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.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.
Late in 1993 Jimmy Wagg interviewed me on GMR about my new book on Joe Mercer. Next month it’ll be 30 years (I know!) since that book came out and so I thought I’d post the recording of the interview with Jimmy from that year. The quality is not great (neither are my answers at times!) but you can now hear the recording on my website.
If you want to hear why I did the book and the answers I gave back then have a listen now. Here goes (again apologies for the quality of the recording):
While you’re here why not have a look at all the other articles, interviews, videos and material on this site. Subscribers get access to everything and this includes PDFs of the entire Manchester A Football History book; From Maine Men To Banana Citizens (my first book) and Farewell To Maine Road. There are also audio recordings of my interviews with John Bond, Malcolm Allison, George Graham etc. It costs £3 per month or £20 per year. Details of how to subscribe below:
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Gary James' Football Archive 