Category Archives: Seasons

Trautmann Off!

It was a miserable day all round as Manchester City’s Bert Trautmann was sent off for booting the ball at the referee on this day (8 September 1962). City lost the game with West Ham 6-1 with Trautmann’s dismissal coming after the fifth goal.

After he had booted the ball at the ref, the official took out his notebook and ordered Trautmann off. The German goalkeeper immediately took his shirt off and headed down the tunnel and straight out of the ground and into his car.

Here are Trautmann’s views, as told to a journalist the following day:

The view from West Ham was that their team was not particularly worth the 6-1 victory. This London report makes interesting reading:

Demonstrations followed the game expressing anger towards the manager Les McDowall but Trautmann managed to escape fan criticism.

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Steve Daley Interview

Yesterday (6 September 2023) I posted a story highlighting the transfer of Steve Daley to Manchester City in 1979. Today I’d like to expand on that by posting here an interview I did with Steve where we discuss that transfer, City fans and the spending City were doing at the time we did the interview. It was a great time to interview Steve and I enjoyed it immensely, helping fill in some gaps.

This interview is available to subscribers below.

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Spend, Spend, Spend Image of Manchester City

Well, it seems the norm today to talk about the cost of Manchester City’s squad with TV commentators frequently talking about the price of City’s bench. It gets tiring. However, this is not the first time the media talked of City as a ‘spend, spend, spend’ club. Today marks the anniversary of one day in particular when City’s spending caught the media’s attention. That day was on 6 September 1979 when Steve Daley signed for the Blues at a cost of £1,450,277.

City had to defend this spending which – and I know it’s difficult to understand in the modern world of £100m+ footballers – absolutely stunned football. This transfer was the British record but it was perceived as huge.

Chairman Peter Swales’ defence for the spending was that City was a profitable club (see the article) and this is true. City were a hugely profitable club in the 1970s but that all changed over the coming years with Swales, his supporting directors and managers getting giddy trying to buy success. As we all know it takes more than money to generate success and this period of City’s history is the one that actually created the club’s fall from grace, leading to some to believe in the 2010s & 2020s that the club had ‘no history’ and was not a ‘giant’. All that is balderdash. City were a giant who fell unlucky through poor management by a board of directors who did not plan for long term development.

Anyway, lots to say on this but read the article here from 1979 and hopefully that will show the position of strength the club was in (but soon messed up!).

While you’re here why not listen to one of my interviews with Malcolm Allison. You can hear a taster here:

Coming Soon: My 1991 Malcolm Allison Interview

The full interview is available to subscribers here:

Malcolm Allison Audio Interview Part One

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Another £1m MCFC Player

On this day (4 September) in 1981 Manchester City signed Trevor Francis from Nottingham Forest. The transfer meant that the Blues were the first English side to sign three separate £1m or £1m+ players. Peter Swales often boasted of this point (and did so in an interview I did with him years later). The earlier £1m/£1m+ men were Steve Daley and Kevin Reeves.

I’ve interviewed John Bond, Trevor Francis and Peter Swales specifically about this transfer over the years. Subscribers can listen to my Bond interview (see below for details) and a written version of my Trevor Francis interview is available too here (this is free to read):

Trevor Francis

Here’s the John Bond interview:

The John Bond Interview

The story of Trevor Francis’ debut against Stoke is here:

41 Years Ago Today: Trevor Francis Debut

Here’s an article quoting Mike Doyle, who by this time was a Stoke player, about Francis:

A First League Game

On this day (3 September) in 1892 Ardwick AFC (a significant part of Manchester City’s roots) played their first League game. They defeated Bootle 7-0. This contemporary newspaper article talks of the game. Notice the mention of an ‘ordinary’ game with Nottingham Forest – what that means is a friendly in today’s language. Back then the regular games were friendlies, so they were considered ‘ordinary’, and League or FA Cup competition was considered the rarity. That all changed over time!

Notice at the bottom of this cutting the mention of Broughton Rangers. They were a prominent rugby team, later became Belle Vue Rangers, and the ground that is opening here is Wheater’s Field. Their home before the Cliff.

Fulham Defeated

On this day (2nd September) in 1959 Ian Barton, a key member of the Manchester City Supporters Club, attended his first game. I spoke with Ian years ago about this and here’s his story of that day all those years ago: ‘It may not be the most significant game in City’s history but for me it shines out like a beacon light.  As a 5 year old – I’ve given my age away now! – it was my first ever game. I had looked forward to this more than anything I could remember, after all my Dad, cousins, uncles and everyone else in the family could go to Maine Road so it was natural for me to follow on.

‘I remember how huge the place looked.  I’d never seen anything on such a scale and I’ll never forget the smell which was a combination of tobacco, wintergreen & Bovril which always seemed to permeate around the stadium.  Then there were the floodlights.  They created a fantastic effect for a young boy and to this day I always think night games have a dramatic feel to them.  

‘Our team had the great Bert in goal, Joe Hayes up front, with Colin Barlow on the wing and Ken Barnes at wing half.  Sadly the local hero Denis Law was injured so didn’t play.  Fortunately his heal, which he put to such good use some 15 years later, was not harmed.  Although he was soon to become a firm favourite of mine, it was short-lived.  For some reason – and I’m sure all Blues agree on this one – Law seemed to disappear from the scene for most of his career only to have one glorious season before retiring in style.

‘Fulham had some names which were to become famous namely Bobby Robson, George Cohen, Alan Mullery & Jimmy Hill, but neither Hill nor Robson turned out that night.  City turned on the style and won comfortably.  I was hooked for life.

‘Since then like all City fans I have suffered the ups and downs the highs and lows which we accept as the norm.  From Rotherham to Newcastle…  from Wembley to Vienna…  from Stoke to Blackburn via Wembley… it’s been a hell of a ride and I don’t regret one moment of it.

‘I look upon this game with Fulham as the day when my lifelong passion was born.’

The Fulham consolation goal was scored by debutant Alf Stokes, who joined Fulham for £10,000 in July 1959 from Tottenham, although it’s doubtful the young Ian would have cared about the opposition of course!

Statistics:  Football League 2nd September 1959.

City 3 Fulham 1

Scorers – City: McAdams (2; the image at the top of this article is of McAdams), Colbridge

Fulham: Stokes

City: Trautmann, Branagan, Kerr, Cheetham, McTavish, Barnes, Barlow, Hannah, McAdams, Hayes, Colbridge 

Fulham:  Macedo, Cohen, Langley, Mullery, Bentley, Lawler, Leggat, Stokes, Doherty, Cook, Chamberlain

Attendance: 37,485 

You can read more about Billy McAdams here:

A Manchester City Death in 2002

Manchester City Profits

This month (September) in 1967 this article was published highlighting the profitability of Manchester City. I know this is a long time ago but for those who believe City’s profitability is a recent thing it’s worth stating that the Blues were a hugely profitable club until chairman Peter Swales took power. No time to go into all that now (look across this website and you’ll see my posts on it though). Back in 1967 the club was under the stewardship of the Alexander family of course.

Manchester City’s and Bury’s First…

Today (1 September) marks the anniversary of Manchester City’s AND Bury’s first League game and first goal scorers in the League. The two clubs played each other in this historic fixture. The game was a 4-2 defeat for City at neighbours Bury on 1 September 1894. The historic first City scorer was Tom Little, who scored the opener after eight minutes. Bury’s first scorer was Billy Barbour.

City 6 Forest 0

On this day (31 August 2022) last year Manchester City defeated Nottingham Forest 6-0 in the Premier League. Haaland scored a hat trick, Alvarez two and one from Cancelo. It was a Wednesday night and the attendance was 53,409. You can watch highlights here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/manchester-city-6-0-nottingham-forest-extended-highlights-63797575