Category Archives: Manchester United

The 2020s: City’s Winning Streak

Manchester City’s winning streak was extended to 13 games following a comfortable victory at Burnley on this day (3 February) in 2021. Not only that but the win placed Pep Guardiola’s side top of the League, three points ahead of rivals Manchester United, and this was City’s sixth consecutive clean sheet. Here’s a Mini-report and highlights of the game…

The game started wonderfully for City when a stinging shot by Bernardo Silva was parried straight to Gabriel Jesus by Burnley ‘keeper Nick Pope. Jesus headed in from a couple of yards out after only three minutes.

In the 38th minute the lead was doubled when an Ilkay Gundogan pass found its way to Raheem Sterling who scored his tenth goal of the season to date. There were other chances and City were always in control, but the game ended 2-0. Afterwards Burnley boss Sean Dyche admitted: ‘City were very good. They’re on a good run of form. They are really sharp in transition and attack… They play with three and a half [at the back]. The right-back or left-back goes into midfield when they have the ball.’

An odd stat was highlighted after this game recording that City had become the first team ever to win 12 consecutive Premier League games played on a Wednesday. By this time of Pep’s reign so many longstanding records had been broken that the statisticians began looking for something new to highlight!

City have highlights here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/burnley-man-city-exended-highlights-63747986

The 1950s: A Manchester Derby

Here’s film of the FA Cup 4th round tie from this day (29 January) in 1955 when Manchester City defeated Manchester United 2-0. Joe Hayes and Don Revie were the City scorers. Enjoy: https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/59278/

This series on Manchester City in the 1950s includes free items and items only available to subscribers. If you’d like to find out more on the 1954-55 season then subscribe and read the following 3,400 word article on it. It’s a season when City reached the FA Cup final and Don Revie was FWA Footballer of the Year.

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The 1910s: 1919-1920 The King’s Blues

The new series of features on Manchester City in the 1910s continues today with a 2,400 word article on the 1919-20 season. This was an important season in the history of City. If you’re a subscriber you can read all about this season below. If you’re not a subscriber then why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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Manchester’s Support

Here’s a map I published in my book Manchester A Football History. It shows the spread of support for both City and United across Manchester as recorded in an academic study back in 2002 (using data from 2001). Basically this was based on season ticket holders in each postcode area of Manchester and shows whether a postcode area was Red or Blue at that time. You can see that back then City had more season ticket holders in almost every district of the city centre and east Manchester while United tended to have more in western districts. However, this was based on the number of season ticket holders in 2001. Since then of course the numbers attending games at both clubs have increased significantly.

In my chapter I made a comment about how this analysis might change:

Screenshot

Manchester Trophy Success

As it’s the Manchester Derby this weekend some always seem to want to compare the records of the clubs. Back in 1991 I wrote (together with Steve Cawley) the Pride of Manchester (the history of the Manchester Derby with forewords by Matt Busby & Joe Mercer). We included in that lots of statistical stuff including a First & Last table showing all major trophies and listing Manchester’s first and most recent successes. So I thought I’d update that table today. Here goes…

Manchester Firsts and Lasts

CompetitionFirst SuccessTeamMost Recent SuccessTeam
FA Cup1904City2024United
League1908United2024City
European Cup/CL1968United2023City
League Cup1970City2021City
European CWC1970City1991United
UEFA Super Cup1991United2023City
FIFA Club World Cup2008United2023City
Europa League2017United2017United
Domestic Treble (League, FAC & LC)2019City *Only club ever to achieve this2019City
Treble (League, FAC & EC/CL)1999United2023City

Individually here are the firsts and lasts for each club:

City’s Success

CompetitionFirst SuccessMost Recent Success
FA Cup19042023
League19372024
Major European Trophy19702023
League Cup19702021

United’s Success

CompetitionFirst SuccessMost Recent Success
FA Cup 19092024
League19082013
Major European Trophy19682017
League Cup19922023

The 1910s: 1915-1916 Wartime Champions

The new series of features on Manchester City in the 1910s continues today with an article on the 1915-16 season. People often claim men’s football stopped in the war but it did not. Regional leagues were established and there was regular competition across the Manchester region. City found trophy success too! If you’re a subscriber you can read all about this season below. If you’re not a subscriber then why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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The 1910s: 1913-1914 Regaining Control

The new series of features on Manchester City in the 1910s continues today with an article on the 1913-14 season. If you’re a subscriber you can read all about this season below. If you’re not a subscriber then why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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The 1910s: 1912-1913 Mangnall Walks Out On United 

The new series of features on Manchester City in the 1910s continues today with a 2800 word article on the 1912-13 season – A season which saw United’s most successful manager (at the time) walk out on the Reds to become City’s manager (he believed that City, with the larger pulling power, was a more ambitious club). If you’re a subscriber you can read all about that and the rest of the season below. If you’re not a subscriber then why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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The 1910s: 1911-1912  Goalkeeping Changes 

The new series of features on Manchester City in the 1910s continues today with a 1000 word article on the 1911-12 season. If you’re a subscriber you can read this below.

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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From My Collection: MEN Football Special 1982-83 and Its Predictions!

Here’s a few images from the 1982-83 football special publication produced at the start of the season by the Manchester Evening News. Back then the newspaper tended to produce a preview for the season each year. David Meek (United) and Peter Gardner (City) would write features on the two local top flight teams and then there’d also be features on Oldham, Bolton, Stockport and Rochdale. Both Meek and Gardner would also predict what the season would be like for United and City. Typically, Meek would say that the new season was likley to be the one that ‘finally’ brought the League title back to Old Trafford while Gardner would often try to be upbeat about City’s chances in some way. In 1982 Gardner took a different approach though and basically said it would be a difficult season – he was right! – but Meek stuck to the usual approach and said that 1982-83 could be the year the League title returned to Old Trafford for the first time since 1967 (City had won it in 1968).

United didn’t win the title for another decade and if you’d like to know exactly what happened to City, you can read all about the 1982-83 season for the Blues in this 3,500 word subscriber feature. 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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