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 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?
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:
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
Competition
First Success
Team
Most Recent Success
Team
FA Cup
1904
City
2024
United
League
1908
United
2024
City
European Cup/CL
1968
United
2023
City
League Cup
1970
City
2021
City
European CWC
1970
City
1991
United
UEFA Super Cup
1991
United
2023
City
FIFA Club World Cup
2008
United
2023
City
Europa League
2017
United
2017
United
Domestic Treble (League, FAC & LC)
2019
City *Only club ever to achieve this
2019
City
Treble (League, FAC & EC/CL)
1999
United
2023
City
Individually here are the firsts and lasts for each club:
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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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?
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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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?
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?
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.
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?
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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Had your Christmas dinner yet? If not then spare a thought for those days when professional football in England would take place on Christmas Day. In the modern era the thought of playing League football on Christmas Day is totally unacceptable, but in years gone by games were played on consecutive days over Christmas, including Christmas Day, and these were often the best attended matches of the winter.
The last Christmas Day game featuring Manchester City took place in 1957 when the Blues were defeated 2-1 at Burnley. The City team for that landmark game was: Trautmann, Leivers, Little, Barnes, Ewing, Warhurst, Barlow, Kirkman, Johnstone, Hayes, and Fagan. Fionan Fagan was the last City player to score on Christmas Day
The following day City defeated Burnley 4-1 at Maine Road in front of a crowd of 47,285. The only change to the line up was Ron Phoenix, who replaced Bobby Johnstone.
The First Noel
The first League game ever played by City on Christmas Day was at Christmas 1896 against Newton Heath (present day Manchester United). The game was played at Bank Street, Clayton (roughly across the road from the Etihad, the site of the BMX centre behind the present Velodrome) and was attended by 18,000 – a figure described by the Athletic News as being huge for Newton Heath: “The crowd was an enormous one and I never saw so many lads at a football match. They were really the cause of the encroaching in the first half, for they were continually creeping under the rails, and as a natural consequence their elders were bound to follow if they were to get a glimpse of the game.”
Fans streamed on to the pitch on several occasions and the game was almost abandoned at half time: “Mr. J. Parlby, one of the League Management Committee, told the crowd point blank that if they did not keep beyond the touchline, the game could not proceed, and the Newton Heath Club would have to suffer the consequences.”
Parlby, was actually a City director, and his words may have been influenced by the fact Newton Heath were the better side that day! The game ended 2-1 to the Heathens.
The two sides met on two further occasions on Christmas Day, the last (1902) ended 1-1 at Clayton before 40,000 with Billy Meredith scoring for the Blues.
Highest Christmas Crowd
City tended to be away from home on Christmas Day, but the best Maine Road crowd on the 25th was 56,750 in 1930 when City faced Arsenal. The following day a mere 17,624 attended the return game at Highbury.
The previous year a crowd reported as 70,000 watched Aston Villa beat City 2-1 on Boxing Day at Maine Road. This is the highest Christmas crowd at a City League game.
Christmas Thriller
Perhaps the most entertaining – if disappointing – game ever played by the Blues on Christmas Day was the 6-5 defeat by Bury at Gigg Lane in 1925.
Debuts
The following players made their Manchester City League debuts on Christmas Day:
Gary James' Football Archive 