Category Archives: Manchester United

Congratulations Newcastle

Congratulations Newcastle on defeating Liverpool in today’s League Cup final. The victory also means that 120 years separate their first major trophy success with their most recent. This span equals Manchester City. Every year, usually when the domestic season ends I update the table showing the span of success – i.e. the number of years between a club’s first major success (FA Cup, League, League Cup, major European trophy) and their most recent – for each major men’s trophy winning English club. I last did this after the 2023-24 season ended (see below). There wasn’t much difference between the 2023 final table and the 2024. Both Liverpool and Manchester City increased their span, as did United. Newcastle have leaped from 16th place (just behind Chelsea) to joint second with City. Here’s the table as it stood before today’s game:

As I always say, the span of success does not show how many trophies each club has won or how frequently that club has experienced great eras of success, but it does demonstrate how wrong those people are who believe certain clubs were unsuccessful until recent years, or those who think certain clubs have always been giants. The column on first major success helps to show when some clubs first became trophy-winning significant (often after transformational investment too!).

There’s not much difference between 2023 and 2024 – numbers have changed but not positions. In 2023 West Ham, like potentially Newcastle this year, proved that if you’re a club that hasn’t won a major trophy for a while putting your focus on achieving trophy success ahead of the odd Premier League position can bring significant reward. In future decades no one will remember who finished seventh, tenth or fifteenth but they will remember the trophies. Here’s the previous year’s table for comparison purposes:

I know clubs focus on their financials but winning a trophy has longevity, gaining the odd Premier League place provides a bit of extra cash now but no long term kudos. Winning a trophy attracts new fans and brings money-spinning opportunities too.

If I was a supporter of any of the major clubs who have not found significant success in recent decades then I would absolutely want my team to go for whichever cup competition seems the most likely to win. That’s what I always wanted from City before they were able to compete for the League again. Winning the FA Cup in 2011 helped everything that followed happen – it gave confidence and a trophy winning mentality.

While you’re here why not take a look at the wide range of articles available on this site? Such as the 100 day series of features on Maine Road:

Maine Road 100 – Day 10
Maine Road 100 – Day 3
How To Subscribe

If you enjoy all the free material on my website and would like to support my research and keep this website going (but don’t want to subscribe) then why not make a one-time donation (or buy me a coffee). All support for my research is valued and welcome. It allows me to keep some free material available for all. Thanks.

Choose an amount

£2.50
£5.00
£7.50

Or enter a custom amount

£

Your contribution is appreciated.

Donate
An Interview About Joe Mercer

The 1950s: The 1957-58 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1950s continues today with this 2,200 word article on the 1957-58 season. Enjoy!

This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.

Subscribe

The 1950s: The 1955-56 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1950s continues today with this 3,900 word article on the 1955-56 season when City won the FA Cup final (nowadays known as the Trautmann Final) and Bert Trautmann was FWA Footballer of the Year (presented in the days before the final). Enjoy!

This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.

Subscribe

The 1950s: The 1954-55 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1950s continues today with this 3,400 word article on the 1954-55 season when City reached the FA Cup final and Don Revie was FWA Footballer of the Year. Enjoy!

This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.

Subscribe

The 1950s: The 1952-53 Season

The new series on the 1950s continues today with this 2,000 word article on the 1952-53 season. Enjoy!

This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.

Subscribe

The 1950s: The 1949-50 Season

The new series on the 1950s starts today with this 2,300 word article on the 1949-50 season. Enjoy!

This is a subscriber article and you can read it by subscribing below.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or you can subscriber for the discounted annual rate of £20 per year. Each subscriber gets access to everything posted so far, including PDFs of a couple of my books.

Subscribe

United’s Bank Street and City’s Etihad Then and Now

I’m not certain how many match going fans realise how close the site of Manchester City’s is to the site of Manchester United’s old Bank Street ground. The Reds moved back in 1910 to Old Trafford and the site is now the home of the BMX indoor centre. You can see the old ground on the right of the old map below (c.1910), while City’s current Etihad Stadium can be seen in the middle of the newer map. A few other things to look out for:

  • Rowsley Street still exists (this is the road that cars turn on to just before the main access road which heads towards the main entrance of the Etihad.
  • Philips Park, the river, the railway, canal and main roads remain.
  • Part of the Electricity works complex still survives, near the Velodrome. As does part of the gas works, north west of the Etihad.
  • Present day Alan Turing Way is a slightly modified Mill Street/Grey Mare Lane. Forge Lane is now within the car parking area, east of the stadium, but the Forge Lane bridge over the canal still exists between the Co-op Live arena and the car parks (to the east of Joe Mercer Way’s more modern bridge).

Move the arrows in the photo to compare maps.

The 1980s: Adcock’s ‘arf Hour v Plymouth

With Manchester City and Plymouth meeting this weekend it’s worth remembering this past encounter between the two teams. They met on 10 November 1987 – only three days after City had thrashed Huddersfield 10-1 in the League. The meeting with Plymouth was in the Full Members’ Cup – then sponsored by the unforgettable Simod Sports Shoes.  Manchester’s football focus had been on Mel Machin’s goalscorerd and, once again, City entertained.

Plymouth suffered a 6-2 defeat only three days after the Huddersfield massacre.  Again the press picked up on City’s exploits and for once the rather irrelevant Simod Cup dominated the back page headlines.  The Star concentrated on the role played by Tony Adcock who had scored his second hat-trick in three days.  Under the headline “Adcock’s ‘Arf Hour” reporter Kevin Francis concentrated on the news that the £80,000 signing from Colchester was only in the side because of injury to Imre Varadi, and suggested that Machin would have a difficult selection problem once Varadi returned to fitness.  Machin, who also had the prolific Paul Moulden recovering from injury, looked forward to the time when he would actually be faced with the problem of selecting two of the four decent strikers he had on his books!

Interestingly, City’s first goalscorer against Plymouth, Andy Hinchcliffe, was being watched by Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish.  Already the Blues were aware that almost all the wealthiest British clubs of the period were keen on City’s headline grabbing young players.  Only four months later Rangers manager Graeme Souness arrived at Maine Road to watch the game against Swindon.  He paid to sit in the North Stand, and watched the exploits of Paul Stewart while covering half his face with a scarf to hide his identity!  It didn’t work.  A Sunday People reporter spotted the Rangers manager and his assistant, Walter Smith, and forced the pair to leave before they attracted further attention.

For a while the interest in the achievements of City’s young players was high and this meeting with Plymouth certainly gained more headlines for them. The goalscorers that night for City were: Andy Hinchcliffe, Paul Lake, Paul Stewart and Tony Adcock (3).

Subscribers can find out more about the 1987-88 season by reading my 4,000 word feature on it below. 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.

Subscribe

Subscribe to get access – Annual

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.

Subscribe

If you’d like to know more about subscribing then see:

How To Subscribe

Tomorrow’s feature is on the 1988-89 season. If you missed the earlier features then start here:

The 1980s: 1980-1981 Gow, Hutchison & McDonald

Denis Law’s Anniversary

On this day (24 February) in 1940 Denis Law was born. Law who passed away in January, achieved major success in a glittering career for Huddersfield, Manchester City and Manchester United. He would have been 85 years old today.

There are plenty of articles mentioning Law on this site, here are those tagged with his name:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/denis-law/page/2/

Manchester-Liverpool Rivalry

It’s one of those weekends where the Blues and Reds of Manchester and Liverpool meet. Everton v United today and City v Liverpool tomorrow. In terms of football the two cities of Manchester and Liverpool were extremely close for decades but in business and everyday life they have been rivals (bitter at times) for over 150 years. People will talk about all sorts of factors with the main one discussed being about the trade issues Manchester faced because Liverpool basically controlled Manchester’s access to the sea. I don’t want to go on too much about it all but I do want to show these sections from American newspapers which give an indication of what the situation was from another nation’s point of view.

It’s interesting to note that at least one of these articles shows that Manchester tried to ensure the whole of England benefitted from the city’s growing prosperity, suggesting that previously Liverpool only benefitted from this kind of trade.

Crittenden Record, July 04, 1907
Americus Times, April 14, 1903,
The Morning News, July 23, 1894

There are lots of articles on my site about Manchester’s teams and those from Liverpool. Here are details of articles than are tagged ‘Liverpool’:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/liverpool/

Here are articles tagged ‘Everton’:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/everton/