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#Footycon25 Award Winners

The International Football History Conference 2025 was held at Windsor Park Belfast last week and, as usual, we had a panel of judges picking out their best paper awards and an inclusivity award. Competition was fierce and the winners, once again, thoroughly deserved their recognition. The award winners were:

Day One (Friday 13 June 2025) Best Paper: The judges asked if they could make two awards at the end of this day and they selected Tim Mills for his presentation ‘Football & Museums – A model for community led programming’ and Kasey Symons for her presentation on ‘Investigating women’s Australian rules football romance fiction and the history of fandom it tells from the first decade of the AFLW’ (co-authored research with Lee McGowan). Kasey has been a regular attendee at the conference since it was established in 2017 and she has always presented high quality research in an engaging way.

Day Two (Saturday 14 June 2025) Best Paper: Gabriela Ríos-Infante won the award for her presentation on ‘The Philosophy of Women’s Football in Mexico: Interactions Through an Ethnographic Lens in El Volcán’. As well as this being a great research topic and presentation, it was particularly impressive that Gabriela was presenting in English for the first time.

The Inclusivity Award was judged over both days and this went to:

Karen Fraser, Fiona Skillen & Julie McNeill for their panel on ‘A most unsuitable game: Reflections on a community celebration of the women’s game in Scotland.’ Back in 2023 Karen, Fiona and Julie presented about this project at our Hampden Park conference and it was gratifying to see them return with reflections on what was clearly a well-managed, researched and impact-making project.

Congratulations to all winners. These awards are supported by Routledge books and they provided books and vouchers to each winner.

Previous winners of these awards are:

International Football History Conference 2025 @ Belfast

Last week (13 & 14 June 2025) we staged our annual International Football History Conference at Windsor Park, Belfast. It was a great occasion, attended by delegates from across the world and with presentations on football (of all codes) throughout the two days. Belfast was a great, welcoming city and we had a wonderful time. The conference was established almost a decade ago when I first discusssed the idea with colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University, since then we’ve held the conference annually, starting with our first in Manchester in 2017.

Right at the start my aim was to bring together leading academics, researchers, historians and others passionate about football to discuss in a friendly environment their projects and research.

Since 2017 we’ve staged the conference at Manchester City (4 times), Hampden Park, Cardiff City and at Windsor Park, only taking a pause during the Covid years, We were supposed to stage our 2020 conference at Hibs but sadly that was cancelled and our financial reserves were lost as a result. The conference is self funding and non-profit with none of the organisers taking any payment for their time. It’s always a precarious financial commitment but fortunately, so far, each conference has covered its costs (just!).

We’re now looking for venues to stage the 2026, 2027 & 2028 conferences, so if you are involved with a footballing (again, any code) venue with conference facilities and you feel you can help then please get in touch at footycon@outlook.com.

This was our agenda for 2025 in Belfast to give you a feel for the variety of topics presented:

Astley & Tyldesley Monday Night

This Monday at 8pm I’ll be talking at the Astley & Tyldesley branch of the MCFC Supporters Club about my research and writing on the Manchester Corinthians and Manchester City. The meeting starts at 8pm and I’ll have copies of my books on the Corinthians and on Peter Barnes available at discounted prices on the night. The venue is:

The Bowling Green, Garden Street, Tyldesley, M29 8HD

Come along if you’re in the area for what I hope will be an entertaining evening. More on both books below:

Manchester Corinthians
Review

West Ham 2 Manchester City 2

On this day (15 May) in 2022 City fought back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 to keep the Premier League title in their own hands. Jack Grealish made it 2-1 four minutes into the second half when his volley deflected off Craig Dawson and over Lukasz Fabianski. City’s second was an own goal by Vladimir Coufal, who headed Riyad Mahrez’s free-kick into his own net.

You can see the action from City’s 2-2 with West Ham United here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/west-ham-manchester-city-premier-league-extended-highlights-63788208

Southampton 0 Manchester City 1

A dramatic added time winner by Gabriel Jesus lifted Premier League champions Manchester City to an incredible 100-point mark on this day (13 May) in 2018. The 1-0 win over Southampton was the perfect end to a perfect season for City. You can see highlights here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/match-highlights/2018/may/southampton-v-city-extended-highlights

Champions Again, City!

On this day in 2021 Manchester City became Premier League champions. They won the League after nearest rivals Manchester United lost 2-1 at home to Leicester City. One nice quirk of fate was that this was also the anniversary of City’s 1968 League title success.

The 2021 success was the Blues seventh League title with their first coming in 1937. Others have followed since of course!

It was an astonishing season with City already winning the League Cup that season, plus they also reached the Champions League final where they were defeated in Porto by Chelsea. Manchester’s Blues also appeared in the FA Cup semi-final season but sadly lost to Chelsea.

The League and League Cup double meant that City had won six major trophies in three seasons.

City’s trophy success in 2021 meant that domestically counting the League, FA Cup and League Cup only United, Liverpool and Arsenal have won more English major trophies. Similarly, only United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Everton havd won more League titles than Manchester’s Blues.

2020-21 was an odd season because of Covid (as was 2019-20) and no fans in the stadium (though some clubs, including those on Merseyside, were allowed a limited number of fans in earlier this season), but the football City played was breathtaking.

Apart from a difficult opening period and a few odd results along the way, City delivered week after week (or should that be weekend after midweek after weekend after midweek – it was a busy season!). They thoroughly deserved the title.

So, by the end of the 2020-21 season City had won the following major honours:

European Cup Winners’ Cup (1)

1970

League/Premier League (7)

1937, 1968, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2019 & 2021

(runners up: 1904, 1921, 1977, 2013, 2015 & 2020)

FA Cup (6)

1904, 1934, 1956, 1969, 2011 & 2019 

(runners up: 1926, 1933, 1955, 1981 & 2013)

League Cup (8)

1970, 1976, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 & 2021

(runners up: 1974)

In 2019 the Blues became the first English men’s team to win a domestic treble. In 2020-21 City achieved a domestic double of the League Cup and the League (a feat they also achieved in 2014 & 2018). Back in 1970 they achieved a European and domestic cup double when they won the League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup.

City’s trophy haul made them the fifth most successful English club of all time based on major domestic and European trophies won (United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea are ahead of the Blues). In addition only Liverpool and Blackburn had a greater span between their first English trophy and their most recent.

Since 2020-21 so many other trophies have come of course, including in 2023 when City became the first team ever to win the FIFA Club World Cup, UEFA Super Cup, UEFA Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup in a calendar year.

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A Dark Day: Colin Bell’s Injury

On this day (12th November) in 1975…

Attendance: 50,182; City 4 United 0 (League Cup 4th round)

A 35 second opener from Tueart and a world-class performance by Hartford give City total control of this tie.  However few at Maine Road are able to celebrate as a fifth minute tackle by Buchan on Bell causes the influential City star to be stretchered away.  City deserve the victory, but the cost is high.

I’ve written lots on Colin Bell over the years and I was fortunate to interview him a few times too. You can read some of the articles I’ve written here:

Welcome to Gary James’ Football Archive

You can watch highlights of the game here:

Manchester City 4 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0

With Manchester City playing Wolves tomorrow here’s a match programme cover from a game between the two. This was a Christmas fixture from 1980. Some of the players look happy others seem to have a fixed stare as if to say ‘do we really need to hold this Christmas banner?’

That day City defeated Wolves 4-0 with goals from Tommy Hutchison (2 goals; holding the banner above the ‘a’ in Christmas), Bobby McDonald (3rd player from right) and Kevin Reeves (4th player from right).

You can find out more on the 1980s, John Bond (including a fairly frank audio interview I did with him years ago) and City elsewhere on this website. Subscribers get access to a lot of extra content. To subscribe see the following:

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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.

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International Football History Conference 2025 at Belfast

The 2025 International Football History Conference will take place at the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland and will be held over two days (Friday the 13th & Saturday the 14thof June 2025).

This is a call for papers for those who wish to present at the conference. There will be an opportunity to present on any topic relating to the history of football of all codes. This includes, but is not limited to: Association Football, Rugby Union & Rugby League, Gaelic Football and Aussie Rules. 

  • Main conference proceedings will take place between 8.30 am and 5 pm on Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th of June 2025.
  • As with previous years, Abstracts are welcomed on any football-related topic (football of ALL codes)
  • Abstracts are welcomed by researchers from any discipline.
  • Presentations must not have appeared at another conference. As our conference does not have parallel sessions, we insist that presentations must not repeat something presented elsewhere.

Abstracts for the following presentation styles are welcomed:

Short Form (7 minutes) – 20 slides (plus a title slide) with a maximum of 20 seconds per slide. Ideal for a summary of research; to present early findings; Image-related research etc.

Twenty Minutes – Those choosing a 20-minute slot will be able to split that time between presentation and questions as they feel appropriate (for example 15 minutes of presentation and 5 minutes of questions or 20 minutes presentation and no audience questions).

Panel – One hour: three presenters and a moderator on a related theme with specific time for individual presentations within the session agreed by the moderator including allowance for questions at the end to the group.

If you wish to present at the conference, please send a 100-to-150-word proposal to footycon@outlook.com by the 6th of January 2025. The selection of presentations will take place by the organising committee and We will ensure confirmation as soon as possible, particularly for those travelling some distance.

Cost of Attendance

The International Football History Conference is a self-funding event. All delegates, whether presenting or not,will need to book their place before attending via our Eventbrite page, which can be accessed via this link: https://bit.ly/FootyCon25

The cost of attendance for full-time delegates will be kept at the 2023 and 2024 conference rates. 

Full Delegate (2 days):  £139. 

Students/unwaged/retired delegates (2 Days): £129

Special Day Rate: £76 (employed) & £67.50 (unwaged/Students/retired)

Travel & Accommodation

Delegates will need to make their own arrangements regarding travel & accommodation for the conference. The organisers of the conference recommend staying in the city centre. The information below will cover how to reach Belfast City Centre and the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park, the venue for our conference. Further information will be listed in the conference pack released closer to the conference. 

For those flying to Belfast, the city is served by two airports: Belfast International Airport (BFS) and George Best Belfast City Airport (BHD). Bus connections from the international airport to Belfast Grand Central Station, the new transport hub of Belfast City Centre, run every fifteen minutes, and from the city airport to Belfast Grand Central Station every twenty minutes. Rail services to and from Belfast Grand Central will be operational by the time of the conference as train services are currently being transferred from the old stations to the new hub. 

Belfast Grand Central Station is also close to many of Belfast City Centre’s hotel options. Pricing will range from 4* options such as the Europa, Leonardo or Fitzwilliam Hotels (all located on Great Victoria Street, close to the station), to more budget-friendly nearby options such as Benedicts Hotel, Travelodge, easyHotel, Maldron, Premier Inn, etc.

For those driving to the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park, the stadium can be accessed from either Boucher Road or Donegall Avenue. The postcode for your satnav will be BT12 6LW. 

Sunday Morning Blues

Everton, so often a bogey team back then for Manchester City, were defeated 2-0 on this day (2 October) in 2005.  This was the first Sunday morning kick off in the Premier League and the match commenced at 11.15 with some fans making a point of the early start by wearing pyjamas.  It was also Stephen Ireland’s first full Premiership game.  Before the match he admitted to being “very nervous” and post-match he commented that the rest of the team had supported him:  “That helped me ease my nerves and settle in as one of them.” You can see highlights and read more about the game below:

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.

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