Floodlights

On this day (14 October) in 1953 the first game under floodlights at Maine Road took place, Manchester City 6 Hearts 3.  Here’s an article about that period and City’s first floodlighting system, including a photo from the actual game and another report.

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A Manchester City Death in 2002

On this day (13 October) in 2002 Fifties goalscoring star Billy McAdams died. During his Manchester City career he made 134 first team appearances and scored 65 goals. He had joined City on 6 December 1953 and on 2 January 1954 McAdams, signed from Distillery, made his debut. It was a memorable one as he scored an equaliser in the 49th minute against Sunderland at Maine Road.  The game was played in poor, foggy conditions but City won.

A week after the Sunderland game, McAdams scored a hat-trick in City’s 5-2 Cup win at Bradford.  He followed that with an equaliser in the 56th League derby match at Old Trafford.  His arrival and goalscoring streak was viewed as refreshing that season..

I’ll be writing a little bit more on McAdams in my article in the Manchester City match programme v Brighton next week.

A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download

Back in 1989 my first book was published and subscribers to this site (both annual and monthly) can now download a PDF of that entire book. The original book cost £6.95 when it came out; you can subscribe at £3 per month and get the PDF free here then cancel the subscription if you like). Ignoring yearbooks, this was only the 6th book (and two of those were more like pamphlets published in the 1930s & 40s) ever published specifically on Manchester City Football Club.

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The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:

The 200th Post – Joe Mercer

and here:

A Writing Flashback!

I do not have the original layouts and so I’ve scanned my only surviving copy of the book and put the pages together on a PDF. The pages appear in the order they did in the original but, obviously, as I’ve just placed images of the pages on a word document it’s not as it all appeared. Nevertheless, for those who have never seen it you can now.

There were all sorts of issues with the original publication. My co-author had died and the book was delayed by a year. It was originally due out when I was 20 in 1988. As Keith, my co-author, had died mistakes were made. Keith was also a key figure at the publisher and, without his expertise, the quality of the images and other areas was not as great as it should have been. Even the title was incorrectly published (I’d agreed a different title). Ah well… I got enough of a bug to have started writing my second book within about a month of this coming out.

If you’d like to download the book then you do need to be a subscriber to this site. Subscribers pay £20 a year (works out about £1.67 a month) or £3 a month at a time (cancel anytime). For that annual subscribers now get the entire From Maine Men To Banana Citizens plus my 2010 edition of Manchester A Football History AND all articles/interviews posted so far. These include audio interviews I did with John Bond, Malcolm Allison and George Graham in the 1990s. Monthly subscribers get all content posted since 1st October 2022. All subscribers get access to all new material posted during their subscription too.

Perry Suckling

On this day (12 October) in 1965 1980s Manchester City ‘keeper Perry Suckling was born in Hackney. Here’s a brief profile of him:

Perry Suckling

Bought for £50,000 plus the popular David Phillips, England youth international Perry Suckling was anticipated to be City’s first choice for several years when he arrived from Coventry City in May 1986.  It didn’t work out that way however and by the end of December 1987 he was on loan at Chelsea.  A permanent move to Crystal Palace followed in January 1988 – City received £100,000 – and after 39 League appearances that was it.

Spells for West Ham, Brentford, Watford and Doncaster followed. 

Appearances:  League: 39 FAC: 1 League Cup: 3

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Woo Gordon Davies

On this day (10 October) in 1985 Chelsea forward Gordon Davies joined Manchester City (the team he supported; his hero was Colin Bell). Davies made 3 Welsh international appearances while at City. There was a chant connected with him which was, err, well, typical 1980s. It was based on the ‘Woo Gary Davies, woo Gary Davies, woo Gary Davies on the ra-di-o’ jingle used by Radio One DJ Gary Davies (of course). The chant (I’m sure you can guess) went ‘Woo Gordon Davies, woo Gordon Davies, woo Gordon Davies in the ar-e-a’ (meaning penalty area of course!). Those were the days, hey?

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On This Day – Francis Lee

On this day (9 October) in 1967 Francis Lee finally signed for Manchester City from Bolton Wanderers. Heres a long profile of Lee I’ve written on him:

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Forest Defeated

On this day (8 October) in 1975 I celebrated my birthday by watching Manchester City defeat Nottingham Forest 2-1 with goals from Colin Bell and Joe Royle in the 3rd round of the successful League Cup campaign. Pre-match Forest manager Brian Clough told the press:  ‘I was praying Manchester City would beat Norwich [in the previous round] because I wanted to play the best. City are one of the most entertaining and talented sides in the First Division at home.  We have no serious thoughts of shocking City but we hope to give a good account of ourselves against a side that is potentially one of the best in the land.’ He added:

‘When I last came to Maine Road it was with Leeds United and we lost 2-1.  If we keep the score down to 2-1 tonight then I think we’ll show the strides that Nottingham Forest have taken.’

Clough, one of football’s most knowledgeable men, predicted the score accurately with goals from Bell and Royle helping City achieve the 2-1 result.  That win put City into the fourth round and set Manchester up for a League Cup derby match for the second successive year.

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If you’ve enjoyed this then why not subscribe? Every subscription directly helps support my research and provides the subscriber with access to everything posted on this site, including the entire Manchester A Football History and From Maine Men To Banana Citizens books, plus interviews, articles and more. I am not employed by anyone and all my research is self funded or comes from subscriptions to this site.

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Managerial Merry Go Round

On this day (7th October) in 1997 Steve Coppell became Manchester City’s manager. Here’s the story of that period with quotes from exclusive interviews I have performed with Coppell’s assistant Phil Neal.

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Coventry Defeated

On this day (6 October) in 1966 Niall Quinn was born and on this day in 1990 he scored for Manchester City in a 2-0 win against Coventry. Alan Harper scored the other goal. You can watch them both here:

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If you’ve enjoyed this then why not subscribe? Every subscription directly helps support my research and provides the subscriber with access to everything posted on this site, including the entire Manchester A Football History and From Maine Men To Banana Citizens books, plus interviews, articles and more. I am not employed by anyone and all my research is self funded or comes from subscriptions to this site.

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