I’ve heard the sad news that the former Manchester City and Stockport County player Barney Daniels has died. He also played for Manchester United (though not in the first team), Chester City, Ashton United and Hyde United.
He joined City on 30 March 1973 and made his first team debut against Derby County on 6 Feb 1974 (report below). In total he played 3 games in 1973-74 (debut v Derby 1-0 win; 9/2/74 at Chelsea & came on as sub at Liverpool on 16/4/74).
The following season (1974-75) he made ten appearances and the first of those was against Leicester on 23/11/74 when he scored 2 goals and made the headlines as he helped City go to the top of the top flight (see following report):
Daniels moved to Chester City on 9 July 1975 (Chester’s record signing at the time) and went on to join Stockport County (July 1976), Ashton United (1978-82), Hyde United 1982 and back to Ashton United (1982-84).
At City he was a consistent performer for the reserves.
John Maddocks (City’s former statistician/historian in the 80s/90s) gave these notes he’d written on Barney in the late 1990s which are worth posting here: ‘Most enjoyable it was watching Barney Daniels in action in the Reserves in the 1970’s. He scored an average of almost a goal a game in 1973-74 including several hat-tricks and he deserved his first team chance when it came. He had had trials with Blackpool, scoring three goals in four reserve games, but was not taken on, and in his first season with Ashton United he scored 27 goals. City bought him for £1,000 and also played a friendly at Ashton.
‘Barney was top reserve team marksman in consecutive seasons from 1973-75, scoring 44 times.’
John’s stats showed that Barney made the following City appearances:
FL:9+4 apps. 2 gls.
TOTAL:9+4 apps. 2 gls.
Res:61+1 apps. 44 gls.
Other:10+2 apps. 12 gls.
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