Tag Archives: Bert Sproston

The 1930s: 1939-1940 War Reports

My series on Manchester City in the 1930s continues today with a 1,400 word subscriber article on the 1939-40 season. If you subscribe (see below) I hope you enjoy it. If you don’t subscribe then why not try it for a month (£3 per month or sign up for a year at a discounted £20 per year)?

Here’s the article:

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 a month (cancel anytime) or sign up for a year at £20 per year. Subscribers have access to the 1000s of articles, features, interviews etc. posted so far and all those posted during your subscription.

Subscribe

The 1930s: 1938-1939 A Worrying Time

My series on Manchester City in the 1930s continues today with a subscriber article on the 1938-39 season. If you subscribe (see below) I hope you enjoy it. If you don’t subscribe then why not try it for a month (£3 per month or sign up for a year at a discounted £20 per year)?

Here’s the article:

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 a month (cancel anytime) or sign up for a year at £20 per year. Subscribers have access to the 1000s of articles, features, interviews etc. posted so far and all those posted during your subscription.

Subscribe

The 1940s: Manchester City 2 Bradford (Park Avenue) 1

On this day (6 May) in 1944 the North Regional League (a wartime league) game between Manchester City victory and Bradford (Park Avenue) ended in a 2-1 City victory before 5,000 at Maine Road. The City scorers were Peter Doherty (photograph) and Billy Bootle. Together with Peter Doherty, notable players in the City team that day include: Frank Swift, Billy Walsh, Jack Bray, Les McDowall, Bert Sproston and Jimmy Heale.

This was the last game of the 1943-44 season for City.

You can read more on MCFC in the 1943-44 season below. The story of George Smith is included within this. George was the victim of friendly fire and his story is remarkable.

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 1940s: The 1947-48 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1940s continues with this feature on the 1947-48 season. This 1000 word subscriber article can be read 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 1940s: The 1946-47 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1940s continues with this feature on the 1946-47 season. This was the first league season after the war and ended with City winning the Second Division title. There were some truly significant – and well attended – games that season and future Liverpool manager Joe Fagan (photograph) made his debut this season too. This subscriber article includes comments from an interview I did with George Smith back in 2003.

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 1940s: The 1939-40 Season

The new series on Manchester City in the 1940s starts today with this 1,400 word article on the 1939-40 season. The season started as any other but then world events intervened!

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

A Shock Transfer From Spurs

Today (5 November) marks the anniversary of a shock transfer of an England international from Tottenham to Manchester City only a few days before an England game. The player even travelled on the Tottenham coach to Manchester as the two teams were about to play each other. You can read the story and match reports here:

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. If you’d like to support my research then why not subscribe? Every subscription directly helps support my research and provides annual subscribers 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. £20 per year or £3 per month.

Subscribe

Programme Flashback City V United, 20 September 1947

On this day in 1947 Manchester City faced Manchester United at Maine Road. This was a home game for City against their tenants United.

Here for subscribers is a flashback piece detailing what features were in the MCFC match programme that day:

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month or sign up for a year at the discount price of £20 per year. Why not subscribe for a month and see what you think?

Subscribe

Maine Road 100 – Day 82

It’s post 82 of my 100 Maine Road countdown and today a reminder of the largest ever Manchester derby crowd for a game at City or United. On 20 September 1947 a crowd of approximately 78,000 witnessed the first post-war Manchester derby.  A tense match ended goalless before the derby’s record crowd on a club ground. This attendance remained the highest for a Manchester derby until the 2011 FA Cup semi-final at Wembley Stadium. The return fixture, also played at Maine Road, was watched by 71,690.

Subscribers can read the story of the 1947 game (background, match report, statistics etc.) below:

Subscribe to get access – Annual

You can read this detailed article when you subscriber (plus all other material on the site). It costs £20 a year (£1.67 per month) to subscribe or you can subscribe a month at a time (see below).

Subscribe

Subscribe to get access – Monthly

You can read this detailed article when you subscribe (plus all other material on the site). It costs £20 a year (above) to subscribe annually or you can subscribe a month at a time for £3 per month (cancel anytime; monthly subscribers get access to everything posted since 1 October 2022).

Subscribe

A Shock Transfer From Spurs

Today (5 November) marks the anniversary of a shock transfer of an England international from Tottenham to Manchester City only a few days before an England game. The player even travelled on the Tottenham coach to Manchester as the two teams were about to play each other. You can read the story and match reports here:

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. If you’d like to support my research then why not subscribe? Every subscription directly helps support my research and provides annual subscribers 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. £20 per year or £3 per month.

Subscribe

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. You can subscribe at either £20 per year (above) or at £3 per month here (cancel any time). For those subscribing £3 per month you will be able to access all content from October 2022 onwards for as long as you are a subscriber. Those subscribing £20 a year have access to everything posted since December 2020.

Subscribe