Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
On this day (11 December) in 1985 a 2-0 victory (3-2 on aggregate) by Billy McNeill’s Manchester City over Brian Horton’s Hull sent the Blues to Wembley for the inaugural Full Members’ Cup Final. City’s scorers at Maine Road were David Phillips and Jim Melrose before the largest crowd (by any club) of the entire tournament, excluding the final, of 10,180. Here’s a contemporary report by Patrick Barclay of the game:
You can read more on the Full Members Cup and what it was all about here:
On this day (10 December) in 1983 41,852 witnessed Manchester City’s 2-1 defeat by promotion rivals Sheffield Wednesday at Maine Road. The crowd was the highest Division Two crowd of the season. Here’s a contemporary report of that game and a few highlights from the game:
It was vital the Blues achieved promotion in 1984-5 after the previous season, under former Celtic captain Billy McNeill, had seen City finish fourth behind Chelsea, Sheffield Wednesday, and Newcastle in an extremely strong Second Division. 1984-5 opened with the club’s first League meeting at Wimbledon, who had been promoted from Division Three the previous May. City were two goals down after a fifteen minute bombardment from the Dons, but a fightback including goals from Gordon Smith and Derek Parlane brought a point.
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Today (23rd March) marks the anniversary of the first Wembley meeting between Manchester City and Chelsea. That was the 1986 Full Members’ Cup final. Here for subscribers to this site is an article on the competition and some film of the final:
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On this day (22nd March) in 1986 Manchester United hosted Manchester City in the 108th League derby between the teams. The fixture was the first of two high profile games for the Blues in consecutive days with the other game coming on Sunday at Wembley (see: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/01/02/wembley-wembley-86-mcfc-v-chelsea/for details).
Here for subscribers are the match stats, background, match report, film and other details from that day.
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