Today (31 March) is the anniversary of a 1971 European Cup Winners’ Cup between Manchester City and Gornik Zabrze played in Copenhagen. This was a replay after the earlier games had ended 2-2 on aggregate. Back then replays were used instead of penalty shootouts to decide games like this. For subscribers, here’s an article looking back at this day.
This 1500 word article is available for subscribers…
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Here’s an odd item from my collection. It’s a compliment slip by a Star Press (the ‘champion printers’) which lists the players in Manchester City’s 1967-68 title winning team. There are a couple of spelling mistakes. See if you can spot them. One side of the compliments slip shows the League Champions and the other side looks like this:
I’m not certain if there was a close connection between Manchester City and Star Press at this time.
You can find out more about the 1967-68 season by reading the following subscriber article. If you’d like to read this 7,600 word article (yes, 7,600 words on one season!), plus all other articles on the site, then please subscribe (see below). As with most of the other seasonal features it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there.
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Happy Christmas! Here’s a great image of Tony Book, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee participating in the annual pantomime at Manchester City. These were the days before Peter Swales took the panto theme too far and turned running the club into one great big pantomime.
City’s pantomimes involving star players took place for many, many years and became part of the regular Junior Blues calendar of events. This image was published in January 1971 and shows the three players in the 1970-71 Cinderella show at the City Social Club.
On this day (12 December) in 1970 a hat-trick from Francis Lee was City’s last hat-trick in a Manchester derby until Haaland and Foden in October 2022! The 1970 game also saw a goal from Mike Doyle to gave City a comfortable 4-1 victory over Manchester United before an Old Trafford crowd of 52,636. That victory meant City had won 5 and only dropped 4 points in 8 consecutive League derby meetings with the Reds. There was also a devastating injury to Glyn Pardoe (more on that in another post!). Here is the background, report and verdict of that game…
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On this day (7 December) in 1968 reigning Champions Manchester City defeated Burnley 7-0 at Maine Road with goals from Bell (2), Young (2), Doyle, Lee, and Coleman.
You can find out all about Manchester City during the 1968-69 season by reading the following subscriber article. If you’d like to read this 6,000 word article , plus all other articles on the site, then please subscribe (see below).
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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up for a year at the discounted price of £20 per year (works out £1.67 per month). Subscribers access the 1000+ articles posted so far and the others scheduled during the life of your subscription.
Now that Erling Haaland has joined an exclusive group of Manchester City players who have scored 100 League goals for the club I thought I’d post a table of all those players. I’ve also listed them in a goals per game format (I’d love to do goals per minutes but we simply don’t have that information for all players). Here goes…
The goals per game ratios for all Manchester City players who have scored 100 league goals or more…
Goals
First Name
Surname
Goals Per Game
Total League Appearances
100
Erling
Haaland
0.9009
111
184
Sergio
Aguero
0.6691
275
126
Billy
Gillespie
0.5780
218
120
Horace
Barnes
0.5530
217
122
Tommy
Browell
0.5495
222
116
Frank
Roberts
0.5370
216
158
Tommy
Johnson
0.4817
328
112
Francis
Lee
0.4498
249
110
Fred
Tilson
0.4472
246
142
Joe
Hayes
0.4290
331
107
Alec
Herd
0.4163
257
146
Billy
Meredith
0.3989
366
158
Eric
Brook
0.3511
450
117
Colin
Bell
0.2970
394
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Today (3 December) in 1969 saw this image of United star Nobby Stiles having ‘dialogue’ as the original caption claims with City fans at the Platt Lane end of Maine Road. This was the first leg of the League Cup semi final and City won the leg 2-1 with goals from Colin Bell and Franny Lee. You can watch highlights here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Y1KpM49Og
Manchester’s two top flight clubs met in their first ever League Cup tie between them during the 1969-70 season. That was the first season when all 92 League clubs entered the competition.
Here, for subscribers, is the background to each of the 1969-70 semi-final legs and a report on each game with lineups, attendance details etc.
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On 15 June 1995 Manchester City’s efforts to replace Brian Horton as manager seemed to be stumbling. Brian Kidd had been wanted by chairman Francis Lee, but that wasn’t happening; others who would be discussed widely (and fans were told would be possible) included George Graham and Franz Beckenbauer. Ultimately City appointed Alan Ball (you can read about his time at City elsewhere on this website if you’re brave enough to be reminded of those days!).
On 3 June 2023 Ilkay Gundogan City secured his place in national football history with the quickest goal in a FA Cup final. It was a stunning volley after only 12 seconds. That day Gundogan scored two and helped City to 2-1 FA Cup final victory over Manchester United.
As well as the speed of the first goal, Gundogan’s goals gave him another MCFC record. Dave Masey, who has been collecting stats and historical information on Manchester City for years contacted me to tell me about one of his spreadsheets which holds details of City scorers in trophy winning games.
His records capture those who have scored in major cup finals, but besides Cup Finals he also records other trophy-winning games. These include the deciding League games from 1937 onwards against Sheffield Wednesday (1937), Newcastle, QPR, West Ham, Brighton and Villa (2022), but nothing from three recent title successes where the Blues clinched the title when they were not playing. Got that? Good, now….
Dave tells me that the FA Cup success saw Gundogan move to the top of the list with 5 goals, overtaking Neil Young and Sergio Aguero. So he has scored more goals in trophy-winning games than any other Blue.
The list of scorers in trophy winning games reads:
1904
Meredith
1934/7
Tilson (3), Brook (2), Doherty
1956
Hayes, Dyson, Johnstone
1968/70
Young (4), Lee (2), Summerbee, Doyle, Pardoe
1976
P Barnes, Tueart
2011-(former)
Aguero (4), Y Toure (2), Nasri (2), Kompany (2), D Silva (2),Jesus (2), Sterling (2), Dzeko, Zabaleta, Navas, Fernandinho
2016-(current)
Gundogan (5), Laporte (2), Rodri (2), Mahrez, De Bruyne
Dave also tells me that in the three seasons where somebody else’s defeat clinched the title for City, the scorers in the club’s last game before the title confirmation were:
Gundogan (3), Sterling (2), Jesus, Haaland.
As Dave says, Ilkay gets a remarkable number of important goals, particularly for somebody who is ‘just’ a 1 goal in 5/6 games player (63 in 357 for City by June 2025).
Here’s a 1994 plan of what might have been in terms of Maine Road’s development. This image is of how the entire stadium was supposed to look. To explain the colour image looks towards the stadium from above the Kippax car park. The North Stand is on the right and the Platt Lane on the left. The black and white image is from the other side of the ground, looking towards the Kippax from the Main Stand.
1990s Maine Rd redevelopment plans as seen in Farewell To Maine Road
You can see from the black and white image that the plan was to replicate the general look of the new Kippax (being planned at this stage – this was January 1994 and the old Kippax was still standing) around the ground. The North Stand was to have a second tier added and hospitality boxes between the levels, like the new Kippax. The Platt Lane was to have a second tier added above the two lines of existing hospitality boxes.
The Main Stand would have part of the seating chopped away and a new second tier added.
To facilitate all of this some houses were to be bought and demolished on the streets immediately behind the North Stand and the Kippax/Platt Lane corner.
The new Kippax was the first phase of the development but Manchester’s bids for the Olympics changed thinking. Couple that with relegation in 1996 and the wholesale redevelopment of Maine Road was postponed after the Kippax opened and then dropped completely.
As mentioned previously, Francis Lee’s plans would have seen the new Kippax followed by a phased development of each of the other three stands. These images might give an indication of how it would have progressed.
The following 1971 aerial image shows the proximity of the housing on Thornton Road (bottom left, near number 6) and behind the North Stand (number 10). They were planned to be demolished in Lee’s 1994 plan.
Maine Road aerial 1971 from Farewell To Maine Road
If you’d like to read more on the history of Maine Road, take a look at Farewell To Maine Road, which can be downloaded from this page:
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.
