Tag Archives: Gene Kelly

The 1990s: 1999 The Fightback

The series of articles covering Manchester City in the 1990s continues today with an indepth article on the opening months of 1999-2000 season. City had been promoted the previous May and the last few months of 1999 saw the Club continue its resurrection. The article is almost 4,000 words long. It’s available to subscribers, so why not subscribe and relive this period and an extraordinary decade? As with all these 1990s subscriber features it contains material from interviews I’ve performed with key figures from that time.

Here’s the 4900 word article on that season:

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This series of articles and features will run throughout March with indepth articles some days and smaller ‘on this day’ style posts on others. There will be flashbacks to great games, players and more. Every day in March will offer something to enjoy.

Subscribers will get access to everything, while some on this day material will be free for all to view.

If you want to know more on this incredible decade for Manchester City Football Club then why not subscribe and read it all? If you’d like to know more about subscribing then see:

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Haaland Throw In Photo

On this day (6 January) in 2001 Manchester City defeated Birmingham City 3-2 in the FA Cup third round. This photo of a Alfie Haaland throw in from that game has caught my eye because it says so much about football at that time. This was of course taken at Maine Road and the stand on the left of the image is the North Stand.

As this was a FA Cup tie, a larger than normal away section was allocated to Birmingham and you can see from this image that they have roughly half the North Stand and the uncovered temporary stand in the corner (dubbed the Gene Kelly – fans would be ‘singing in the rain’).

Birmingham only brought 1,038 fans that day, hence the large empty Gene Kelly and North Stand sections.

The stand to the right is the ‘new’ Kippax Stand which was almost 6 years old that season.

A Alf Haaland throw in during the 2001 FAC third round tie between City and Birmingham at Maine Road

Maine Road 100 – Day 41

Day 41 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game follows on from yesterday’s feature. Today I cover ticket prices for Maine Road’s last season and provide a bit more on the additional temporary seating. This was of course a Premier League season, but the temporary seating had started to be added several years before, being used in 1998-99 as mentioned yesterday.

The most expensive seat was in the centre blocks B & C at £29 for the highest category game. The cheapest adult seat was £16 for the uncovered temporary stand UU, also known as the Gene Kelly Stand (see yesterday for naming details), and HH (dubbed the ‘Alan Ball Stand’ by one fanzine as it was small and didn’t make much noise!).

Other temporary stands were now in place in the tunnel between Platt Lane and the Main Stand (block G1 on the plan) and behind the security box (block H1 on the plan). As these were covered they were more expensive than the uncovered temporary stands.

You can see the temporary seating behind the stadium control box here – this would have been an empty space in previous years.

Photo by Ed Garvey

People often forget about these extra temporary stands, focusing only on the Gene Kelly and ‘Alan Ball’ (or Gene Kelly 2 as it was sometimes called). Even those two uncovered stands increased in size over the years. I typically sat in block Y of the Platt Lane this season but I did sit in the ‘Alan Ball’ for the Newcastle game early in the season. It poured down!

This image shows the ground before any temporary stands were built. This was 1995 (the Kippax is still being completed).

Compare the two plans from 2002 (above) and from 1998 (below) to see the additional temporary stands.:

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:

Farewell To Maine Road – Part One

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Maine Road 100 – Day 40

It’s day 40 of my posts counting down to the centenary of Maine Road’s opening game and today’s feature concerns ticket prices for the 1998-99 season: The only season MCFC spent in the third tier.

Maine Road was all-seater by this point and the most expensive seat was in the centre blocks B & C at £18 for the highest category game. The cheapest adult seat was £9 for the uncovered temporary stand UU, also known as the Gene Kelly Stand as fans there were used to ‘singing in the rain’ – do an internet search on the reference if you’re baffled or think that Gene Kelly played in the 1937 title winning season. Actually, when I set up the original museum in 2003-04 a Manchester tourist using our ‘Virtual Tour of Maine Road’ interactive asked if Gene Kelly had played international football for Scotland!).

Other temporary stands were erected over the next couple of years as Maine Road struggled to cope with demand. This ticket price plan shows that there isn’t yet an uncovered stand between the Kippax and the Platt Lane for example. It also shows where away fans were housed – this had varied over the years but for most of Maine Road’s last 25 years they had been housed in the Kippax away section of the old stand with some seats in either the Main Stand or in block J (there’s a whole series of possible articles on where the away fans were placed game after game – it did vary and I do remember arriving one day and being surprised at a group segregated in a section of the Main Stand that was normally home fans only).

To help with the flashback to 1998 here’s a newspaper cutting on Ian Bishop’s return in 1997-98:

The Manchester Metro News highlights the return of Ian Bishop

Of course the 1998-99 season ended with promotion at Wembley – a stadium that had been built by the same builders as Maine Road and in the same year.

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:

Farewell To Maine Road – Part One

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.

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