Tag Archives: George Robey

The 1900s: 1907-1908 Respectable Third

Continuing the series of features on Manchester City in the early 1900s! Today it’s an article on the season after the ban, showing how City coped. Despite everything that had been thrown at Manchester’s Blues they finished third. Read the subscriber article below for the story.

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Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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The 1900s: 1903-1904 The FA Cup

Continuing the series of features on Manchester City in the early 1900s! Today it’s a 9400 (yes that’s right!) word article telling the story of 1903-04 when Manchester won its first major trophy. If you’re a subscriber you’ll need to get a brew before reading this celebration of that season. If you’re not a subscriber then why not?

Ever wondered how Manchester found its first major trophy success or what the scandal that rocked City was all about? Then subscribe and read this series of articles.

Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or sign up a year at a time for the discounted annual fee of £20. This gives access to everything on the site, including PDFs of 3 of my books and various other articles, interviews and audio material. Each subscriber has access to all content posted during their subscription period too. Why not sign up for a month and see what you think?

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More on the 1900s tomorrow. Why not subscribe and read this and all the other subscriber features?

Celebrity Fans

I spotted this photo as part of my research earlier. It’s from 1997 and, amongst others, it shows musician Liam Gallagher and actor Kevin Kennedy sharing a box at Maine Road. It’s a combination most would be surprised at seeing and all came about because of their support of Manchester City.

Over the years there have been many celebrities who have been proclaimed as fans of particular clubs. Some of these are known to have attended games before they became famous, others perhaps were not so familiar with ‘their’ club before they made their names.  In 2009 I compiled a list of those widely accepted as celebrity Manchester City supporters at that time or before.

Occasionally, some of City’s celebrity fans have been incorrectly claimed as supporters of other clubs.  The most significant of these is the artist LS Lowry.  Lowry was without doubt a supporter of City, however because of his interest in painting Salford scenes it has occasionally been claimed that he was a Red.  Fortunately, artist Harold Riley (himself a Red) has made this abundantly clear whenever the error occurs.  Lowry was a Blue!

The following list is not meant to be comprehensive, however I am keen to develop this list and create a more definitive list covering every era of City’s existence over time. If you have evidence proving additional celebrity City fans then please contact me via this website.

Please note each celebrity listed below is highlighted for one main claim to fame however they may be famous for other activities as well.  This is most obvious with musicians and actors (they have all acted in other areas).  Obviously, some of the celebrities listed here have passed away.

Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough) – Musician

Amanda Barrie – Actor, Coronation Street

John Beavan – Political advisor to the Daily Mirror in 1970s

Susan Bookbinder – Broadcaster

Mark Burgess – Musician, The Chameleons

Craig Cash – Actor & writer, Royle Family & Early Doors

Michael Croft – 1970s Television producer

Ian Curtis – Musician, Joy Division

Timothy Dalton – Actor

Howard Davies – Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England

Lee Dixon – Former Arsenal footballer

Joe Donovan – Musician, Blossoms

Billy Duffy – Musician, The Cult

Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff – Cricketer

Liam Gallagher – Musician, Oasis

Noel Gallagher – Musician, Oasis

You can listen to my interview with Noel here:

The Noel Gallagher interview Part one

Jimi Goodwin – Musician, Doves

Will Greenwood – Member of the England Rugby World Cup winning side

Graham Haberfield – Actor, Coronation Street & The Dustbinmen

Ricky Hatton – Boxer

John Henshaw – Actor who appeared in Early Doors

Bruce Jones – Actor, Coronation Street

Mike Joyce – Musician, The Smiths (provided significant support to the MCFC museum music exhibition)

Archie Kelly – Actor, best known for Phoenix Nights

Ben Kelly – Artist (staged an exhibition of his work at the City museum in 2009)

Kevin Kennedy – Actor, Coronation Street

Eddie Large – Comedian (lived on Maine Road as a boy)

Clive Myrie – Broadcaster, BBC News & Mastermind

Nick Leeson – Trader, held responsible for the collapse of Barings Bank

Sally Lindsay – Actor, Coronation Street

LS Lowry – Artist

Jason Manford – Comedian (his brother Colin worked as a tour guide in the MCFC museum)

Bernard Manning – Comedian

Johnny Marr – Musician, The Smiths

Tom Ogden – Musician, Blossoms

Steve Penk – Broadcaster

Mike Pickering – Musician, M People and legendary DJ

Mark Radcliffe – Broadcaster

Reni – Musician, The Stone Roses (wrote a wonderful poem on being a ball boy which was displayed in the City museum during 2007)

Marc Riley – Broadcaster

George Robey – Music Hall comedian (organised charity game to commemorate City’s 1904 FA Cup final win). Robey is proclaimed as a fan of many, many clubs.

Frank Sidebottom – Broadcaster

Mark E Smith – Musician, The Fall

John Stapleton – Broadcaster

Ben Thompson – Actor, Coronation Street

David Threlfall – Actor, Shameless

Rick Wakeman – Musician (though usually acknowledged as a Brentford fan)

Jez Williams – Musician, Doves

Andy Williams – Musician, Doves

Bob Willis – Cricketer

Bernard Youens – Actor, Coronation Street (played Stan Ogden and, along with the character Annie Walker, was part of the cast who attended a City game filmed for an episode broadcast on 29/11/1967) 

As I mentioned at the start this list was compiled in 2009. Many more names need to be added to this list.

FA Cup: Manchester City v Arsenal

It’s Manchester City v Arsenal on Friday. The first FA Cup tie between these clubs came in 1904 and was part of Manchester’s first major trophy winning campaign. The two sides met at Arsenal in the second round of the competition. Back then City were a top flight team while Woolwich Arsenal were in the Second Division and some reports talked of the Gunners being envious of Manchester City and their status (how often do modern interpretations of a club’s status forget the game’s full history hey?). Arsenal had defeated Fulham 1-0 in the previous round. 

The Blues defeated the Gunners 2-0 with goals from Sandy Turnbull and Frank Booth, prompting the Manchester Evening News to print a cartoon of Billy Meredith leapfrogging over the Gunners while Tom Maley, dressed in kilt, watches. 

Outside-left Frank Booth, one of the scorers, had joined City in April 1902 making his first appearance for the Club in a friendly with Celtic on 1 September 1902.  That friendly appearance brought a little bad luck to the player as fairly early on in the match he accidentally collided with Celtic’s Right-back Hugh Watson causing him to leave the field for twenty minutes or so.  When he returned however he seemed more determined than ever to prove what he was capable of and, when a chance came his way, he scored what was described as a “very fine” goal to give City a 1-0 victory.

Throughout Booth’s career prior to the Arsenal game he had been rather unlucky with injuries and, at times, must have seriously considered concentrating on a life outside of the sport.  He was a hatter by trade, coming from the local hatting areas surrounding the towns of Hyde and Denton, and had only completed his apprenticeship in 1903.  Nevertheless a career in football had to be more appealing than life in one of the large hatting factories of east Manchester.

Here’s a brief cutting mentioning the game. Note also the difficulties being experienced by Second Division Manchester United (again, how often do modern day commentators on the game’s history forget the full history?).

After the tie with Arsenal at Plumstead, George Robey, a very famous Music Hall comedian with a love of football, took the City team to visit the capital’s top Music Halls.  Such light relief was needed in the City camp as the realisation was now dawning that the Blues might seriously be contenders for the League and Cup double that at this point in history had only been achieved by Preston (1889) and Aston Villa (1897). 

For a side (indeed a city) whose only national success so far had been to win the Second Division, this must have felt like an impossible dream but, as the season progressed it became increasingly possible.

You can read about what happened next here:

20TH CENTURY CHRONICLE – 1903-04

The next FA Cup meeting between the teams didn’t come until 1932 when they met in at the semi-final stage.

You can read all about that here:

The 1932 FA Cup Semi-Final

Since 1932 the sides have met in the competition on 17/2/1971 at Maine Road (a 2-1 Arsenal win); the 2017 semi-final (2-1 aet for Arsenal); and again in the 2020 semi played on 18 July 2020 (a 2-0 Arsenal win).

A City FA Cup win over Arsenal is long overdue!