More Gundogan Records

For many, many years Dave Masey has been collecting stats and historical information on Manchester City. Like me he was a member of the Association of Football Statisticians and he has helped me often over the years. Following Saturday’s FA Cup final he got in touch with 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 Gundogan is now at 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:

1904Meredith
1934/7Tilson (3), Brook (2), Doherty
1956Hayes, Dyson, Johnstone
1968/70Young (4), Lee (2), Summerbee, Doyle, Pardoe
1976P 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 games player (60 in 303 for City). Certainly this season he has played a true leader’s role and, looking at his place in this table, he is clearly a man for all trophy-winning seasons.

Thanks, as always to Dave, for this information.

Oakes’ First

On this day (14 November) in 1959 Manchester City’s record appearance holder Alan Oakes made the first of 564 League appearances.  The game ended in a 1-1 draw with Chelsea with the away team missing a penalty. Jack Dyson returned to the City team after two years out with a damaged leg. Here’s a contemporary match report from the game:

There are lots of other features on my website about Alan Oakes, why not have a read while you’re here?

https://gjfootballarchive.com/tag/alan-oakes/

Referee Webb ‘Was Not To Blame!’ – Manchester City’s Mysteriously Abandoned Game

On 7th January 1956, with the score at 1-1 Manchester City’s cup tie with Blackpool was abandoned in the 56th minute after fog enveloped the ground. The game was an extraordinary one with City fans angry that it had ever started. In thick fog the referee H Webb (no not that one!) of Leeds said the game should go ahead because, although those in the stands could see little, he claimed he could see both ends of the pitch.

Blackpool kicked off to start the game but City were unable to see what was going on unless they were close up to the ball. Within 13 seconds Ernie Taylor, who later signed for Manchester United of course, scored without a single City man touching the ball (or even seeing it it seems). 

After 37 minutes the players left the field and it looked like the game would be abandoned but, to the shock of the City players (who seemed to want it abandoning according to some reports, though we all know how things can be incorrectly reported), the match restarted. 

A longer half-time than usual followed but still the game went on. After eight minutes City’s Jack Dyson was fouled in the area – although only the referee, Dyson and the man who committed the foul seemed to know this at the time. Dyson scored the resulting penalty and then a couple of minutes later referee H Webb abandoned the game (maybe it was that H Webb after all!).

Amazingly one newspaper photograph of the game did appear, but apart from that it seems the public didn’t see anything. A cartoon appeared in one ‘paper suggesting that fans only found out what happened when they went home and turned on their radios.

Four days later 42,517 attended Maine Road for a 2.15pm kick off on a Wednesday afternoon to see City win 2-1.

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