Joe Mercer – Page 7 – Gary James' Football Archive

A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download

Back in 1989 my first book was published and subscribers to this site (both annual and monthly) can now download a PDF of that entire book. The original book cost £6.95 when it came out; you can subscribe at £3 per month and get the PDF free here then cancel the subscription if you like). Ignoring yearbooks, this was only the 6th book (and two of those were more like pamphlets published in the 1930s & 40s) ever published specifically on Manchester City Football Club.

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To access the book and everything else on my website please take out an annual subscription here or, alternatively, scroll a little further and take out a monthly subscription. It’s £20 a year (about £1.67 per month) or £3 a month (cancel anytime).

Subscribe to get access – Monthly

To access the book and everything published since 1st October 2022 take out a monthly subscription here. It’s £3 a month (cancel anytime).

The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:

The 200th Post – Joe Mercer

and here:

A Writing Flashback!

I do not have the original layouts and so I’ve scanned my only surviving copy of the book and put the pages together on a PDF. The pages appear in the order they did in the original but, obviously, as I’ve just placed images of the pages on a word document it’s not as it all appeared. Nevertheless, for those who have never seen it you can now.

There were all sorts of issues with the original publication. My co-author had died and the book was delayed by a year. It was originally due out when I was 20 in 1988. As Keith, my co-author, had died mistakes were made. Keith was also a key figure at the publisher and, without his expertise, the quality of the images and other areas was not as great as it should have been. Even the title was incorrectly published (I’d agreed a different title). Ah well… I got enough of a bug to have started writing my second book within about a month of this coming out.

If you’d like to download the book then you do need to be a subscriber to this site. Subscribers pay £20 a year (works out about £1.67 a month) or £3 a month at a time (cancel anytime). For that annual subscribers now get the entire From Maine Men To Banana Citizens plus my 2010 edition of Manchester A Football History AND all articles/interviews posted so far. These include audio interviews I did with John Bond, Malcolm Allison and George Graham in the 1990s. Monthly subscribers get all content posted since 1st October 2022. All subscribers get access to all new material posted during their subscription too.

Allison’s Red and Black

On this day in 1968 Manchester City wore Red & Black stripes for the first time. Malcolm Allison had suggested adopting AC Milan’s colours and City first wore them for their meeting at Everton on October 5th 1968. Sadly, City were defeated 2-0 at Goodison and the colour change wasn’t popular with fans at first. However, due to a colour clash with Leicester, the new colours were worn in the 1969 FA Cup final. The club won that trophy and the kit soon entered City folklore as an important kit.

City chose to wear the new style for all the successful major finals that followed during Joe Mercer & Malcolm Allison’s time, including the club’s first European trophy in 1970. At one point Allison suggested making red and black the first choice kit.

There were however plenty of complaints about City adopting the colours. Take a look at an earlier post I made on those complaints here:

Complaints About MCFC Kits!

On this day… Malcolm Allison joins Manchester City

On this day (July 20) in 1965 Malcolm Allison was formally interviewed by the Manchester City board to be manager Joe Mercer’s assistant. Mercer had wanted to bring Allison in since he took the job earlier in the month. Here is a feature I did on Allison back in January 2005.

I first interviewed Malcolm in 1991, and, using material from several conversations with him, and in 2005 I took the opportunity of a MCFC v Crystal Palace game to remind everyone of his significance. Today, for subscribers, I’m posting it here.

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A Complete PDF Of My 1st Book To Download

Subscribers to my site can download a PDF of my entire first book. It was published back in 1989. Here are more details:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/06/22/a-complete-pdf-of-my-1st-book-to-download/

The book was published in April 1989 and I talk a little bit about it here:

The 200th Post – Joe Mercer

and here:

A Writing Flashback!

Manchester City Chants

Chanting at football games is rarely documented correctly with many myths, rumours and stories developing over the years. This feature is designed to give a potted overview of the development of singing at City.

I explained about some of the chants in this talk recently:

UPDATED GJFootballArchive talk on crowds and Maine Rd

Now, for subscribers is an 1800 word article on the history and development of chants at Manchester City:

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Read more of this content and everything on the site when you subscribe today.

The 1969 FA Cup Final

On April 26 1969 Manchester City defeated Leicester City in the FA Cup final. It is worth pausing to consider how the Blues compared to football’s other successful sides in the competition at this point. City’s four FA Cup successes placed them behind Aston Villa (7), Blackburn Rovers (6), Newcastle United (6), Tottenham Hotspur (5), The Wanderers (5) and West Bromwich Albion (5). Bolton, Sheffield United and Wolves had, like City, each won four FA Cups, while Manchester United had only won three, Liverpool one and Chelsea had not yet won the trophy. In fact Chelsea had only won one major trophy (the League Championship) at this point in their history.

Here for subscribers is a long read on that final and the events surrounding it: