Tag Archives: Leeds

The 1970s: Attendance Flashback to 1978

The series of features/articles covering Manchester City in the 1970s continues with this brief post about average attendances. We hear so much baloney these days about which clubs are giants and so on but the truth is that in terms of success no team has ALWAYS been at the top and in terms of support most clubs have had highs and lows. There are some clubs that generation after generation have been popular with fans and this cutting from the Manchester City match programme of 1977-78 may interest some.

I’m not going to point to any club or anything but look at the numbers and make your own minds up. Manchester City, incidentally, tended to be the 3rd best supported club (no matter where they finished) behind United and Liverpool throughout the mid to late 70s and early 1980s. They occasionally dropped to 4th depending on whether Everton or Spurs had a good season and even in City’s 1982-83 relegation season Manchester’s Blues were the 4th best supported club. Not bad for a failing club!

This series of articles and features on Manchester City in the 1970s will run throughout January 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 January will offer something to enjoy.

Subscribers will get access to everything. If you want to know more on this incredible decade for Manchester City Football Club then why not subscribe and read it all? You could even subscribe for a month and see what you think. The following 5,200 word article is on the 1970-71 season and is available to subscribers below. Enjoy!

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The 1970s: A Typical Away Day At Leeds

If you’ve ever wondered what a typical match day was like in the 1970s then you should have a watch of this. This is Leeds v City in 1978 and is part of my series of features/articles covering Manchester City in the 1970s. Watch for the large away following (City fans behind the goal to the right but also positioned in various spots around Elland Road); Leeds’ players fighting themselves; a penalty appeal that would be given today; Colin Bell carrying an excited Peter Barnes; LUFC manager Jimmy Armfield smoking his pipe; a pitch invasion followed by the referee announcing the possibility of abandoning the game if it doesn’t stop – which of course is cheered by Leeds fans as an abandonment could work in their favour (it took a long time for football to realise this was never a good thing to say if you wanted trouble to stop!)… what an era! You’ll also notice that when Tueart is about to score a flash from a camera goes off in the away section. I wonder if that fan photo ever turned out?

So here goes with this on this day (7 January) from 1978.

This series of articles and features on Manchester City in the 1970s will run throughout January 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 January will offer something to enjoy.

Subscribers will get access to everything. If you want to know more on this incredible decade for Manchester City Football Club then why not subscribe and read it all? You could even subscribe for a month and see what you think. The following 5,600 word article is on the successes of 1970 and is available to subscribers below. Enjoy!

Subscribe to get access – Monthly

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) to access everything posted since 1 October 2022 or there’s a special annual rate below which gives greater access and works out much cheaper.

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Subscribe to get access – Annual

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. It costs £3 per month (above) or £20 a year (here) to access everything posted since the site was created in December 2020. This special rate works out about £1.67 a week and gives access to everything posted, including PDFs of 3 of my books.

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1990s Football Banter

The departure of Howard Kendall from Manchester City in November 1990 led to a number of fan related chants, banners and more as fans tried to make their feelings known. United fans got in on the act and started to sing a version of Blue Moon that laughed at Kendall’s departure (which in itself shows how much everyone believed Kendall would bring success City’s way). City fans retaliated with a version that reminded United that only a year or so earlier City’s bargain basement Blues had defeated Ferguson’s Reds 5-1 – at that time the United team assembled by Ferguson was the most expensive British team ever created (and he still had further spending to make).

Banter between the Blues and Reds continues, with Kendall’s departure at the centre of it all but, demonstrating the self-deprecating sense of humour the Blues were known for at this time, Kendall started to be blamed for almost everything that was going wrong in Manchester. Unemployment rises – that’ll be Kendall’s fault. Buses are late – Kendall did that… and so on. Even a storyline in Coronation Street triggered a banner. In the soap opera Mavis and Derek Wilton’s house had been broken into. Who was to blame? Howard Kendall of course if a banner in the North Stand at Maine Road was to be believed.

This Manchester Evening News cutting mentions the chants and the banner. The banner appeared at the City-Leeds game played on this day (11 November) in 1990. It ended in a 3-2 Leeds win (bizarrely Alan Harper took a City penalty) and you can see the highlights here:

MCFC v LUFC

An easy first half for Manchester City today, going 2-0 up thanks to Gundogan v Leeds at the Etihad. It could so easily have been more with shots hitting the bar and the post, plus a penalty which Haaland insisted Gundogan take that was saved. In the end Leeds pulled one back to make it 2-1 but it was a relatively easy game for the Blues and the score flattered Sam Allardyce’s new team.

There was an interesting moment when City fans chanted ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning.’

As seems to be customary these days the away fans chanted the ‘Where Were You’ chant. Surprisingly. It was within the first five minutes of the start. If only those fans chanting had read my programme articles today. One of them was my comparison of City & Leeds crowds. Reproduced below you can see how City actually increased the stadium’s capacity to cope with crowds when they dropped to their lowest point. The other attendance comparisons all work in City’s favour too.