Tag Archives: Leicester

The Span of Success 2023

Ahead of West Ham’s European final tomorrow night (7 June) I thought I’d post the latest update to the table showing the span of success – i.e. the number of years between a club’s first major success (FA Cup, League, League Cup, European trophy) and their most recent. If West Ham win tomorrow they will leap ahead of Leicester City.

This season has seen City overtake Blackburn Rovers and they are now second to Liverpool.

Okay, the span of success does not show how many trophies each club has won or how frequently that club has experienced great eras of success, but it does demonstrate how wrong those people are who believe certain clubs were unsuccessful until recent years, or those who think certain clubs have always been giants. The column on first major success helps to show when some clubs first became trophy-winning significant (often after transformational investment).

While you’re here… why not take a look at the free to read daily Maine Road features counting down to the old stadium’s 100th anniversary of its first game? Here are a sample couple of features (follow the Maine Road tag or search for more):

Maine Road 100 – Day 13

Maine Road 100 – Day 10
Maine Road 100 – Day 3

Maine Road 100 – Day 7

A Captain’s Performance

Today (6 May) in 2019 Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany scored a wonder strike to give City a 1-0 victory over Leicester City at the Etihad. The goal scored in the 70th minute meant that City knew they would retain the Premier League title if they won on the final day of the season at Brighton.

Kompany’s strike from 25 yards out arrowed into the top corner of the net.

You can watch highlights here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/match-highlights/2019/may/city-v-leicester-extended-highlights

On This Day 1963: The 1st FA Cup Tie

On this day (6 March) in 1963, due to an exceptionally snowy winter, both Manchester City’s and Manchester United’s first appearances in the FA Cup that season occurred. The games had been delayed until this date due to the poor weather.  

For the record, the Blues won away at Walsall 1-0 in the 3rd round (Alex Harley scored).  7 days later they beat Bury (1-0 at Maine Road, 41,575 crowd) in the 4th round and then lose to Norwich (2-1 at Maine Road on 16 March) in round 5.

The Reds defeated Huddersfield 5-0 at Old Trafford (Law 3, Giles & Quixall) before 47,703. They also defeated Aston Villa (1-0 on 11 March at Old Trafford), Chelsea (2-1 on 16 March at Old Trafford), Coventry (3-1 on 30th March), Southampton (1-0 at Villa Park on 27th April) and Leicester City 3-1 in the final at Wembley on 25 May.

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Denis Law and Rodney Marsh Both Score

On this day (12 January) in 1974 Denis Law and Rodney Marsh provided the goals as Manchester City defeated Leicester City 2-0 in a thrilling game at Maine Road.  

City were in blistering form for this game and absolutely tore in to Leicester. Only the brilliance of England ‘keeper Peter Shilton kept the score down as the report shows.

I was six years old and sat in the ‘old’ Platt Lane Stand with my dad that day. Were you also at this match? If you were why not leave your memory as a comment or email it to me for possible future use on this website?

Film of the game here:

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Read more of this website when you subscribe today. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month (access everything posted since 1 October 2022) if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Sign up for annual above and monthly here.

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Wayne Clarke and David Oldfield

On this day (8 January) in 1990 forward Wayne Clarke was signed by Manchester City from Leicester City while David Oldfield travelled in the opposite direction as part of the deal. 

Whereas Oldfield had gained a place in City’s history as one of the goalscorers in City’s memorable 5-1 victory over Manchester United in September 1989, Clarke struggled to carve out a place in the side.  He left Maine Road for a variety of loan spells the following October after making only 7 (plus 14 as substitute) first team appearances.  

Do you have memories of either Oldfield or Clarke at City? If you do why not leave your memory as a comment or email it to me for possible future use on this website? Keep it respectable of course.

Alternative Sites of Sports History – Free Download October 2022

Recently an academic article of mine offering advice and examples to those researching sports history or working within the industry was published. Normally, it is behind an academic paywall but you can download it for free during October here (it’s free, you may as well have a look):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2022.2117731?src=

The article has received publicity in publications/websites of football clubs including Middlesbrough and Manchester City. Here’s what City have said:

https://www.mancity.com/news/club/sport-in-history-academic-journal-manchester-city-63800643

Bananas, Leicester and City

On this day (3 October) in 1987 Paul Stewart & Imre Varadi both scored twice as Manchester City beat Leicester City 4-2 at Maine Road. Games with Leicester were often newsworthy in the 1980s. Sadly, there was the match in March 1989 when Paul Lake swallowed his tongue and there was the FA Cup tie in January 1989 which saw the City players take to the field carrying large inflatable bananas which they then threw into the crowd.  This was not a regular occurrence! You can read more on the banana craze here:

https://wordpress.com/post/gjfootballarchive.com/5646

On This Day: Bowles

Stan Bowles scored twice on his League debut as Manchester City beat Sheffield United 5-2 on this day (16 September) in 1967.  Three days earlier he also scored twice as the Blues defeated Leicester 4-0 in the League Cup – Bowles came on as substitute in his debut game.  Despite this tremendous start, Bowles never scored again for City and only made a total of 16 (plus 4 sub) appearances.

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:

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