Tag Archives: Maine Road

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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If you would like to read the in-depth articles (including the books, articles, history talks and interviews etc.) then please subscribe. It costs £3 a month (access everything since 1 October 2022; cancel anytime) or £20 a year (see above)

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True Blues – Lawrence Furniss

Lawrence Furniss was a key figure behind the development of Manchester City for 60 years and his achievements should never be forgotten.  His contribution to the City cause was total.  He was given (and thoroughly deserved) the accolade of being City’s first Life President. You can find out why this man was such an important figure in Manchester City history below (there’s also some film of him at Maine Road in the 1920s:

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The full series of True Blue profiles will feature:

Lawrence Furniss, John Allison, Joshua Parlby, Walter Chew, William Sumner, Tom Maley, St Mark’s community leaders, Billy Meredith, John Chapman, William Beastow and James Moores.

Rodney Marsh’s Overhead Goal

On this day (28th September 1974) Rodney Marsh scored a spectacular overhead goal for Manchester City against QPR at Maine Road.

Subscribers to this site can read about the goal and the game here:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/2022/07/16/golden-goals-1974-rodney-marsh-overhead-goal-v-qpr/

While you’re here why not subscribe to my website. It costs £20 per year (works out about £1.67 a month) and for that every subscriber gets access to a PDF of both Manchester A Football History and From Maine Men to Banana Citizens (both out of print) plus the hundreds of articles, interviews and videos already posted and a guaranteed 4 new exclusive articles per month (usually a lot more than that!). I am not employed to do any research and so subscribers help fund detailed research into football’s history. Thanks for supporting my work if you do already subscribe or buy my books.

The First PL Season Ends and Swales Out!

The 1992-93 season ended on May 8 with a 5-2 defeat for Manchester City at home to Everton. The Blues finished ninth in the inaugural Premier League campaign – not a particularly depressing position but this had been a strange season. There had been protests throughout the season. 

Here for subscribers is some explanation of what happened:

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80 Years Ago Today The Bombing of Old Trafford

On  this day (11th March) in 1941 Old Trafford was hit by bombs dropped by the German Luftwaffe.  The highly industrialised Trafford Park had been the target and by daybreak the news of damage to Old Trafford was circulating around Manchester, although the Manchester Guardian and other newspapers did not mention the ground by name.  Due to the wartime situation the newspaper did not want to give away too much information and reported:  “Slight damage was done to dwelling-houses in one or two working class districts and slight outbreaks of fire were reported from a football ground and a training institute.”

The ‘slight damage’ saw a bomb hit United’s Main Stand.  The stand was almost completely wrecked, while the pitch was scorched by the blast.  Manchester City contacted United and offered the use of Maine Road immediately and the first home United match to be staged at City’s ground was the 5th April meeting with Blackpool in the North Regional League.  The Seasiders’ won 3-2 before a crowd of around 2,000. 

Further wartime matches followed over the course of the next four years with United paying the Blues an annual rent of £5,000 plus a share of the gate receipts.  Initially City were to use United’s training ground, The Cliff, for reserve fixtures, but both sides also used Old Trafford at times.

After the war United were granted £4,800 to help cover the costs of tidying up the venue, and then a further £17,478 was given to help rebuild the Main Stand and damaged terracing.  This allowed the redevelopment of Old Trafford to commence and between 1945 and 1949 the Main Stand was rebuilt as was the terracing at the Popular Side (United Road).

This was a brief section from Manchester A Football History. The entire book (including images) is now free to download for subscribers to this site. See: https://gjfootballarchive.com/category/manchester-a-football-history/page/4/ or subscribe below.

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City Voices – Memories of the 1920s-50s

Previously I’ve posted about the City Voices project capturing the stories and memories of Manchester City fans (if you’ve missed the story take a look at: https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/02/06/city-voices-project/ ). The idea is to capture the experiences of Blues from all over the globe regardless of age, gender, ethnicity etc. Basically, if you’re a City fan I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve been capturing the stories of City fans since the early 1990s and always love hearing individual’s memories and stories. Back in 2002 I interviewed a female supporter called Fran Parker. At the time she was in her early 80s and she was able to talk to me about attending Maine Road in the 1920s to 1950s plus a few memories from the 1990s (for example, she talked about the sadness she felt when Paul Lake swallowed his tongue and how she feared for his life). I loved the fact that she was still attending games and still felt as enthusiastic in 2002 as she had in 1932.

For me it’s the experience of football that needs capturing. The media capture the games and the key moments but supporter views are often ignored or misunderstood. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about here’s a brief trailer of the interview I did with Fran. She does talk about goals, but it’s details like how she felt when Eric Brook scored in the 84,569 game; her umbrella and Dave Ewing stories that are different.

Anyway, have a listen:

If you would like to complete the City Voices questionnaire then please download it here and email it to me at gary@GJFootballArchive-com

https://gjfootballarchive.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/city-voices-modelconsent.docx

One important point to note is that I am keen to hear from fans of all ages based in Manchester, the United Kingdom and around the world. The greater the number that respond the better the archive of fans’ stories will become.

As for Fran Parker’s interview… Over the coming months http://www.GJFootballArchive.com will develop to include some of my interviews (my John Bond interview from 1995 has already been posted). IF you would like to subscribe then see below:

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If you would like to read all the in-depth articles (including the entire Manchester A Football History book and the audio interview with John Bond) then please subscribe. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Each subscriber gets full access to the 270+ articles posted so far and the hundreds scheduled to be posted in the coming weeks.

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Spurs, The Umbro Stand, Swales Out and That Pitch Invasion!

On this day (7th March) in 1993 Manchester City faced Tottenham in the FA Cup Quarter-Final at Maine Road. It was a day that saw the media express shock at the behaviour of City’s fans when they invaded the pitch during the tie with Spurs.  They condemned the supporters without understanding the background story.  To put the record straight it’s vital the day’s events are covered correctly.  Here for subscribers is the full story of that game, including quotes from Niall Quinn and Peter Swales (from my interviews with them in the years since that day…

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If you would like to read this and all the in-depth articles on this site (including the entire Manchester A Football History book and the audio interview with John Bond) then please subscribe. It works out about £1.67 a month if you take out an annual subscription (£20 per year) or £3 a month if you’d like to sign up for a month at a time. Each subscriber gets full access to the 260+ articles posted so far and the hundreds scheduled to be posted in the coming weeks.

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