Tag Archives: Malcolm Allison

Double The Crowd: Crerand’s Bet With Allison

60 years ago this week (March 1966) Manchester City announced that their FA Cup quarter final was a 63,000 sell out. Why is this significant? Because the attendance was larger than any domestic crowd at Old Trafford that season, but why is that significant? Because at the start of the season United’s Pat Crerand bet City assistant manager Malcolm Allison that City would never get more than 30,000 for a game again! I interviewed Malcolm back in 1993 when we talked about this and he also mentioned it in he biography. The story…

Basically, Allison was sat at United’s League championship celebration and became somewhat frustrated by the glorification of United that night. While Joe Mercer took a diplomatic approach, afterall it was United’s celebration dinner, Allison decided to speak out. He told Matt Busby’s son Sandy that his dad had a twenty year start but ‘I’ll pass him in three’ and then Allison claimed he got into a discussion with Crerand about ‘little City’ compared to United. Allison claimed Crerand made a £10 bet with him that City would never again get 30,000+ in Maine Road.

A pause in the action (September 1967 Manchester derby) gives Summerbee Crerand and Dunne an opportunity to debate the action so far (Image: The Pride of Manchester, 1991)

On a Wednesday night in October (27/10/65) City attracted 34,091 for the visit of Norwich in the Second Division. Allison told me he couldn’t remember whether he ever got his £10 but he did laugh a great deal when I told him that United’s attendance the previous Saturday was 32,716 for the top flight visit of Fulham.

Malcolm Allison at the launch of Gary James’ Football With A Smile: The Authorised Biography of Joe Mercer, OBE in December 1993. Note Francis Lee appearing behind Allison.

What was even more remarkable was that the City-Everton FAC tie on 26 March 1966 was watched by 63,034 and that was higher than any domestic crowd at United that season. Allison laughed again when we discussed that briefly. As a comparison, United attracted 58,161 for their League game with Liverpool (lowest home League attendance 23,039 v Aston Villa) and they did get 60,433 for their FAC Cup quarter-final replay with Preston. Plus United managed to better all these attendances with 64,035 for their European Cup quarter-final with Benfica.

I did an earlier interview with Allison that can be listened to here:

Malcolm Allison Audio Interview Part One

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Colin Bell’s City Debut Goal

60 years ago today (19 March 1966) Colin Bell made his debut for Manchester City in a League game with Derby County. The game ended 2-1 with Colin Bell scoring a debut goal (see main photo). Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison often joked about the goal (according to Allison it hit him and went in which Allison claimed caused Mercer to cry out: ‘Oh no, what have we done!’). That was more of a story used years later when Colin had proved his worth time and time again.

Bell signed on 16 March. Here for subscribers are contemporary match reports and also an image of Young’s goal too:

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If you’d like to find out about Colin’s Bury debut (which was against Manchester City), you can read that here:

The 1960s: Colin Bell’s Bury Debut

Were You There 60 Years Ago Today? Leicester v Manchester City FAC Replay

Today (9 March) in 1966 Second Division Manchester City defeated First Division Leicester City 1-0 in a FAC 5th round replay. Gordon Banks was the Leicester ‘keeper and City gained many plaudits from this display. More was to follow as the football world began to notice how City were revitalised under manager Joe Mercer and his assistant Malcolm Allison. Were you there that day? If you were please feel free to add your comments.

Here for subscribers are some contemporary match reports from this game:

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You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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Were You There 60 Years Ago Today? Manchester City v Leicester FAC

Today (5 March) in 1966 two goals from Neil Young helped Second Division Manchester City to a 2-2 draw against First Division Leicester City in the 5th round of the FA Cup. Gordon Banks was the Leicester ‘keeper and City gained many plaudits from this display. More was to follow as the football world began to notice how City were revitalised under manager Joe Mercer and his assistant Malcolm Allison. Were you there that day? If you were please feel free to add your comments.

Here for subscribers are some contemporary match reports and images from this game:

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You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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60 Years Ago: Malcolm Allison Ban For Criticising Referees

This week in 1966 Manchester City assistant manager Malcolm Allison was in trouble for criticising refereeing decisions on the radio. He was irate at inconsistencies seen and suggested that referees were ‘homers’ (giving decisions to home teams rather than being fair to both sides). Inevitably, his comments brought censure from the FA but he did receive a lot of support from fans. Here’s a selection of the newspaper coverage as it appears in the 1965-66 scrapbook I have:

You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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Were You There 60 Years Ago Today? Manchester City 2 Grimsby 0 FAC Tie

Today (12 February) in 1966 a goal from Mike Summerbee and an own goal brought City a 2-0 FA Cup win over Grimsby Town. The victory brought great praise City’s way. Were you at Maine Road that day? If you were please feel free to add your comments. Here for subscribers are match reports from this game:

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You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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Were You There 60 Years Ago Today? Bristol City 1 Manchester City 1

Today (5 February) in 1966 a goal from Neil Young brought City a 1-1 draw at promotion chasing Bristol City. League leaders Manchester City saw this as a point gained rather than one dropped and the wider media coverage talked positively of Manchester’s side. Were you at Bristol that day? If you were please feel free to add your comments.

Here for subscribers are match reports from this game:

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You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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Were You There 60 Years Ago Today? Manchester City 3 Middlesbrough 1

Today (29 January) in 1966 goals from Mike Summerbee (2) and Neil Young brought City a 3-1 victory over Middlesbrough and left City top of Division Two. It was a convincing win (Malcolm Allison boasted how City could have scored 6) but fans actually felt dissatisfied at the end as the Blues had eased off. Here’s the League table from after that game:

Here for subscribers are match reports from this game:

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You can find out more on Manchester City during the 1965-66 season by reading the following 4100 word article. As with most of the other features in this series it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there. This is a subscriber article (see below).

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The Allison Curse and City’s Nightmare at Halifax

Malcolm Allison’s multi-million pound Manchester City side were humbled 1-0 at Fourth Division Halifax Town in the FAC on this day (5 January) in 1980 but there’s so much more to it than that. At Christmas 1979 big spending City were 12th in the League and Malcolm Allison was in charge of the most expensive British team ever assembled up to that point.12th was disappointing of course but it wasn’t the end of the world. In those days a decent run in the League could easily lift a team (similar to the 2025-26 season in terms of the number of clubs capable of winning the League at Christmas). Sadly, City collapsed in the weeks that followed.  

A 1-1 draw at Stoke on Boxing Day was disappointing, but it wasn’t the end of the world.  Then a 4-1 defeat at First Division newcomers Brighton knocked confidence at an important time.  The next game was the third round F.A. Cup clash against Fourth Division Halifax Town at the Shay.

In his programme notes for the match Halifax Manager George Kirby predicted a shock:  “In today’s F.A. Cup 3rd round the only certainty is that there are going to be some surprises, especially with the wintry conditions underfoot.  I like to think that we are among one of the possible giant killers.  This is because we are playing against one of the certain to be ‘top teams’ of the 80s.  A 4th Div side at home to a 1st Div outfit with such stars as Joe Corrigan, Steve Daley, and Mike Robinson is a possible shock result.  It only needs an off day by a key player and Halifax are in the hunt.”

Kirby was determined to defeat football’s biggest spenders and even brought in an hypnotist, Romark (who had previously ‘cursed’ Allison while the City boss had been manager of Crystal Palace – a really interesting story which will be covered in my biography of Peter Barnes to be published in 2021), to get his players in the right frame of mind.  The game itself was played in horrendous conditions, with multi-million pound City struggling to achieve anything.  In the 75th minute it was all over as the ex-Birmingham City player Paul Hendrie converted a cross from former City schoolboy Andy Stafford to give Halifax a 1-0 victory.  It was the biggest result in Halifax history, and the most embarrassing City defeat of the Allison period.  Even today the name of Halifax and the sight of the Shay brings back nightmares for a large number of Blues.

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From My Collection: The 1967-68 Champions

Here’s an odd item from my collection. It’s a compliment slip by a Star Press (the ‘champion printers’) which lists the players in Manchester City’s 1967-68 title winning team. There are a couple of spelling mistakes. See if you can spot them. One side of the compliments slip shows the League Champions and the other side looks like this:

I’m not certain if there was a close connection between Manchester City and Star Press at this time.

You can find out more about the 1967-68 season by reading the following subscriber article. If you’d like to read this 7,600 word article (yes, 7,600 words on one season!), plus all other articles on the site, then please subscribe (see below). As with most of the other seasonal features it includes words from interviews I have performed with those who were there.

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