Tag Archives: MCFC

Manchester City’s “European Heritage” – Facts Not Fiction

With the 2021 Champions League final looming, most City fans know that the Blues possess a great history but in recent years some of the club’s rivals have tended to play down City’s European heritage suggesting the Blues are relative newcomers to the continent’s biggest competitions. So in this article I thought I’d take the opportunity to spell out a few of City’s earliest connections with European competition:

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Manchester’s First Great Season

“Not a little of the success the City club has achieved is due to the indefatigable labours of the secretary, Mr T.E. Maley, who came to Manchester three years ago, when the City were in the Second Division.  He brought to his duties valuable experience gained with the famous Celtic club, and he has had the benefit of being a player, a club official, a legislator, and a selector.  His splendid services to the City are reflected in the position they at present occupy – the holders of the English Cup – the most coveted of football prizes, and one of the leading clubs in the League.”The Manchester Evening Chronicle, 12 November 1904

This season became Manchester’s first major trophy-winning season. It established the city’s trophy-winning heritage and it helped transform Manchester from a rugby playing city to a footballing one. Every Mancunian needs to know the story of this season. The following 10,000 word article tells the story of that season.

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Coming Soon – Peter Barnes Biography

I’ve been working with Peter Barnes since 2019 on his biography. This will cover his life & career and will be illustrated throughout. Personal items, such as Peter’s own artwork from school lessons (and earliest attempts at writing his autograph!), will appear in the book.

Written to a similar standard as my biography of Joe Mercer (Football With A Smile, first published in 1993, reprinted in 1994 and updated in 2010), this includes quotes from Peter throughout, alongside the views of players and managers.

This will, hopefully, prove to be a must have book for fans of Manchester City & United, West Bromwich Albion, Leeds United, Real Betis and the other clubs Peter played for.

Details will be revealed here later this year, but it is anticipated the book will be available before the end of the current football season (assuming Covid does not add any further delays). There will be the opportunity to subscribe to the book before publication (and get your name included in the subscriber section at the back of the book).

Watch this space!

On This Day – 1974 Manchester City’s Scintillating League Cup Quarter Final

On this day (16th January) in 1974 Denis Law scored again (after netting in the League game with Leicester four days earlier).

Law’s goal came as Manchester City defeated Coventry City 4-2 in the League Cup quarter-final replay.  That game was notable for lots of reasons, not least because it came in the middle of industrial action resulting in power cuts across the Country.  For this game to go ahead City had to bring in an Electricity generator, which was positioned outside the ground. I remember hearing a loud buzzing noise from the generator as I made my way towards the Platt Lane Stand with my dad and brother.

Like City’s 2-0 victory over Leicester in the League four days earlier, this was another scintillating display by Ron Saunders’ City team. 

Incredibly, City had been losing 2-1 as late as the 79th minute but then Francis Lee ‘exploded on to the scene with two goals in three minutes’ according to one report. One of Lee’s goals was a penalty awarded after a foul on Colin Bell by Willie Carr.

Watch highlights of the game here (watch the celebrations by Law & Lee after the last goal):

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FA Cup success, football infrastructure and the establishment of Manchester’s footballing identity – FREE DOWNLOAD FOR LIMITED PERIOD

Great news! Following the recent purchase of the original design FA Cup by Sheikh Mansour and my appearance on Football Focus, my academic article on the significance of that success to Manchester has been made free to download for a limited period.

Please use this link to access the academic website and article:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14660970.2014.961378

The Manchester City video I contributed to can also be viewed here:

https://www.mancity.com/citytv/mens/manchesters-first-trophy-1904-fa-cup-documentary-63745781

More on 1903-04 for subscribers here:

https://gjfootballarchive.com/2021/01/08/manchesters-first-great-season/

On This Day 1977 – Manchester City and Joe Royle

On this day (11th January) in 1977 Joe Royle ensured Manchester City, wearing their famous red & black striped kit, progressed to face Newcastle United in the FA Cup by scoring the only goal of the Third Round replay at West Bromwich Albion.  The first game had ended in a 1-1 draw at Maine Road.

Royle’s goal came in the 19th minute on the snow at the Hawthorns in a game that many people felt should never have started, though City were not going to complain about that once they had control of the match. According to some reports Albion didn’t have a single shot in the match.

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The Origins of School Football Associations: Manchester as a Case Study


Abstract

This paper will focus on the origins and subsequent development of school football in Manchester and its surrounding conurbation between 1880 and 1919. Archival evidence, drawing mainly on the Manchester Schools Football Association (MSFA) collection, will be used to chronicle the expansion of organized competition and sporting opportunities. It will demonstrate that football’s growth in Manchester’s education system owed much to dedicated teachers who encouraged participation at their own schools and organized inter-school competitions. Association football became prominent right across Manchester as young teachers, most notably George Sharples, encouraged pupils to play, leading to a widening of participation and interest that helps to explain how Manchester transitioned from a rugby to a soccer city. Also discussed is the important role of the Manchester and Salford Playing Fields Society (MSPFS) which assisted the game’s growth in schools and amongst schoolchildren more generally by making suitable fields and pitches available. Without the Society’s efforts facilities may have been insufficient to satisfy growing demand at a critical point in soccer’s development.

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Establishing women in sports history: Manchester City Football Club

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an overview of an oral history project focusing on the experiences of female footballers, in particular those playing for Manchester City Women since its formation as a community initiative in 1988, through to its modern-day position as a leading Women’s Super League club. It discusses the development of the project, analysis of the methodology employed and provides high-level findings on the club’s history, the participants and the research process. For too long female participation, even at England’s most famous clubs, has not been widely recognised, reported on or understood. This project, supported by a professional football club, begins to address these omissions. It does so by focusing on personal testimonies, together with archive material to generate an historical account of how a team, established as a community initiative, developed into a major trophy-winning club.

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1974 Rodney Marsh Overhead Goal V QPR

Many goals over the years are described as the greatest ever by a City player.  Sometimes these become a talking point for a few days, sometimes for a few years but unless they happen to occur in a major trophy winning game goals tend to lose their significance as time moves on.  This is especially true for games prior to the 1990s when television coverage was limited to, at best, a handful of top flight games.

The idea of this piece today is to highlight a spectacular goal from the 1970s that has slipped from the minds of many.  

The goal featured here is Rodney Marsh’s overhead kick from the City-QPR Division One game of September 1974.  

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1977-78 Colin Bell’s Contribution To The Central League Title

When I interviewed Colin Bell a few years ago we talked about his many successes and triumphs as a player. He was as humble as ever. Then he told me something which surprised me a little and that was about Manchester City’s 1977-78 Central League title.

City’s reserve team played in the Central League back then and, due to his devastating injury, Colin played reserve games throughout that season as he pushed for full fitness. He started 22 of these games and scored five goals.

When I interviewed Colin he told me he was as pleased with this Central League success as he was with all his other medals. To him that season saw a return to competitive football and it was irrelevant whether it was a reserve league or the Football League. It mattered enormously.

Most obituaries and posts on Colin won’t talk about the 1977-78 Central League title but, as he was so keen to ensure he mentioned it to me all those years ago, I feel it’s appropriate to give it a little focus today.

His first Central League appearance of the 1977-78 season attracted almost 5,000 as many of us were determined to be there when he returned to action. For the record that game was v Huddersfield on 17th September 1977, attendance 4,921.

Colin was a wonderful player and man. Those of us who saw him play know what a great player he was; those of us who were privileged to meet him met a truly humble & wonderful human being. He was the King of our Kippax but was truly a legend of football at Bury, City and England. His name will always be remembered.

This image of my ledger for 1977-78 shows Colin in City’s Central League match records.