68,614 Afternoon Attendance

On 21 February 1934 Manchester City defeated Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 at Maine Road in a fifth round FA Cup replay.  A remarkable Wednesday afternoon crowd of 68,614 enjoyed the match.  Four days earlier Hillsborough’s record attendance of 72,841 had witnessed a 2-2 draw. Subscribers to this blog can read the story of that game, including photographs below:

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The Top and Bottom of History

While we look forward to the return of domestic football it’s worth remembering that before the pause for the World Cup there had already been records broken by Manchester City, such as the incredible goalscoring start to the season by Erling Haaland; results like the Manchester Derby 6-3 victory and Rico Lewis becoming the youngest player to score in his first Champions League start. In mid-August there was a flurry of excitement across social media and elsewhere when City were top of the Premier League and United were bottom. People asked when was the last time that had happened. 

It turned out that the two clubs had last been in those positions way back in November 1929 and it seemed to surprise some that it was so long ago. The truth is that no matter how poor United or City may have been in past seasons, it has been extremely rare for either club to occupy the bottom spot over the decades. It has been even rarer for the other ‘Manchester’ club to be top at the same time. 

So for this 1400 word subscriber article I’m going to talk about when one team has been top and the other bottom and then I’ll take a look at 1929 and the years that followed to highlight how the two Manchester clubs fared. Enjoy….

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Subscribe to get access

Read more of this content when you subscribe today. Subscribe above for £20 a year and get access to everything posted on the site since launching in December 2020. Subscribe here for £3 a month for access to everything since 1st October 2022. Whichever subscription you take out you will get access to everything for the full length of your subscription. Why not do £3 for a month to see what you think?

Division’s Highest Crowd

On this day (10 December) in 1983 41,852 witnessed Manchester City’s 2-1 defeat by promotion rivals Sheffield Wednesday at Maine Road.  The crowd was the highest Division Two crowd of the season. Here’s a contemporary report of that game and a few highlights from the game:

Hillsborough’s Record Crowd: SWFC v MCFC

On this day (17th February) in 1934 a remarkable crowd, with thousands travelling from Manchester, watched a thrilling FA Cup tie between Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester City. Subscribers to this blog can read the story of that game, including photographs.

Subscribe to get access

If you would like to read this piece and all the other in-depth articles (including the entire Manchester A Football History book) then please subscribe below. 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 500+ articles posted so far and the hundreds scheduled to be posted in the coming weeks.