It wasn’t the first game under floodlights for Ardwick (Manchester City’s predecessors) but it was a significant occasion when on Monday 10 March 1890 the club played Everton under lights at Hyde Road. This match report describes the game. Notice that not much is said about the lights themselves. That’s because it wasn’t the first occasion the club had played under lights in Manchester and those reading the report would be expected to know what Well’s patent lights were due to the features that had been written previously.
People often talk of the 1950s as being the birth of floodlit football but, of course, like many things in football’s history there had been firsts decades earlier.
On 14 October in 1953 the first game under floodlights at Maine Road took place, Manchester City 6 Hearts 3. Here’s an article about that period and City’s first formal floodlighting system, including a photo from the actual game and another report.
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