Football writing, thoughts and more by Gary James
Today (9 November) in 1974 Manchester City presented longserving player Alan Oakes with a silver plate to commemorate his 500th League appearance. He’d actually made his 500th League appearance the previous week when City faced Everton at Goodison.
At Maine Road on 9 November City chairman Peter Swales presented him with the award before the game with Stoke (Oakes made his 501st League appearance that day). City won that match 1-0 with a goal from Rodney Marsh. You can see Marsh’s goal here:
Last night I heard the news that the former Blackburn, Manchester City and Stoke player Peter Dobing had died. Here is a profile of him written by the late Manchester City historian John Maddocks and given to me by John around the year 2000. John was a real expert on City’s former players and had spent years researching their careers. I was fortunate to have John’s support during my early years of research and writing. Here’s his brief profile of Peter:
DOBING, Peter A.
Role: Midfield/Forward 1961-63
5’10” 11st.8lbs.
b. Manchester, 1st December 1938
CAREER: Blackburn Rovers Dec 1955/CITY 17 July 1961/Stoke City 15 Aug 1963.
Debut v Leicester City (h) 19.8.1961
An extremely skilful inside-forward with an eye for goals, Peter Dobing came to City along with Bobby Kennedy in the summer of 1961 bought with the money received for Denis Law from Torino. He had been an influential player with Blackburn Rovers, having opted for them in preference to Manchester United – who had shown great interest in him – because he felt he would have a chance of faster progress at Ewood Park. He won seven England Under-23 caps and played three times for the Football League. In his first season with the Blues Peter scored 22 goals in 41 outings with nine of those goals coming in three hat-tricks, West Ham suffering twice! His other was against Spurs who were League and cup double holders when City whipped them 6-2 at Maine Road. He was top scorer. The following season ended with a disillusioned Dobing asking for, and getting, a transfer, the thought of Second Division football just too much for him. He moved to Stoke City where he stayed for ten years after which he retired through injury. He became a pottery worker and still lives near Stoke.
Appearances:
FL:82 apps. 31 gls.
FAC:5 apps.
FLC:7 apps. 1 gl.
TOTAL:94 apps. 12 gls.
Other : 4 apps. 1 gl.
Today’s the anniversary of a memorable day at Chelsea when a crowd of 8,071 (imagine the seat counters if that occurred today) at Stamford Bridge watched Manchester City defeat Chelsea 3-1. Here’s some film of the day when City’s former FA Youth Cup winners Ian Brightwell (scored 2) and Paul Moulden scored:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X42HrZYvH74
You can read more on this season below if you subscribe. This article is a 4,100 word feature on the 1988-89 season. Enjoy!
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Tomorrow’s feature is the last on the 1980s as we tell the story of the 1989-90 season. If you missed the earlier features then start here:
The 1980s: 1980-1981 Gow, Hutchison & McDonald
Every Monday I’m posting a section from my book ‘The Emergence of Footballing Cultures: Manchester 1840-1919’. It tells the story of the origins of men’s football in Manchester and discusses the birth of both City and United plus the clubs that predated them such as Hulme Athenaeum, Manchester AFC, Birch etc. Today’s section is the fifth chapter of the book (a 8,200 word section). This focuses on the establishment of clubs in the 1870s and 1880s, including City and United’s predecessors.
Subscribing costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or you could sign up for a year at the discounted price of £20 per year. Every subscriber gets access to everything posted on the site.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today.
Every Monday I’m posting a section from my book ‘The Emergence of Footballing Cultures: Manchester 1840-1919’. It tells the story of the origins of men’s football in Manchester and discusses the birth of both City and United plus the clubs that predated them such as Hulme Athenaeum, Manchester AFC, Birch etc. Today’s section is the fourth chapter of the book (a 11,000 word section). This focuses on the footballing communities that developed during the mid to late 1800s.
Subscribing costs £3 per month (cancel anytime) or you could sign up for a year at the discounted price of £20 per year. Every subscriber gets access to everything posted on the site.
Read more of this content when you subscribe today.
45 Years ago today (September 5, 1981) I attended my first away game. That day my parents told me we were going to Stoke v Manchester City. The reason why? It was to be the debut of new City striker Trevor Francis. This was perceived as a huge transfer at the time (don’t be fooled into thinking major transfers have only come in recent years!) and part of manager John Bond’s plan to challenge for the League title – and for a while it looked as if they would!
Here for subscribers is a piece on that day and what followed with quotes from interviews I’ve performed with Trevor Francis and Peter Swales who tell the story of that time. There are also contemporary match reports too:
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It has virtually slipped out of living memory but this goal is possibly the greatest ever scored at Maine Road. It is also the goal that was viewed by the largest paying audience of all time at the old stadium.
The goalscorer Eric Brook remains one of City’s biggest stars and he was idolised by thousands of Mancunians throughout his career. This goal was obviously popular with Maine Road regulars at the time but it has to be stressed that it was also highly significant in the Blues’ quest to re-establish themselves as a major force.
The idea of this ‘GOLDEN GOALS’ feature is to remember a significant or spectacular Manchester City goal from yesteryear. My hope is that supporters who were not around back then will learn more about these goals while those who were here will hopefully be reminded of them. If you would like to nominate a goal for possible use in a future feature then please comment at the end of this piece or email me with details of game, goal scorer and date.
This article, covering Brook’s goal is available for subscribers to the website below. It costs £20 a year (it works out £1.67 per month) and you get full access to all articles posted, including PDFs of the out of print Manchester A Football History and my first ever book about Manchester City. There are also audio interviews & more. Do a few searches on past content to see what’s available.
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I was delighted to be one of the guests today when a Historic England blue plaque was unveiled for groundbreaking footballer Frank Soo. Soo was the first player of Chinese heritage to play for England and he was born in Buxton. HIs dad was from China, his mum was from Manchester. The unveiling today took place in the town and members of the Soo family were present today. HIstorian Martin Polley, representing Historic England, made a great speech about the player and other speeches were made by family members, local historians and blue plaque campaigners. Guests included Max Portman, representing the British Society of Sports History. Stoke City sent a message too. Here are a few images from the day.
You can find out more about Frank Soo (who was a teammate of Joe Mercer’s for England) and the campaign to erect a blue plaque to him here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74yg20g378o
You can find out about other footballing blue plaques mentioned on my site by searching on ‘plaque’ below. Here you can read about the blue plaque campaign on the Manchester Corinthian Ladies FC:
Frank Soo and Joe Mercer remained friends throughout their lives. Frank, for example, attended Joe’s This Is Your Life.
Today (14 May 2026) marks the 15th anniversary of Manchester City’s 2011 FA Cup final success over Stoke. There are so many angles to that first major success of the modern era for Manchester City and it is impossible to cover them all here. Elsewhere on this website I talk about the 2011 FA Cup run, especially that semi-final win over Manchester United. If you’ve not heard it have a listen to this:
Today I’ll focus on the final itself with a lengthy article on the final below. This is a subscriber article. It costs £3 a month to subscribe OR take out an annual subscription at £20 (works out about £1.67 a month). All subscribers get full access to everything throughout their subscription.
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Manchester City qualified for the Champions League for the first time when they defeated Tottenham 1-0 via an own goal from Peter Crouch on this day (10 May) in 2011. Crouch had deflected a James Milner cross past his own ‘keeper. This had been a rather tense game against a Spurs team desperate to get into a European place. They ended the day sixth, behind fifth place Liverpool. City were fourth, two points behind third placed Arsenal and seven ahead of fifth placed Liverpool with only two games remaining.The target remained third place, as this avoided a Champions League play off, and success in the FA Cup final. Finishing in the top four for the first time since the 1970s was an achievement in its own right, but winning the FA Cup would end 35 years without success at the highest levels of the game. The final was against Stoke at Wembley on 14 May.
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