Tag Archives: Tony Grant

The 2000s: This Week 2001-02

Continuing the weekly series on Manchester City’s seasons from 1999-2000 through to 2008-09. Each week I’ll be publishing here the story of a different season of that remarkable ten-year period. Today we have a 5,400 word article on the 2001-02 season (below) which saw City win the old League Championship trophy. City’s manager was Kevin Keegan.

Subscribe to get access – Annual

This article is for subscribers to my website. It costs £20 a year to access everything on the site since creation in December 2020. That includes articles, history talks, videos, interviews & more. There’s also a monthly option below.

Subscribe

Subscribe to get access – Monthly

Monthly subscription costs £3 per month to access everything on the site since 1 October 2022 (cancel anytime). All subscribers access all new material until their subscription ends. Why not give it a try for a month?

Subscribe

Swindon Town 0 Manchester City 2

On this day (1 April) in 2000 Manchester City won 2-0 at Swindon Town. The game was watched by 12,397 and the goals came from the now dependable (there had been concern amongst fans earlier in his City career) Shaun Goater – his 27th of the campaign – and Mark Kennedy.

Manager Joe Royle was delighted, although concerned by City’s first half performance: ‘I am delighted with the victory and I thought we fully deserved the points. It wasn’t the best game in the first half, but Shaun Goater did well for the first goal, and we always looked comfortable after the half-time interval and more dangerous after we changed things around.’

The game had not been a good one for 25-year-old midfielder Tony Grant who had made his first start since January. He was replaced by Ian Bishop early in the second half and from that point on the game came alive. Despite the result the Swindon directors were pleased with the match. The Wiltshire club had allowed City fans to occupy both ends of their tiny ground, and it was reported that over half of the 12,397 crowd were supporting the Blues. At £17 per ticket it was calculated the additional gate money was worth over £100,000 to the relegation bound club.

In the table, City had a game in hand over most clubs, and now lay third on 72 points. The near invincible Charlton (87 points) still headed the League while Barnsley (74 points) were second. Ipswich were fourth – one point behind City after the same number of matches – while Birmingham were fifth on 69 points.