Newsletter #165

Encouraging game on Saturday against very poor ooposition, this should spur us on for Wednesday … as if we need motivating for the next round! There’s also a suggestion for a pub to meet in for the Coventry game if anyone can make it. Four match reports/match views, some news and opinion, and a good Why Blue.

If you felt uneasy about bumping into Terry Phelan down a dark alley then don’t even think about running into Frontzeck! He’s a bit prettier but I’m not sure wingers will be quite so keen on him.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’

MANCHESTER CITY vs. QUEENS PARK RANGERS, Saturday 3rd February 1996

Team: Immel, Summerbee, Symons, Curle, Frontzeck, Lomas (Brightwell), Flitcroft, Kinkladze, Clough, Rösler (Creaney), Phillips.
Unused Sub: Margetson
Attendance: 27,509

With Stockport and Bury having home games called off on (ironically) a beautiful day, I was anticipating a big crowd at Maine Road. We arrived at the ground just before 2 o’clock and decided to have a look round the back of the Kippax. The familier rustic brick wall still survives on the periphery but is now dwarfed by the technological structure possessing a tubular look similar to the back of the one at Elland Road. We carried on round through the ginnel that joins the Car Park to the Platt Lane (sorry Umbro) stand. I resisted the temptation to buy King of the Kippax as I recently read that Dave Wallace was a Bon Jovi fan! I noticed another fanzine on sale which didn’t seem to be This Charming Fan or Bert Trautman’s Helmet (any ideas Paul?).

Nigel Clough didn’t join the pre-match kick in. There was speculation about our likely formation with Quinn being injured. In the event Clough started in a quite advanced midfield rôle with Rösler and Phillips in attack. The first minute produced a clear chance for QPR with Eike saving well (from Sinclair I think). We were penned back for 5 minutes or so and then began to get into our stride. Phillips looked dangerous on the left and got two quality crosses in, but Uwe couldn’t direct his headers. Summerbee, Clough and Kinky started to get a good understanding going. Our best early chance came when Clough sent Summerbee away on the left. He crossed to Kinky who pushed it on to Phillips whose shot across the goal hit the post and rebounded into Sommer’s arms. The goal soon followed and was ample reward for Phillips’ industry down the left. His cross resulted in a clash between Sommer and Uwe and the ball dropped kindly for Clough whose shot was deflected into the bottom corner.

I was particularly impressed by our new left-back Michael Frontzeck (for some reason nicknamed ‘The Fonz’ by those in close proximity). He puts himself about a bit, looks confident on the ball and all in all gave us a much needed new dimension on the left. QPR had a couple of efforts, one being a long range shot which Eike got his body behind but it somehow slithered out of his grasp for a corner. The other was a header from the unimpressive Hateley which Eike was shepherding round the post until it span back and actually rebounded from said woodwork. The referee was a little overfussy in the first half which slightly spoilt the game as a spectacle.

In the second half we scored after a neat interchange of passes between Kinky (from a corner) and Flitcroft. The ball was knocked in and Kit Symons rose to nod in his first goal for the club (again after a deflection). QPR’s spoiling tactics began to escalate which was a complete surprise to me as I thought they would at least try to play attractive football. Combined with the ref’s non-comprehension of the advantage rule, the game descended into a niggly and petulant stop/start affair. Seven QPR players were booked (1 red : Dichio for second bookable offence) and 3 from City. Unlike some comments I heard afterwards (Paul Power’s included) I thought the referee was completely justified with all the bookings although I did still feel that he had a bad game. Unless I’m mistaken I think Flitcroft’s yellow means another suspension.

City cruised to victory for the first time in the Premiership this season and I left with much optimism for our impending victories against Coventry, Everton, Newcastle and The Rags.

Form Guide:

Immel 7 How can you criticise someone who has kept a clean sheet? He made a couple of great saves in the second half.
Summerbee 8 Defended adequately, looked dangerous going forward.
Frontzeck 8 We have been crying out for this guy for 2 seasons at least.
Symons 8 Capped his usual steady performance with a goal.
Curle 8 Distribution improved as match progressed.
Lomas 6 Not as effective as usual.
Flitcroft 6 Rather poor by his standards.
Clough 8 Has good vision and awareness, can pass a ball well and links well with Kinky.
Kinkladze 7 Enjoyed having Clough in midfield with him.
Rösler 7 No theatrics but struggled to make openings.
Phillips 9 Brilliant full début and he can use his right foot.

Final score: 2-0

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’

MANCHESTER CITY vs. QUEENS PARK RANGERS, Saturday 3rd February 1996

Went to this game along with 2 Rags, my father-in-law and Flixton Red; this was mainly for them to get a look at Kinky as they were getting fed up of me telling them how good he was. The thought of having two Salfordites at the game was at least partially offset by the financial contribution they made to the Blues’ plans for world domination.

A good crowd was in evidence and according to today’s papers (27,509) I actually guessed it to within about 9 people; pity I forgot to buy a lottery ticket. City were without the injured Quinn and he was replaced by Phillips out wide with Clough and Frontzeck making it three full home débuts in one match. The match started very scrappily with both sides continually losing possession and a total absence of running into space. Clough showed some nice touches whilst Frontzeck showed Sinclair what it’s like to play against a real full back at Maine Road! QPR were very poor but actually had the first chance when Holloway (I think) broke through the defence but blasted the ball straight at the ever-dependable Immel, no worries, superb save. Phillips was all over the place, mostly on the left wing but popping up occasionally on the right (à la Barnes/Tueart) and frequently helping out Frontzeck at the back. Having someone out wide seemed very novel, so novel in fact that Kinky was twice guilty of missing good opportunities, probably because he had forgotten what it’s like to have somebody to his left and in front of him! Phillips consistently got the better of the right back and soon had two men marking him for his pains. He has a couple of neat tricks and is very quick in executing them; several times he beat the man to the byeline and then turned inside again which, as Flixton Red remined me at half time, is something that we don’t see very often in the Premier League these days. Our first real chance came from that direction when Buster picked up a ball on the edge of the area, cut inside and rifled in a shot which beat Sommer, bounced back off the post and straight into the ‘keeper’s arms; he knew nothing about it!

Frustratingly, City insisted on punting the ball at head height to Rösler who I think, failed to win a single one of these all game. We looked much better coming through midfield and especially when Clough was laying off. In fact, it was Clough who eventually scored when Sommer failed to clear and he swivelled and shot weakly. The ball kind of bobbled into the net; I fully expected the full back to clear but he didn’t … they all count!

The second half started with a nice Kinky run from the halfway line and just when I expected him to curl it round the advancing Sommer he shot right at him. A couple of minutes later we were two up when Flipper’s cross from a short corner (!!!!) was headed home by Symons; again the goalie seemd to be AWOL. The crowd was looking for more; it didn’t look too likely from us and thankfully, even less likely from QPR. Barker was giving Kinky a good old-fashioned kicking in midfield and Kinky was getting prescious little protection from the ref. Maddix was all over Rösler, again unpenalised and QPR were breaking up the whole flow of the game with constant pushes, shirt-pulls and blatant obstructions. Someone must have switched on the oxygen supply to the ref’s brain as he suddenly went haywire, booking every life-form on the pitch. Flipper was booked for his obilgatory wild lunge (probably rightly), Kinky for getting in the way of Barker’s elbows (???) and Rösler for telling the ref. for the hundredth time that Maddix was a dirty bald-headed bastard. Fortunately, QPR bore the brunt of his madness and had seven booked. Some were justified but others bordered on the farcical; Dichio came on, chopped Frontzeck, got a yellow (rightly), waited a couple of minutes, repeated the trick and got the red card. The look on his face was a picture, he knew he was going even though the foul was very innocuous indeed. Clough appeared to plead with the ref. but he was having none of it! I looked at Steve (sitting next to me) and we just had to laugh, where do we get these jokers from? Having said that, QPR’s attitude to the bookings seemed to be one of “sod it, who cares, we’re getting beaten anyway!”

Six pointer, QPR were hopeless. At least we can play football, it’s just that we can’t score!

Immel (7) A very good save but let two go which he appeared to have misjudged, one a Hateley header which hit the post and rebounded!
Summerbee (7) A couple of good runs but didn’t get forward to support the attack as quickly as he ought to have.
Frontzeck (9) He’s probably just average but it’s been so long since we saw a natural left back that he seems truly exceptional to me! Hard tackler, plenty of experience, tracks back well and made a good header from a situation similar to the Armstrong goal which we conceded against Spurs. Great to have someone solid there, brilliant buy.
Symons (8) Solid (OK, I know I say that every week but…)
Curle (7) Good enough at the back but looks poor coming forward, tends to boot the ball up in the general direction of Rösler. God preserve us!
Lomas (6) Poor game, dismal passing and panicky at times. Once he passed to Clough who was marked by three QPR players; Cloughie appeared to give him a good verbal bollocking afterwards.
Flipper (6) Odd flashes but fairly subdued.
Kinky (7) Odd flashes but fairly subdued!
Clough (8) Probably too high a rating but he looks a good buy. Sharp turn for the goal and looks like he knows where to run. His lay-offs were in a different class to Rösler and Quinn’s.
Phillips (9) magnificent début, looks a class player, looked like he was going past the defender every time.
Rösler (5) Very poor, is it him or the game we play? He’s useless as a target man so why do we keep on playing balls in to him at head height? He’s so slow it’s bloody embarassing.
Creaney (?) On for Rösler but only for 7 minutes.
Brightwell (?) On for Lomas and did his usual hard-running, hard-tackling routine! Again only for the last 7 minutes.

MATCH VIEW I

As this was my first visit to Maine Road this season, here are my thoughts on Saturday’s performance in what was an important win against fellow strugglers QPR.

Quite simply, QPR put in what I feel was the worst team performance I have seen for quite some time, and looking back, although we must be satisfied with a win, our superiority in this game should have led to more than 2 goals. Still, the manner of City’s performance was encouraging with the vital cup game coming up, and certainly our defence looked reasonably solid, with Curle and Symons dominant, and Frontzeck’s tackling quite superb. Immel was rarely troubled, apart from making a vital save in the first ten minutes.

Midfield also looked fairly solid, and we’re certainly winning the majority of 50-50 balls but I did feel that we are lacking some imagination going forward. Flitcroft and Lomas failed to penetrate in the last third of the field, even when we were 2-0 up – Flitcroft in particular looks a shadow of his former self and seems to lack confidence. Kinkladze, however, made some dazzling runs and was unlucky not to score in the second half having made another break from the halfway line, but was denied by Sommer’s legs. Clough started well but still looks short of match practice, which is understandable. However, he will be pleased with scoring on his home début and will be an important asset for us I’m sure. Martin Phillips had a good game, and it was great to see us with some width again. He showed some very skilful touches, saw a shot hit the post after only 7 minutes, and was instrumental in setting up Clough’s goal in the 25th minute, crossing the ball from the left which Sommer was unable to hold. He faded from the action slightly in the second half but when he gets the ball you sense something is about to happen.

Rösler had a quiet game, mainly due to the fact that Danny Maddix was climbing all over him all afternoon. His frustration did eventually lead to one of referee Mr. Poll’s many bookings, and in the end he was replaced by Creaney.

Here then, are my marks out of 10:

Immel (6) : rarely trobled, but made good save early on. Only scare was when he let a tame shot roll past him and hit the post.
Summerbee (8) : wasted at right back – should play Lomas here and give Nicky some more license to get forward. Nevertheless, defended well, showed great composure and made some dangerous runs.
Frontzeck (9) : my man of the match. At last we look to have a left back who looks comfortable in that position. Supported Phillips well going forward, some good passing, but it was his tackling which caught the eye – quite superb.
Curle (7) : solid performance, together with Symons looks our best central defensive partnership for some time.
Symons (7) : above applies, and at last a goal which he took well (OK with a bit of help from Holloway on the line). Bit of a sickener for me though, as I had placed a £1.00 bet on Kit being the first player to score – at 33-1!
Lomas (6) : average. Some good tackles, but seemed hesitant and reluctant to go forward, and some passes very wayward.
Flitcroft (6) : seems to be lacking confidence going forward – not one of his best games.
Clough (7) : lacking match practice, but showed great promise going forward. Great awareness and his tactical brain was there for everyone to see. Great value at £1.5m and will undoubtedly improve with time.
Kinkladze (8) : one of his quieter games, but worth an 8 just for his dazzling runs. Laid on Symons’ goal, could have had one for himself, but it was just enough to see him regularly take the piss out of the opposition. At one stage he had beaten 5 of them on the touchline, and had to be pulled down to stop him going forward.
Phillips (8) : great potential, and an abundance of skill. Unlucky not to score early on when he hit the post and will improve further with experience.
Rösler (6) : don’t know if he missed Quinn, but at times he looked isolated. Continually bundled over by Maddix who in my mind was lucky not to be sent off.

Subs – Brightwell / Creaney (82 mins) (6) : no time to make any real impact.

Referee : G. Poll (0) : appalling performance. Thought he had control of the game by using his yellow cards but his handling of the whole 90 minutes was a joke. True, the QPR tackling was atrocious, and most of cards were IMHO deserved, but this should have been dealt with much earlier in the game, before it was allowed to get out of hand. In the end the yellow cards were being produced for absolutely everything.

So, in short, a much needed win – now for some more of the same against Coventry on Wednesday but we will need more penetration going forward if we’re going to get through.

MATCH VIEW II

Again I’m not very good at match summaries and minute by minute run downs. I tend to spend too much time jumping up and down trying not to fling my pie into the lap of the person behind me. So, with this in mind here are my thoughts aboot the game.

Firstly, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was quite a good crowd there. If Q.P.R. had brought anything like a decent amount of support we could have been on for 28,500-29,000. Still, there wasn’t much of an atmosphere again. Are we all too nervous to sing these days?

On hearing the team I was pleased about the inclusion about little Buster Phillips. Every time he gets the ball there is an instant buzz around the ground. Although he’s only come on twice at Maine Road and played this one full game I do think that he tends to play better with the Kippax behind him (or am I imagining this?). My problem is that it seems that at the moment it seems to be Buster or Quinn (injured on the day). As Saturday proved we can throw all the crosses we want in the air but without Quinn we don’t look like scoring. Maybe they could sort something out on the training ground to bang the ball in low and hard acroos the face of the goal for Uwe or the soon to blossom Nigel? This would seem better than balls to the back post that are at times woefully ignored.

On the subject of crosses did any one remember a good one off Buzzer on the run?

The two home debutants played well. Clough wasn’t fit but his quick thinking and reactions after Sommer’s gift showed that we have signed a player who knows where the goal is (can he show Niall now?). His movement was good and looked comfortable with Uwe. Seemed to have already bonded with Gio. Frontzeck was brilliant. Kept their only decent player (Sinclair) quiet and showed confidence going forward. Once he gets used to other players and their movement he could be a very good attacking asset.

Everyone seemed to play well but the referee really didn”t allow anyone to shine. Too many cards and lacked consistency. Spent far too much time laughing and amusing himself.

All round, a reasonable performance against a poor team and a poor ref. I feel quite confindent that we can win on Wednesday and more importantly go to Goodison and pick up at least a point.

On a brief negative point, can I just say that I was disappointed with Keith Curle. I think the Sun gave him man of the match which I can’t understand. He made good tackles as always but his passing out of defence was awful. It was either a big hoof up the pitch which inevitably came straight back or a short pass which went astray. A better team may have punished us.

Come on the Blues and see you at Goodison.

NEWS – LOANS

Alan Kernaghan has gone on a month’s loan to second division Bradford City. City are set to sign a pair of 16-year old twin brothers who are both England youth internationals. Hope they have a more successful time at City than Ron and Paul Futcher…

PLAYER OF THE MONTH – JANUARY

I have already received a dozen sets of votes for the January P.O.M. If you would like to vote please send me your 1,2,3 order by Feb 10th. A brief reminder of the matches covered:

• West Ham (H) 2-1 Scorer: Quinn 2
• Leicester FAC 3 (A) 0-0
• Tottenham (A) 0-1
• Leicester FAC 3 R (H) 5-0 Scorers: Kinkladze, Quinn, Rösler, Lomas, Creaney
• Coventry (H) 1-1 Scorer: Rösler
• Southampton (A) 1-1 Scorer: Rösler

Check out the web site for previous winners.

GRAHAM POLL

I gather Graham Poll was at his most deranged on Saturday. I have to confess, it does surprise me when I hear this, as I actually saw his first full league appearance, 3 or 4 seasons back at Ashton Gate; he was by far the best referee I saw there that season, letting the game flow, and not at all whistle. I gather from one of the weekend phone-ins that he and 3 others are responsible between them for 50% of this season’s sendings off in the Premiership. There are 18 refs altogether. Hmmm.

Two other fine bookings to note. One of a Partick Thistle (nil) player, booked for making the sign of the cross when running out at Ibrox (incitement), and Alan Shearer, for mimicking one of the linesmen at Ewood Park – he was apparently licking his lips, and laughed when he saw Shearer doing the same as a piss take.

Where will it all end?

COVENTRY PUB?

For those going to the re-arranged cup game on Wednesday, could you please tell me which pubs you’ll be drinking in before and after the game as I live 5 minutes walk from the ground.

The best pub near the ground is the Rose and Crown, along the main road which runs parallel to the ground away from the city centre.It’s about a ten minute walk.

SKY INTERNET SITE

Sky TV announced their own WWW site on 1st February. One of its main “attractions” is the official Man Utd home page which will have `live’ pictures of the games available over the net. Could be useful if we beat Coventry in the Cup…

The site is at http://www.sky.co.uk/ and also has some redeeming features, such as news for all Premiership clubs in the sports section. The City info is at http://www.sky.co.uk/sports/teams/?mancity

GUESS THE TRUTH?

The power of the press touched new horizons this week with the alleged incident at City’s hotel before the Southampton game. The three versions I heard were:

1. Some of the players were having a joke in the bar which involvedremoving their footwear. A guest complained and so they cut his tie off!
2. They tried to gatecrash a party and became abusive when refused entry.
3. They were playing football in the hotel corridors.

These stories were all reported in either the tabloids or the radio. Niall Quinn summed it all up on GMR. He wasn’t even in the hotel at the time of the alleged bust up because he’d gone to Portsmouth to meet up with friends Paul Walsh and Fitzroy Simpson. On returning to the hotel he heard that something had gone on and was relieved that he hadn’t been involved. On waking up the next morning he opened a paper to find out that he’d been named as the ringleader.

I have heard that Gerry Creaney and Steve Lomas were the culprits. Does anyone know the real story?

SONG SUGGESTIONS

Whilst away on holiday this weekend in a cottage in Derbyshire on a lads’ weekend, and being a bit drunk when City were drawn against United, we started all the usual songs: “If you hate Man United clap your Hands…”, ” M, A, N, U, T, D, Bryan Robson’s got V.D…” etc, Then we came up with a new one which we thought would go down well at the derby. It goes to the tune of “If you hate Man Utd clap your hands…” except the words are “You’re all from London anyway…”. Then we thought that we could sing the Bjork song “It’s oh so quiet, shh, shh.” If/when we score, If/when we play them next!

GILLESPIE?

To answer the question why doesn’t Alan Ball put in a bid for Keith Gillespie which Colin Harris asked in MCIVTA 164, it may interest you to know that I actually met young Keith at a party thrown by my bank (Allied Irish) for its customers at Christmas in Newcastle. It was basically free beer and food all night so as you can imagine I ended up drunk fairly quickly. So I went up to him and asked him for his autograph telling him I was a City fan. In fact I asked him to write “Dear Alan Ball, I would like to join Man City as soon as possible – Keith Gillespie”, which he did without question! Unfortunately he then said City would be lucky to stay up and Alan Ball should have stayed at Southampton. So in answer to your question I don’t think he’s interested!

I asked him where he lived while in Manchester, to which he replied “The rough part of Salford”, to which I replied “So does that mean there’s a nice bit in Salford?” As you can imagine, the conversation ended quickly after that. By the way if anyone is thinking of changing banks I can recommend Allied Irish as they do throw a lot of parties and invite any Irish sports people who bank with them along. So if you bank with the one in Manchester, behind Piccadilly, you might see Quinny! The one in Newcastle also gives tickets away to Newcastle games!

OOOPS!

I am a Manchester City supporter who has just discovered your excellent world-wide web page and who, coincidentally, has a short tale to tell which I hope you find funny! Last night (3/2/96) I and a group of friends were going out for a meal in Manchester. We had arranged to meet another friend in the restaurant who was going with a number of German friends whom we did not know. We were 15 minutes late and as we approached the restaurant we started to make jokes about what the Germans would think of our lack of punctuality. As we are all Fawlty Towers fans we started to make jokes about “here are your hors d’ouvres – hors d’ouvres which must be obeyed at all times!!” and then started doing the Hitler goosestep with our fingers under our noses as toothbrush moustaches. At this moment who should walk past but Uwe Rösler with a couple of other people… we were so engrossed in our act that we hadn’t noticed him; only one of our number (also a Man City fan) spotted him and realised who it was. Ooops! To be honest I don’t know whether he noticed what we were doing…in fact I myself forgot all about the Basil Fawlty antics as soon as I was made aware that we had just seen Uwe Rösler. I ran back to where he was getting into a car to speak to him; if he had seen our antics he was still man enough to shake my hand … if somewhat bemused!!!

Good job it wasn’t Frontzeck!!!

WHY BLUE?

So how does a Yank from the far reaches of the States become a City supporter? Back in 1979 I began working at Boeing (the airplane maker) and worked with a number of English engineers working on contract here in the States. I had a strong interest in soccer at the time, and we had a decent team in the old North American Soccer League, the Seattle Sounders. I began chatting with one man in my group, named Bryn Rigby (where in the world are you, man?). When he said he was from Manchester, I immediately said “Manchester United?” to which he replied “***k off!” Let’s just say a great friendship was born right then and there.

Over the next two years or so I began following City through news clippings Bryn would get through the mail. The City/Sounders connection began to get very strong. The first City player to come to Seattle was Steve Daley, who seemed very glad to get out of Manchester after his run with the club. Regardless of how he did for the Blues, Steve was one of our top players, always giving his all on the pitch, even if the pitch was made of plastic.

Other players followed. Kevin Bond came from Norwich to Seattle, then to City. During that summer of 1981 John Bond came to see his son play. He also spotted an English winger who was having a dream summer, Tommy Hutchison. Our side at that time had players like Daley, Hutchinson, Alan Hudson, Bruce Rioch, Roger Davies, etc. It was a superb side that won 25 of 32 league matches, but wasn’t crowned champions, but that’s another story.

My fondest City memory was in the summer of ’81 when I went early to a Sounders/Vancouver Whitecaps match for something called “Picture Night”, where you got to go on the pitch and have your photo taken with your favourite Sounder. Vancouver at the time had players like Peter Beardsley, Bruce Grobbelaar, and, dare I say it, Alan Ball. Anyway, Bryn had brought me a City replica shirt from back home and I was proudly wearing it for the first time. On my way down to the pitch I noticed a rather tall gentlemen with his back to me watching the players warm up. As I got closer he turned ’round to look at the stands. Right about the time I noticed him, he noticed me, or more precisely, my shirt. I realised then it was Joe Corrigan. He got excited because I was wearing a City shirt, and I got excited because he was Joe Corrigan!!! Anyway, we had a very nice chat, he was great, wanted to know all about astroturf, and the like, and said “I’d like to have a game on it.” 2 years later he did when he joined the Sounders after leaving City. And I have a photo to prove it’s all true!

I’ve seen City play twice, once in Vancouver in the summer of ’80 when they lost 2-0 in a friendly, and the second time when I made my pilgrimage to Maine Road at Christmas ’81. The Maine Road match was against Wolves and was played in bitter cold. The City side that day featured players like Corrigan, Paul Power, Tommy Caton, Nicky Reid (he later played in Seattle), Clive Wilson, Dennis Tueart, Hutchison, Steve MacKenzie, Kevin Reeves, Trevor Francis, and a lad making his début named Steve Kinsey, who later played indoor soccer in Seattle. I can’t recall who scored City’s first that day (I think it might have been Power on a penalty), but I remember Andy Gray equalising from a free kick in the 75th minute that skidded across the frozen pitch and through Joe’s arms into the net. The game was rather uninspired, and the crowd were all set for a draw when it happened. Five minutes from time, a long, loping ball out of the deep midfield toward Francis at the right of the box. He let it bounce once, holding the defender to his back. It seemed so harmless looking a ball. Then with a whip of his right leg he took it in mid-air, a 3/4 bicycle kick. The ball shot like a rocket off of his foot to the keeper’s left, who dived, left arm outstretched, to no avail. The ball shot past him into the bottom corner, inches from the post. It was the kind of goal a fan wishes to see once in a lifetime. The crowd exploded, surging towards the pitch. I moved 30 feet with my feet never touching the ground. Some lad jumped on my back shouting “Bloody great goal!” over and over. At that moment, I was hooked. For you see, it gets in the blood.

That side went on to the FA Cup Final and replay, and IMHO ranks as the best City side of my generation. I keep track of the club through Sky’s highlights package and on the various web sites, and hope some day soon to return to Maine Road. In the meantime, I content myself with the jersey and scarf I bought at the souvenir shop, now hanging proudly on my wall, and with replica jerseys and team photos from the various magazines. If anyone knows the whereabouts of one Bryn Rigby, please drop a line. And never forget, once a Blue, always a Blue.

RESULTS

Saturday, February 3 1996

ARSENAL                 1-1    COVENTRY CITY             35,623
ASTON VILLA             3-0    LEEDS UNITED              35,982
BLACKBURN ROVERS        3-1    BOLTON WANDERERS          30,419
LIVERPOOL               0-0    TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR         40,628
MANCHESTER CITY         2-0    QUEENS PARK RANGERS       27,509
NEWCASTLE UNITED        2-0    SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY       36,567
SOUTHAMPTON             2-2    EVERTON                   15,136
WEST HAM UNITED         1-0    NOTTINGHAM FOREST         21,257
WIMBLEDON               2-4    MANCHESTER UNITED         25,380

Sunday, February 4 1996

CHELSEA                 5-0    MIDDLESBROUGH             21,060

Sun 04 Feb

Team                Played   Won Drawn Lost  For  Against   Points
Newcastle United      24     18    3    3     47    19        57
Manchester United     25     14    6    5     46    29        48
Liverpool             25     13    7    5     48    21        46
Aston Villa           24     12    6    6     32    18        42
Tottenham Hotspur     25     11    9    5     33    24        42
Blackburn Rovers      25     12    5    8     40    27        41
Nottingham Forest     25     10   10    5     35    34        40
Chelsea               25     10    9    6     30    25        39
Arsenal               25     10    8    7     33    25        38
Everton               25     10    7    8     37    28        37
Leeds United          25     10    5   10     31    37        35
Middlesbrough         25      9    6   10     26    31        33
West Ham United       24      8    5   11     26    35        29
Sheffield Wednesday   24      6    8   10     33    38        26
Southampton           25      5   10   10     25    36        25
Wimbledon             25      6    6   13     35    50        24
Manchester City       25      6    6   13     16    34        24
Coventry City         25      4    9   12     32    49        21
Queens Park Rangers   25      5    3   17     18    38        18
Bolton Wanderers      25      3    4   18     24    49        13

WWW MANCHESTER CITY SUPPORTERS’ HOME PAGE:
http://www.uit.no/mancity/

MCIVTA ADDRESSES:
Contributions: mcivta@tollbar.u-net.com
Subscriptions: Adam.Houghton@sheffield.ac.uk

Thanks to T.D., Dave, Paul, Colin, Ken, Macca, Phil, Jeremy & Mike.

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The views expressed in MCIVTA are entirely those of the subscribersand there is no intention to represent these opinions as being thoseof Manchester City Football Club, nor of any of the companies anduniversities by whom the subscribers are employed. It is not inany way whatsoever connected to the club or any other relatedorganisation and is simply a group of supporters using this mediumas a means of disseminating news and exchanging opinions.

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