Newsletter #248

Smallish issue this time but there are still a couple of match views, news of potential transfer targets and an excellent Why Blue. Things appear to be hotting up, both on the transfer and finance front; whether anything will actually come out of these moves remains to be seen. I’ve also reviewed Frank Swift’s autobiography. Finally, can the subscriber (James, I think) who offered to review CITY magazine please get in touch with me.

MATCH VIEW

City started brightly, after last week’s disgrace there was a marked improvement. Margetson looked okay. At last Kava got a start and provided movement and intelligence on and off the ball. Summerbee looked livelier than he has for months, no doubt inspired by Kave and Gio who played well together.

Rösler, who sadly suffers from a cauliflower arse, managed to stay on his feet marginally longer than an alcoholic ice skater! He’s not the answer, he lacks commitment and fight; let’s not forget at Stalingrad the Germans threw their helmets away!

On the post-match GMR phone-in Neal got slagged off but at least he had the guts to change things: Dickov started on the bench as did the slothful Clough, the midfield looked much livelier with Lomas battling despite a broken nose. McGoldrick – at the back – was poor, his distribution reminiscent of Henshaws School for the Blind 2nd Eleven, and Symons – since burdened with the captaincy – has not performed anything like last season.

Wassall was not there from what I could see. The higlight was Kinky’s run from the halfway line twisting, turning, nutmegging, taking the pi** out of Horton’s stumps. The crowd rose and applauded, it was worth the admission but sadly the shot went wide; it was Kinkladze at his best.

We lack bite up front and at the back but there was a glimmer. The Darkest hour is Just before the dawn!

Final score: 0-0

MATCH VIEW II

Unfortunately before writing this I read MCIVTA 246 and am therefore going to make the report more pessimistic than what I originally wrote. Maybe I was too optimistic at seeing a 0-0 draw (my first ever in 20+ games). Anyway, having missed the teams at the beginning of the match I was delighted to see Kav and Phillips and no Clough or Dibble. Perhaps Neal has seen the light, I thought? It was only at half time when they gave out the substitution that I realised Rodger was playing instead of Phillips. Do they look very alike or is it just me? First half City looked ‘up for it’ which made a change. Rodger and Brightwell and Kav linking well on the left. Kav was making good runs, Summerbee ran and did some good things (incredible but true). Little in the way of real chances though for all the play. Second half City faded badly, especially towards the end, or maybe I was just too cold to care. Why did Rodger come off except through injury?

Kinky double marked some of the time – did City use the extra man, what the hell do you think? Probably because it was Wassall. Dickov coming on meant Kav in midfield where he was less effective. Surely Whitley for Rodger and Dickov for Rösler would have made more sense? Communication in defence lacking still. Ref was again crap. The standard is so much lower in this league. He had no control over the game IMO.

Views on players:

Margetson – made the only good save he had to make. Kicks were pretty crap, usually drifting right. 6
Brightwell – superb in first half even if passing isn’t excellent. Out of it in second partly due to hardly ever being passed to and having no support ahead of him on the left side. 7
McGoldrick – right back? Didn’t seem to do much at all. 6
Wassall – distribution absolute b*****ks. Please say we don’t buy him. Surely there’s another fit centre back at this club? 4
Symons – either he has to do a lot of covering for Wassall or he’s not playing at all well, at least he can pass badly. 5/6
Rodger – I thought he was excellent in the first half but then I did think he was Buster. Linked well with Brightwell. 7
Summerbee – beat his man more times in this game than in the entire season so far. Possibly should have scored once/twice in second half. Let’s hope it wasn’t a one off. 7
Kinkladze – one superb run in the first half and unlucky not to score. Dropped deep in second while man-marked and less effective. 6
Lomas – battled, some passes even good. 6
Kavelashvili – excellent first half but not as good second as in midfield? Runs well, chases balls unlike Rösler. 7
Rösler – did try occasionally but so slow. Should be dropped for Dickov for at least a couple of games. 4/5
Dickov – nothing special really. 5
Whitley – not much time to do anything but didn’t either. 5
Clough – please say that dropping to the bench is just the first stage on his way out.

NEWS – CREANEY COMEBACK

On-loan striker Gerry Creaney could be set for a recall as Phil Neal considers his striking options. Creaney has impressed at Ipswich (scoring in their 3-2 win over Swindon on Tuesday night) and the East Anglian club have asked to extend his loan by another month. “I will be having a word with them but I know Gerry has been a regular scorer throughout his career so I will be giving the matter some thought,” said Neal.

City have vehemently denied rumours linking us with Swindon manager Steve McMahon, as has McMahon himself. Uwe Rösler will not be charged by the FA for allegedly making gestures at Portsmouth fans on Saturday; I thought he was just showing them stud marks on his leg personally.

NEWS – NEW PLAYERS AND INVESTMENT

GMR reports this morning (Thursday) that we can expect some new players to join the club in the next two weeks. This probably won’t include Aussie goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer though as Dynamo Dresden say they’ve received a better offer for the player. Francis Lee is said to be “trying desperately” to get more investment into the club.

NEWS – TUG OF WAR OVER HEANEY

City and Huddersfield are locked in a tug-of-war over Southampton’s former England U21 winger Neil Heaney. Both clubs have agreed a £500,000 fee with Southampton for Heaney, who will make a decision as to which club to join after talks with both clubs. Phil Neal is hoping that he’ll choose City and be signed in time for Saturday’s home match against Tranmere. Alan Ball signed Heaney from Arsenal in 1994 but he has been unable to hold down a first team place with the Saints.

RUMOUR – MCMAHON

GMR yesterday (Wednesday) said that a rumour was going around Maine Road and Wiltshire that Steve “put some chips on your barm” McMahon was being touted for the current manager’s job. BBC Radio Wiltshire colleagues had also heard the rumour according to GMR.

LIES, DAMN LIES AND MAN UTD STATISTICS

I’d like to add to Paul Howarth’s comment on the FA Carling Premiership Survey undertaken by John Williams and his team at Leicester University. I had a chat with John about the MUEN report alleging that a majority of Red fans were born “within a 20 mile radius” of Old Trafford. This report is bogus.

Basically, John Williams was after a random, representative sample of season ticket holders for his survey. Only 2 clubs failed to co-operate with him on his instructions: Liverpool and guess who. Liverpool did not have a computerised list of season ticket holders (!) but did supply a list of cup final applicants, which John used.

The Filth refused to co-operate and would only send questionnaires to fans on their own terms. So John has no way of knowing whether the Rags’ sample is representative. Coming to the published report, the figure for proportion of fans born within 20 miles of the home ground is absurdly high by any club’s standards. Other grounds for suspicion include the fact that the Scum sample looks too old compared to other clubs.

Basically the Filth have targeted a selected number of their fans to get the desired result. The MUEN report was obtained via the Press Association who in turn got it from MU i.e. they fed their own story – blatant media manipulation. John Williams is now fending off queries from irate Blues and promises to write a heavy “health warning” in his final published report.

So all those coaches from Ireland and Kent are not a figment of your imagination after all!

MORAL TALES

I know it’s depressing times but I think we should try to lift ourselves a bit so we don’t get the reputation of whingeing like Geordies (being exiled in the North East I wonder what we all did until John Hall and Kevin Keegan invented football for the rest of us). Anyway, I thought I’d offer this old moral tale so those who haven’t heard it can reflect…

It concerns the awkward little bird who didn’t fancy the flight south for winter so decided to stay in England. The first cold snap came and it changed its mind and started to fly to southern climes – only to find that it was getting much colder even as it flew. Eventually ice started to form on its wings and it dropped from the sky almost frozen to death. It fell in a farmyard where a cow wandered past and crapped on it. The bird almost suffocated but the crap warmed it through – so much that the bird started to sing in joy at its good fortune. Just then the farm cat passed by and wondered what the noise was, dug the bird out and killed it.

Morals:

1. Not everyone who s**ts on you is your enemy.
2. Not everyone who digs you out of the s**t is your friend.
3. Sometimes if you’re in the s**t it pays to keep quiet about it.

Think about it… as for AB, in the word of my mate, he was about as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike.

SOMETHING’S WORKING

Something seems to be working right at Maine Road – I ordered my ticket for the Tranmere game by phone at lunchtime on Monday and it arrived on Tuesday morning; it seems that someone at Maine Road knows what they’re doing. Unfortunately it’s only the ticket office, not the manager or players. Never mind.

Today’s Guardian says that Franny has given Neal £4 million to spend on players, that Kitson seems to top the shopping list and that we can expect a couple of signings within a week to ten days. About time too, maybe we can now get a striker who knows what those funny white sticks at each end of the pitch are for, ‘cos the ones we’ve got certainly don’t. And the Kitson signing is an indication that Mr. Neal realises that our biggest problem is goal scoring, not defending – I know our goalkeepers are truly frightening and the defence is nothing to write home about but there have been a few games that City have dominated but failed to score – Wolves and Huddersfield spring to mind, while we should have beaten Birmingham by a three or four goals, not just the one. And if you look at the for and against columns in the table in the last MCIVTA, City have conceded a pretty average number of goals while only three teams in the division have scored less. Having said all that, a new goalkeeper would still be nice!

Hope the weather warms up before Saturday!

BOOK REVIEW

TITLE          Football from the Goalmouth
AUTHOR         Frank Swift (edited by Roy Peskett)
PUBLISHER      Sporting Handbooks Ltd.
ADDRESS        13 Bedford Square,
               London WC1,
               UK.
ISBN NUMBER    Not applicable (out of print)
PRICE          £4.00 (secondhand)

This is an autobiographical account of Frank Swift’s career up to just before he finished his playing days, in 1948.

The book is hardback (yellow/brown – they really did specialise in the most turgid colours), and is quite lengthy judging by the other sporting books which I’ve read from that era. It is 175 pages with 46 black and white photos; it might once have had a dustjacket but my copy, bought in early ’96, hasn’t got one.

The format of these footballing biographies from the early post-war years tends to be very similar: a foreword from an eminent peer, in this case Arthur Drewry – Chairman of the International Selection Committee of the FA, followed by a series of very short chapters, many of which are almost anecdotal. The foreword is very fulsome which is probably no bad thing as Swifty turns out to be a true man of his time, very reluctant to blow his own trumpet – except where money making is concerned!

The book starts in Blackpool – Frank’s birthplace – and briefly describes his early life, particularly football (his brother was the Bolton goalie and bore a striking resemblance to Frank) and his little earner, which was taking tourists on boat trips. He moved to City early enough in his career to travel and see them play in the 1933 FA Cup Final which City lost to Everton 0-3. Quite bizarrely, he went to London in an Indian (motorcycle) sidecar with a one-eyed driver!

The team lost 4-2 at Derby on his first-team début, Frank claiming that he should have saved two of them, and then 7-2 at home to WBA, but with 10 men. Things improved though as City made it to Wembley once again the following year, and this time Swift was goalkeeper. A total of 399,874 people saw City play up until the final, including a record 84,568 versus Stoke City. City had better luck this time and won 2-1 against Portsmouth. Swift is almost self-deprecating about his performance (once again). He also mentions the reasons why he fainted at the end; apparently the pressure and excitement just got to him!

Here the chronology gets a bit slack as he turns his attention to, amongst other things, the great City team of the early 30’s, and his footballing travels, including a near miss in an RAF Dakota over France in 1944. Matt Busby was also aboard this aircraft and the incident now seems almost portentious, considering that both these individuals were to be involved in the Munich crash, fatally in Frank’s case.

How times change? Swift describes the excellent relationship between MCFC and MUFC and claims that Mancunians are for Manchester rather than strictly City or United! Another gem is that United, who started out as Newton Heath played in an old clay pit! We also get some background on the 1931 crisis at Old Trafford where there was a spectator boycott and crowds descended to 4,000! Interestingly, they were saved by Mr JW Gibson, a clothing manufacturer, and it is very probable that this is the origin of the word Rags, though Swift doesn’t specifically say so.

He describes various games in the war years, and his early post-war career as a coach for Larvik in Norway. However, there is now little mention of the Blues as he focuses on his England experiences: he describes many international matches, including the famous Portuguese game where the ball was swapped for a size 4 schoolboy ball after England had scored their first goal – this was the standard size in Portugal. It didn’t however make much difference as England went on to score another 9! The big issue of the day – the minimum/maximum wage – also gets a mention, not forgetting a chapter on goalkeeping basics!

These books are very different to their modern-day counterparts but nonetheless give a valuble picture of an ever-receding age. The book has some lovely anecdotes and this one perfectly illustrates a situation which will probably never happen again: Swift recounts how he was on the bus (public bus!) after a home game, and the guy who was sitting next to him moaned throughout the whole trip about the awful City ‘keeper without actually recognising that he was sat next to him!

SINGING FANS, GENERAL DEPRESSION & OASIS

How about a chant of (to the board or generally anybody who cares to listen anymore) of…

“As you take (our soul, our cash, the p**s – you could substitute what you want to here really), you take our pride”

Adapted from Oasis, chorus of Cast No Shadow.

Not very witty or inspiring I know but somehow it sums up how I feel at the moment. However, I will carry on watching – mug that I am – so if anyone lives in Bristol and is interested in sharing petrol costs let me know.

NAME THE PLAYER?

• His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
• I would not breed from this man.
• This man is not so much a has-been, but more of a definitely won’t-be.
• When he opens his mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there.
• He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.
• Socially sound, but technically impossible.
• This man has delusions of adequacy.
• When he joined the club, this man was something of a Granny; since then he has aged considerably.
• This man reminds me of a gyroscope, always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anyplace.
• Out of his depth in a puddle.
• Uses the club to carry his genitals from town to town and his team mates to carry him from bar to bar.
• Since last season he has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.
• He sets low personal standards and then consistantly fails to achieve them.
• He has the wisdom of youth and the energy of old age.
• This man should go far – and the sooner the better.
• Works well under constant supervision and cornered like a rat.
• This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

Shouldn’t be too difficult to guess who we’re talking about.

OPINION – FORWARD WITH FRANNY – HA HA HA HA!

Francis Lee’s a Financial Genius!

I can’t believe that there are still some City fans out there who think Francis Lee is doing a good job.

Do they think being broke beyond belief, with the worst team to ever tread the hallowed turf, is progress? If I hear one more cry of “but it’s not his fault, he doesn’t pick the team” or, “it’s all Swales’ debts that FHL didn’t know about” then I’ll scream.

Live in the now. NO, FHL doesn’t pick the team (or does he?) but he does appoint the manager. The alarm bells started ringing for me when we sacked Brian Horton without having anyone to take his place, forcing the last minute appointment of – surprise surprise – one of FHL’s mates, Alan Ball. How did that happen? What made FHL believe that football’s biggest relegation specialist would be the right man to bring the glory days back to Maine Road?

Still, at least with the £40 million that Franny had promised we should have been able to strengthen the team and wipe out the outstanding debts (in the region of £8 million at the time).

But no! FHL forced the ginger one to sell all our experienced professionals, because we couldn’t afford to pay their wages.

Oh to have Cotton, Phelan, Curle, Flitcroft and Quinn in the side now. OK, they may not be the best players in the world; and I would have agreed with selling them if we had replaced them with better players, but look who we’ve got instead… Immel, Fronzeck, Wassall or McGoldrick, Clough and Dickov.

“But Franny is doing lots of things behind the scenes that we cannot see, but are vital for the financial stability of the club.” Aaaarrgghhh!

He is now responsible for a £26 million debt. How did that happen Franny? Is that financial stability? And how does he account for the rise in administration charges from £2.6 million to £5.2 million in one season? Very dodgy if you ask me.

There are countless examples of how this current administration is failing us at every turn. Francis Lee has brought this club to its knees and it’s time for him to go.

See you at the main entrance after the Huddersfield match.

OPINION – THE BLUES

It’s getting a sad state of affairs when one of my neighbours, a City fan for 30+ years and a season ticket holder, has decided enough is enough for the forseeable future. It was a good job they sold all the season tickets before the start of the season otherwise we’d have crowds of 10k rather than the 20k+ we are used to. As for me, I’ve just enrolled my nephew as a life member of the Junior Blues but why will he want to support a poor team? Let’s face it, this is the poorest we have been in 50 years, when down the street all the kids support the unmentionables. All praise goes out to the fan who went on the pitch the other week and I think it’s about time we had another sit in after a game, preferably Boxing Day ‘cos I’ll be there.

Remember what FHL said: “If in three years nothing is better I’ll get out” Come on Franny do us a favour and sell to the Arabs.

REQUEST – LONDON TO B’HAM?

I will be in London over New Year’s and would like to go up to Birmingham to see us against their City. Are there any Blues in London who are going and wouldn’t mind making the trip with me?

REQUEST – ROUND THE WORLD BLUES

I’m embarking on a trip to Oz shortly, so if there are any Blues in the following cities who want to meet up for a beer or two, please let me know before I leave on Fri 29 November. I’ve been to quite a few matches this season, both home and away, so can give you some opinions first hand – my last game will be Tranmere on Sat 23 November.

Places and rough dates where I’ll be are: Hong Kong (1st December to 5th December), Melbourne and Adelaide (7th to 10th December), Sydney (Xmas), Melbourne (New Year), Singapore (7th, 8th January).

REQUEST – WOLVES GAME

Can anyone help? There are 10 of us going down to the Wolves game. We live round the Warrington area (but Manchester area no problem), and we are looking for places on a coach if there is one going down.

If anyone can help can they drop me a line at the address below (preferable as I won’t be at home much over the next week), or give me a ring on 01925 75 2369.

WHY BLUE?

I should have been an Everton fan. My Dad was born on the Scotland Road within rattle chucking distance of Goodison and when I was about five my grandad took me to my first game. It was an evening match sometime around Christmas (I remember because I saw my first plastic illuminated reindeer on the way to the ground) and my grandad warmed me up by standing me outside the pub with a packet of crisps (small blue bag of salt) and an entire bottle of ginger beer all to myself.

It seemed like they were in the pub for hours, and once the crisps and pop had run out I started to worry. As I stood there endless crowds of men marched by, and some of them brushed against me on their way into the pub. Gradually, a puddle of small boys, most of them a little older than me, began accumulating on the steps, and we all began to grow cold looking at each other. Then a woman came out of the pub, handed the oldest boy a tray of sausage rolls and told him to hand them round. They were cold too.

At last, my grandad came out of the pub with a group of other men, including my uncle Dave. They all had their heavy winter coats on and they all wore blue and white scarves. We fairly flew up the road, with me half trotting, half swinging between my uncle and grandad. I think my grandad realised how cold I was when he took hold of my hand, and he made them all stop while he bought me a scarf and a booble hat from somewhere. When we got to the ground he told me to keep my hands in my pockets until Everton scored, and then I was to clap them hard and make myself warm.

I’ve no memory of the game at all. I can’t say who Everton played, what the score was, whether they won or lost. By the time we got home (via the pub again) I was dead on my feet and about to spend the rest of the week in bed with a cold for which my grandad was made to take the blame. He never took me to Goodison again, and I wouldn’t go to another match of any kind for several years.

My dad has remained an Everton fan, and still supports them from an armchair in the home counties. Between that first mid-week game and the time when I was able to go to games on my own (14, I think) my dad kept me topped up with Everton propaganda – tales of Dixie Dean, Tommy Lawton et al, and the Club itself obliged by winning the Cup, then the Championship, and by making sure there were plenty of stars for a youngster to admire (I still wish Joe Royle had taken on City as a manager). From time to time we travelled to Liverpool to watch the odd big game, my uncle Greg worked at Anfield and my father still had pals who went to Goodison. During these years my father kept moving jobs, and we ended up living in a series of football deserts: Somerset, Norfolk, South Wales, Bristol, Worcester and then, Manchester.

Before we came to Manchester my experience of football supporting had been restricted to cheering Everton goals on Match of The Day, collecting stickers, and the odd heated argument with a Villa/Spurs/Wolves/Arsenal or, of course, United supporting classmate. If you grow up outside a football metropolis you do what you can. I adopted my dad’s team, and would probably still be turning to Everton’s results first if we’d never been to Manchester. But…

As soon as I got to Manchester I knew exactly what a I wanted to do – go to Old Trafford and worship George Best. I turned up at the Stretford End, having dutifully bought my first Utd scarf outside the ground. By the time I got home that evening, my scarf had been knicked and I was having serious second thoughts about going back to Old Trafford. So, the following week, I went to City instead.

Up until this first visit to Maine Road I had virtually no feelings about City at all. I knew about Bell, Summerbee and Lee, of course, which were positive things, and I knew City weren’t Leeds, Liverpool or Arsenal – I didn’t know much in those days, but I knew which teams not to support. I had my doubts about the strip – pale blue is still, in my opinion, a wishy washy colour for heroes – but 20 minutes into the game I knew I hadn’t made a mistake.

I can’t remember who was playing or the result, but City must have won, and Lee definitely scored. I know this because I do vividly remember Franny holding both arms aloft and sucking in his stomach as he saluted the Kippax. I also remember my mother becoming irritated with me for pulling the sleeves of my sweaters down and holding the cuff in a clenched fist.

In those days, there is simply no argument, Maine Road was a friendlier ground than Old Trafford and the players were just bigger characters and better footballers but I didn’t notice this straight away, and I kept going to Old Trafford for Best and Charlton and, fleetingly, Storey-Moore. I admit it: I tried and tried to be a United supporter, and there were plenty of people willing to help. My dad ran a hotel in the centre of the city in those days, and virtually all of the staff (who, thinking about it, were all from out of town, if not actually from abroad) were United fans. A lot of the older staff would bore me rigid telling me tales of the time they met Matt Busby or Bobby Charlton or (he had yet to return) Denis Law, and one of the hall porters even tried to train me to recite the Sainted names of the Munich victims.

Maybe that was it. My mother’s quite religious, in a superstitious Irish-Catholic kind of way, and when she could she would haul me into a corner and browbeat some holy story into me, and warn against sin in general. Having the Busby Babes taught to me like a rosary felt very similar. It put me off, but at the same time if I found myself doubting United, I would start to feel guilty, and then I would repent – or something.

Anyway, I spent my first football season in Manchester trying to be a United fan, but actually going to Maine Road more often than Old Trafford. I couldn’t have explained it at the time, but I think it was because I knew instinctively that City were the real thing. There was something ersatz about United. Old Trafford was bigger, the crowd were noisier and stars like Best and Charlton were undoubtedly bigger stars than Lee or Bell, but somehow… I needed something to help me make my mind up, and at the beginning of the following season two things happened which brought things to a head. I was finally enrolled at a local grammar school, and my father started to go to games with me.

At school in Manchester you don’t support Everton. Thankfully, by this time, I’d almost completely forgotten about the toffees, so I had no problems on that score. But, inevitably, I was faced with a choice: I could be cool, or I could be hard. United were the hard choice. I played it cool, and I got a kicking from the cock of the fourth year for my pains. That kicking – theatrical black eye, torn jacket, swollen lip and bruised ribs – wasn’t really talked about at home, but afterwards my dad bought season tickets at both grounds and we went and sat together in the stands for the rest of the season.

I think my dad was actually quite relieved when I turned out not to be much of a tough guy. He’d been a rugby league pro for while after the war, and in his early days in the hotel trade he’d done some of his own bouncing. However, he was always cool as ice in a confontation. I took after my mother, all Irish temper but, in those days, no muscle to speak of. So my Dad obviously decided that I needed looking after, from myself as much as anyone else, and that’s what he did.

I am not one of those supporters who mourns the end of Kops and ends. I enjoyed sitting in the stands, and I enjoyed having the best of both worlds. And from these elevated positions I was able to watch the football and the ritual and everything else that went on, and the longer I watched the more I knew it would be City for me.

It wasn’t just because they were better than United in those days – it was how they were as much as what they were. City had style, wit, humour – they had class. United? Well, as the all the knots came undone it wasn’t pretty. The whining, the peevish jeers, the fighting and the ridiculous last charge onto the pitch after Law’s back-heel (yes – I was there). What a circus! My Dad turned to me then and said “we won’t bother coming here anymore”, and we didn’t.

Could it have been different? If City has gone down, would I have given up our seats behind the goal in the Maine Road north stand? I don’t think so. That season, shuttling between Maine Road and Old Trafford, I’d always been more comfortable in Maine Road. In fact, as I got comfortable at Maine Road so too I think, did I become comfortable in Manchester to the point where now, despite having spent barely three years of my life in the City, I still think of myself as a Mancunian and, of course, a City fan.

It’s nearly 20 years since a I went to a City home game, almost exactly 20 years since I saw Rodney Marsh score the most magical goal it is still my privilege to have ever seen, and it is more than 20 years since I was beaten up for the first and only time in my life (I hope). I still don’t trust United supporters, I still think Rodney Marsh is an international symbol of genius, and I still think Maine Road is home to the best football club in the world. And I always will.

WHY BLUE?

It’s a less expensive form of masochism than a 20 minute session with Madame Lolita and her whips. And much more painful.

RESULTS

Full-time scores for Wednesday, November 20 1996

CHARLTON ATHLETIC       2-1    BIRMINGHAM CITY
STOKE CITY              P-P    WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS

Full-time scores for Tuesday, November 19 1996

IPSWICH TOWN            3-2    SWINDON TOWN
MANCHESTER CITY         0-0    HUDDERSFIELD TOWN
OXFORD UNITED           0-0    BOLTON WANDERERS

Up to and including Wednesday, November 20 1996

Team                  Played   Won  Drawn Lost     For Against   Points
Bolton Wanderers        19     11     6     2      40    25        39
Crystal Palace          18      9     7     2      41    15        34
Norwich City            18      9     5     4      27    18        32
Barnsley                17      8     6     3      30    22        30
Sheffield United        16      8     5     3      31    17        29
Oxford United           19      8     5     6      24    15        29
Swindon Town            18      8     2     8      29    22        26
Tranmere Rovers         18      7     5     6      26    21        26
Wolverhampton Wanderers 18      7     5     6      23    19        26
Stoke City              16      6     6     4      23    27        24
Port Vale               19      5     9     5      17    20        24
West Bromwich Albion    18      5     8     5      23    27        23
Portsmouth              19      6     5     8      22    25        23
Birmingham City         17      6     5     6      21    21        23
Charlton Athletic       16      7     2     7      18    23        23
Ipswich Town            19      5     7     7      25    28        22
Queens Park Rangers     19      5     7     7      21    26        22
Huddersfield Town       18      5     6     7      20    25        21
Southend United         19      4     8     7      20    31        20
MANCHESTER CITY         18      6     2    10      19    26        20
Reading                 17      5     4     8      20    28        19
Bradford City           19      4     5    10      16    33        17
Oldham Athletic         19      3     7     9      20    24        16
Grimsby Town            18      3     5    10      19    37        14

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

MCIVTA ADDRESSES:
Contributions: Ashley – mcivta@tollbar.u-net.com
Subscriptions: Adam – Adam.Houghton@sheffield.ac.uk
Club Questions: Stephen – sbolton@buxtonrd.u-net.com

DISCLAIMER
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.

Editor: