Newsletter #531

STOP PRESS: Monday 30th Sept: Man City 1, Nottingham Forest 0

It seems that I’ve been having trouble getting my formatting of MCIVTA to you all nice and neat. MCIVTA 530 somehow came over with the first two reports of the Burnley game strangely combined and not reading at all coherently. Well, I’m sorry about that people. All I can offer by way of an excuse is that it must surely be someone else’s fault. Probably Paul MC’s in Helsinki after that dodgy pizza slice 3 weeks ago.

One thing that I will take the credit for, however, is City’s great run of form since I’ve been guest editor of MCIVTA. It continued last Saturday (and today) with a great 1-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers at the horribly named Reebok Stadium (please God, let us have a good name for the new place with a Road, Street, Park and at least a Rayner in it).

Yet another great Why Blue rounds off tonight’s issue.

And, for the last time, articles for MCIVTA 532 to me please.

Your very own, Matt Rayner (matt@mancity.net)

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’ I

BOLTON WANDERERS vs. MANCHESTER CITY, 28th August 1999, Nationwide League Division One

Got into Bolton and followed a Blue to the right bus stop in Bolton town centre. Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m making my way to away matches in places like Bolton, where civilisation hasn’t quite caught up with Manchester, wearing colours I sometimes feel is for the very brave or very stupid. Anyway I got talking to this bloke and he seemed sensible enough so I put him in the brave category. Now I couldn’t get a ticket for the City end, but I managed to get one for the Bolton end and I thought as long as I keep my mouth shut, I’ll be OK. Got to the ground which I thought was impressive, a bit out of town, but otherwise similar to Reading’s ground last year. The thing is though it only holds a maximum of under 25,000. Can’t wait to see what our new ground is going to look like. Entered the ground, on with the world’s brightest hat (my lucky yellow hat), ‘OK just keep your gob shut, you’ll be OK.’

Took my seat ready for kick-off, when 10 fellow blues sat round me, with MCFC tattooed on knuckles there was no way they were keeping quiet. One started chatting to me, I told him I was City, he confessed to me ‘We’ll be all right, there’s 11 of us now. We’ll fight our way out if it kicks off.’ MMMmmm Great I thought, only surrounded by 1,000 Bolton fans. Anyway the game kicked off, the lads next to me start shouting ‘C’mon City’. Oh dear, I could smell trouble (no, not from my trousers).

Bolton seemed to be playing the better football; the line up was Weaver, Edghill, Jobson, Wiekens, Tiatto, Horlock, Whitley, Goater, Dickov, Cooke and Kennedy. Bolton had a shot in the first 5 minutes and just a bit later they had a one on one with Weaver, but Weaver was doing a cool impression of a cucumber, and palmed it around the post. The Maine Road faithful started ‘Weaver, Weaver’ (this happened on a regular basis all afternoon). City had a shot from Dickov in the first half; as this happened scuffles broke out in the Bolton end (keep it shut, practising my best Bolton accent in my head). Bolton were bossing the midfield and easily cutting past Edghill on the right, when suddenly Kennedy picked up the ball in the middle of the park and ran right at the Bolton defence; with no other options he took aim and fired, their goalkeeper was left clutching air. ‘One nil in your cup final’. The blokes next to me went mental, oh dear (I afforded myself a smile). We’re going to die, scuffles broke out all around us, my lucky hat was working so far, 1-0 up and no digs in the head yet.

At this point I went to the toilet and so missed the Cooke, Bishop substitution (anyone know why?). Coming back from the bog, I noticed loads and loads of riot police, I thought I’d try to get in the City end. ‘No chance pal’ was about as polite as I got. Took my seat for the end of the first half and watched the Bolton fans getting very upset at the City taunts. Oh well, just keep the gob shut. At half time my phone rang. Someone I know in the City end had spotted the lucky hat. I just thought 1-0 will do me. If we’d scored again the City fans around me would’ve gone off on one, and something resembling WW3 would’ve broken out.

During the start of the 2nd half, which I thought was City’s best part, they looked the business. They could have scored at least a couple (notice Johnson scored again for Ipswich). Taylor came on for Goater (well that’s our scoring done for today). Why bring him on when you can give youth a chance? Kennedy played a very neat 1-2 with Goater and Goater played the ball in slightly behind Kennedy who tried to back heel it (like Kanu vs. Middlesbrough) into the net but missed it, poetry in motion. Bolton then tried for a point but came up against a City defence in no mood to give them what they wanted. City battled hard and got 3 valuable points, no argument from me. I decided to leave the ground after 87 minutes to avoid a riot with the disappointed Bolton fans. Roll on Forest.

FULL SQUAD UPDATE

Tommy Wright            On loan to Newcastle

Nick Weaver

Steven Hodgson

Richard McKinney

Gerard Wiekens

Tony Vaughan

Richard Edghill

Lee Crooks

Nick Fenton

Danny Granville             On Loan from Leeds (3 months)

Richard Jobson

Danny Tiatto

Kakhaber Tskhadadze

Andy Morrison

Shaun Holmes

Stephen Rimmer              Transfer Listed

Murtaz Shelia               Transfer Listed

Kevin Horlock

Jamie Pollock

Mark Kennedy

Gary Mason

Jim Whitley                 On loan to Blackpool

Michael Brown

Ian Bishop

David Laycock

Terry Dunfield

Christopher Shuker

Terry Cooke

Jeff Whitley

Neil Morley                 Transfer Listed

Andrew Porteous             Transfer Listed

Paul Dickov

Shaun Goater

Danny Allsopp

Gareth Taylor

Shaun Wright-Philips

Leon Mike

Christopher Killen

Chris Greenacre             Transfer Listed

Mikhail Kavalashvili        Loaned to Grasshoppers Z