Newsletter #801

Well folks, City are back and in style. A 5-1 victory over Barnsley on Saturday saw us safely and deservedly promoted as Division One Champions. We hardly had to get out of second gear all game, Huckerby marked his second hat-trick in a week and Macken a brace (including our 100th league goal). Well done to KK, his coaching/scouting team and the boys in blue who have played superbly this season.

Tonight sees match reports thanks to Sharon, David and Jonathan, plenty of opinion, a few requests and a Why Blue.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) our reserves are playing the Red side of town down at Ewen Fields in Hyde so if you’re in the area, come on down and cheer the boys on.

Saturday sees us down to Kent for our match against Gillingham – the penultimate game of the season – we can now enjoy our last two games without worrying about end of season position 😉

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’ I: MCFC 5 BARNSLEY 1

Absolutely amazing. How good do we all feel today? The sun was shining over Manchester yet again on Saturday as we finally won our championship. The result the night before had meant we were promoted anyway, but it was good to win the championship in style! Driving up that morning, the main feeling I had (apart from the hangover from the celebrations the night before) was relief – not relief that we’d managed to get back into the Premiership at the first asking, but more that now we didn’t have to get another point to seal that promotion (look I can use the P word without fear now!); not even we could cock it up.

Tiatto was back for this game so Sun Jihai dropped to the bench. With Goater suspended the full team was Nash, Jensen, Pearce, Howey, Dunne, SWP, Horlock, Tiatto, Ali B, Huckerby and Macken. There was a real sense of anticipation about the game as we kicked off – could we do it? Would we choke (like Wolves ha ha) and lose the next three games? It started a bit scrappily – almost as if the sense of the occasion was getting to the players as it was to the crowd. The woman next to us in the Kippax had bought one of the many flags for sale outside the ground and occupied herself through much of the first half trying to poke my mum’s right eye out each time she waved it. City were in complete control though even if it did take a while for that to manifest itself in any decent sort of football. I don’t remember the ball crossing the half way line in the first ten minutes. Unsurprisingly when the breakthrough came it was created by Ali B. Barnsley had refrained from adopting the Sheffield United / Crystal Palace / Wimbledon / Rotherham / every other crap team in this division tactics of booting him up in the air each time he got the ball, and how relaxing it must have been for him to be able to kick the ball without someone trying to kick him. He crossed the ball from the right into Huckerby’s path. Good old Dazza took a couple of steps to the left then calmly knocked the ball into the net – just as I was about to say something along the lines of “the great useless git’s missed his chance”. Oh how I’ve enjoyed Huckerby scoring so many goals in recent games. I’ve not been reminded of the things I’ve said about him in the past or anything (much), my friends and family haven’t been taking every opportunity to remind me of what I said about the chances of him getting to 20 goals earlier in the season ’cause they’re far too nice for that. Ha, if only! At least I kept my big mouth shut before the game this time – classic quote from the pub before Forest: “Huckerby will never score a hat trick, he isn’t good enough and to show how much I believe that I’ll buy all the drinks if he does”. Oops.

We thought that would start to settle people’s nerves but it didn’t quite happen like that – in fact Barnsley started to get into the game at that point. Howey was having an absolute shocker at the back against Bruce Dyer, who was skipping past him for fun much the way Huckerby did against Halle in the recent game against Bradford. Speaking of which, Gunnar Halle must have been thrilled to bits to see Wolves’ fixture list after he joined them just before the deadline. I bet that really made his day realising he was going to be passed for fun by Huckerby all game. Again. Dunne had to come across and help cover when Dyer really should have scored. At the other end, the Barnsley ‘keeper was having the worst game I’ve seen since Martyn Margetson handed a QPR player the ball to take a quick free kick and helped us that one step further along the way to relegation to the second. He wasn’t helped by his seriously ropey defence panicking whenever they got the ball, as we almost could have had a second when an underhit back pass came to Ali B, who for once completely misjudged his cross to Huckerby (I’m trying hard to be nice here, the temptation to blame it on Huckerby for not being in the right place was very strong there!). Speaking of bad ‘keepers, Nash gave us all a heck of a scare just after that. Barnsley had got a free kick about 30 yards out. The Barnsley player hit it really hard, Nash watched it sail over his head without making much of an effort to touch it, only for it to crash against the bar. Thankfully it hit the top of the bar and not the bottom, or Nash would have looked even more stupid. One thing that really impressed me about Weaver that year in Division 2 was how well he seemed to be aware of the size of his goal and knew exactly which shots were going wide (or so it seemed) – Nash is better in many ways but I don’t get the feeling he knows where his posts are sometimes. Which is somewhat worrying in a goalie.

At this point Ali B decided it was time he got involved again. So he did. This time he passed the ball square from the right to Huckerby, who made no mistake (see? I didn’t say “for once” there) and knocked the ball in with his left foot. “Championes, championes” we sang happily, as the dancing began on the terraces. Somewhat foolishly, as it turned out. For the next time I looked up the ball was rolling into the back of the City net and it all went quiet. Very quiet. I think even the Barnsley fans were a bit shocked – don’t other clubs know about City’s propensity to do stupid things? Even this City? Anyway I can’t tell you anything about the goal except that Dyer scored it, and if I had to guess I’d say it was probably following a mistake by Howey. He was having that sort of game. The Barnsley fans started singing “we’re going to win 3-2” – ho ho that was funny.

In the last promotion season, Royle (anyone remember him) used to regularly have to drag the team in at half time to insert some rockets up their nether regions during the half time team talk. Keegan seems to prefer to get players to want to win because they are proud to do so, rather than because they’re scared of getting another bo**ocking, but from what he said after the game I suspect there were a few bangers, catherine wheels and toffee apples in use in the dressing room at half time. Whatever it was it did the trick. We’d just been discussing the odds you could have got for the 100th goal being an own goal when it happened. This time it was Jensen who did all the hard work, running two thirds of the length of the pitch before putting the ball over low and hard from the left. This time it was Macken who was in the right place (and look, no comment about Huckerby not being there!) and bundled the ball over the line. It was interesting to note that, even when we were wobbling in the first half, we didn’t doubt that this would be the game that would see us get the 100th – not often you get City fans doing that chicken counting thing is it?!

Ten minutes later and it was four. Huckerby and Ali B played a sublime one-two through midfield, including a cheeky little backheel from Ali B (no comment will be made about Huckerby not being able to do that I promise) (and I haven’t even mentioned the word “offside” when I’ve been talking about him), before Huckerby scored his third to get his second successive home game hat trick. We always looked as if we were going to get the fifth – it finally came from Macken after SWP ran through the midfield like the proverbial knife through butter. Alan, who sits next to us (the other side from the woman with the flag), had a few quid on 5-1 so he got very nervous whenever we attacked after that, but in the end we settled at 5.

Despite the fact we’d just won the game at a canter, by far the best part of the day was what happened after the end of the game. Almost no-one left. The teams both went off, the music blared out and then all the City lads came back out for a lap of honour. This bit was absolutely fantastic. The noise was incredible, especially when Keegan and his back room staff came out and followed the team out. Ali B was walking round saluting the crowd and got a great reception after the best game he’d had for a while. The flags were flying all around the ground, leading to our having to take yet more evasive action from the enthusiastically waved flag to our right – she gave up trying to poke us surreptitiously after a while and just bashed us around our heads a few times to get it our of her system! Several Barnsley fans also stayed and saluted the players which was great to see. We haven’t been able to celebrate the recent promotions at home as we’ve always been away, whether at Wembley or Blackburn, so to be able to be at Maine Road for this one was really special. I stood on my chair to get a better view of the other three stands as the celebrations went on, and almost had tears in my eyes. My cheeks still ache from the fixed stupid inane grin I had on my face for most of the second half and the 30 minutes or so immediately following the full time whistle. I know I can say this now as I’m still feeling some of the euphoria, but this almost – almost – made up for last season’s relegation and how bad that felt. We’re up. We’ve done it. And we’ve deserved it – for being the best team by far in the division, for playing fantastic, flowing, attacking football, for having the most skilful and talented players (as well as Darren Huckerby – damn I knew I couldn’t get all the way through!) and by doing whatever St Kevin tells us to.

So go on Darren, prove me wrong. In the Premier League.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’ II: MCFC 5 BARNSLEY 1

Barnsley kicked off facing into the sun and managed to work the ball back to their goalkeeper without a City player intervening – that just about set the pattern for the match. Barnsley totally lacking confidence and City winning easily without having to work too hard. I think it was 1998 when the teams met towards the end of the season and we were going in opposite directions – Barnsley for their first taste of the Premiership and City for their first taste of Division 3. I recall a Barnsley supporter contributing to MCIVTA essentially saying that City supporters didn’t deserve to be going down – pity about the team and the management. If that Barnsley fan reads this posting then thanks for those remarks and I hope things improve for Barnsley. There were two exceptions to the general comments about the teams: Benarbia had a field day, seemingly with a radar scanner in his head to know where everyone was, even behind him – four of our goals were created from this source. The other exception was Dyer for Barnsley who always looked likely to create something and was rewarded with Barnsley’s goal.

For me, there was none of the elation that followed the Gillingham and Blackburn promotion games – satisfaction, yes. Huckerby took his three goals well enough after Benarbia created the opportunities for him – he deserves another chance in the Premiership but perhaps he’s another Kennedy. Macken scored two Goateresque goals – I don’t see much to choose between these two; both can do a job next year and I suppose Macken has age on his side.

I watched both the Millwall-Wolves and the WBA-Rotherham games. The first was remarkable for my dad ‘coming out’ and admitting that he played for Millwall in 1933; I had overheard him telling someone else before but this was the first time he’d told me! The second was remarkable for the continued favours shown to Wolves by referees – WBA had the ball a good foot over the line for a goal – the assistant referee was in place but no goal given. In just over a week I’ve now seen three unreasonably disallowed goals and one blatant penalty turned down – that’s worth four points to Wolves – Hmmm.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’ III: MCFC 5 BARNSLEY 1

Barnsley never had a hope. City, relaxed in the knowledge that faltering Wolves had secured their promotion the night before, put on an exquisite show, marred only by Bruce Dyer’s smart finish just before half time. Once again, Ali Benarbia was the sorcerer behind City’s magic. Four of City’s nap hand of goals were laid on by Benarbia’s passes of wonderful vision, unerring accuracy and perfect pace.

Player of the Year? No contest. Since he signed in early September Benarbia has been at the heart of everything good on the pitch for City. It is hard to believe that he was rejected by Sunderland before he appeared at the Oasis suite with his agent. It took only one training session for Kevin Keegan to ensure that he was wearing laser blue.

Initially, most City fans were not overly excited at the prospect of the 33-year-old Algerian signing up, despite his credentials as a former French Footballer of the Year. Most were still wrapped up in a 4-0 defeat at West Brom the previous Saturday. It took 45 minutes for Ali to make himself a hero. Birmingham were vanquished by half time on his début and ‘Ali, Ali’ was already a stock terrace chant.

Performances of equal quality followed – bar a blip against Millwall where a stray elbow meant an early bath – and it was apparent that his talent and confidence had spread to those around him. Shaun Wright-Phillips in particular has blossomed since his arrival and will cite Benarbia as a massive influence, and you can see his style rubbing off on Dunne, Tiatto & Huckerby amongst others. In short, Benarbia has been the pivot from the ‘Dogs of War’ Joe Royle days to the ‘Champagne Football’ that City serve up almost weekly under Kevin Keegan. He deserves every accolade he will undoubtedly receive.

Against Barnsley Ali was again in imperious form. In the 1st half he fed Huckerby twice with incisive passing, neat finishing propelling City into an expected 2 goal lead. Both goals saw Huckerby sidestepping to make space for himself and finishing with aplomb. However, Dyer’s surprise intervention meant only a 2-1 lead at half time. It could have been many more.

In the 2nd half City took complete control, Benarbia pulling the strings again. They turned on the style, adding three goals. Macken scored the 100th league goal of the season from short range, Huckerby completed his second hat trick in successive Saturdays and Macken grabbed a brace on his full home début with a simple finish after Benarbia released Wright-Phillips with a stunning reverse pass.

The game was almost incidental, despite City equalling their best home league win of the season. Today was about celebrating Championships in style and paying homage, both fans and players to each other. But nobody went over the top; for most felt that this was just the first step on a long, exciting and entertaining journey. I, for one, cannot wait for next year’s instalment.

MATCH VIEWS: FOREST, WOLVES AND GENERAL

A good performance on Saturday against Forest gave us the boost we needed for “The Championship Decider” at Wolves. With that won, City are eight points clear with three games to go and only two more points required to be mathematically certain of promotion and the title. We could even go up without kicking a ball if Wolves fail to win their Friday game.

However, watch out, watch out, there’s an FA nutter about! The rumour is that the FA will be deducting City three points for every incident of pitch invasion by our fans until the end of the season. So if some morons decide to run on the pitch to celebrate promotion this Saturday, we don’t actually get promoted!

There is an argument that, as City fans, we always invade the pitch after the last home game of the season, as some kind of birthright or tradition. I sympathise with that but not this season at either of the last two home games, please folks. Points may be at stake.

All that said, whoever thought this one up should be stuck on a slow boat to Nicaragua to promote drug-free culture. It is a mind-bogglingly stupid attitude to take. Assuming the FA have started this rumour, they have painted themselves into a corner (again) and I can imagine legal repercussions if they try to pursue this avenue. What annoys me most in the secrecy. Were the FA to give City this warning publicly and in advance then at least everyone would know where he or she stood.

Back to the two weekend games, I saw one live and one on the box. Forest at home was another great day out at Maine Road. It was also the designated Annual Booze Cruise of the Season for me and a few others, hence I’ll restrict my general comments on that to: good for Division 1, improvement needed for the Premiership. 3-0 was just about right and well done the Hound.

There are some random specifics I recall from the alcoholic haze. I was in the Main Stand this time around and I was pleasantly surprised to find a good proportion of my immediate neighbours singing away. The Goat played much better than of late – he looked hungry once more – and I thought he was unlucky to be subbed for Macken on the hour so credit where credit’s due. Nash made a few earning-his-keep saves and looked more comfortable than recently. Jensen picked up another assist, if you count his winning the penalty. Next time, give the pen to Psycho; he only needs one more goal for a career total of one hundred.

Sobriety ensued. I thought the Wolves game on telly was our best performance in weeks, certainly since Birmingham away. Wanderers looked menacing and could have stolen the lead. Once we started to outwit their aggression however, they looked less of a threat and in my mind the result was never in doubt once we went in front.

No subs used, which is rather old fashioned of KK and everyone played well, except maybe Macken. Jihai Sun is emerging as an interesting player for his link-up play and forcefulness. Once he adapts to the pace of the English game and stops giving the ball away in silly positions, he could be quite good. Come on, Sun!

SWP (I prefer that moniker to SWeeP) had a blinder; he was winning defensive headers against players a foot taller than him. He may have deserved his yellow ticket first half but I was very impressed with his physical game after the booking. His commitment did not waver an inch and every tackle of his was spot-on, as it had to be. There was also a contender for most embarrassingly bad shot of the season, from which he came back to bag a brace.

I can echo others’ comments about the ref; G. Barber was not as bad as D. Gallagher at Rotherham but it was a close shout. For starters, Howey’s header can only have been disallowed for Macken letting a smelly one off in front of the ‘keeper. Sun’s booking was a joke. Alex Rae should have been sent off at least twice. And just how many blatant penalties have we had turned down this season? I know Vision Express is a bit busy at the best of times but I would have thought it was a priority destination for any self-regarding official.

The important thing is that City’s quality showed through. Having two clean sheets on the trot is another promising sign. Roll on Saturday, 100 goals, promotion and the title!

OPINION: PROMOTION

A few lines on promotion…

Man City under alan ball
Was the nightmare of them all
Big Joe Royle, he did his best
But Kevin Keegan’s done the rest

Now our mdifield looks the part
As Berkovic tears teams apart.
With Super Kev and Ali B
Shaun Wright-Phillips you need to see

A hundred goals is proof enough
That our attack ain’t powder-puff
True the back four lacks some pace
But hark, there’s money in our safe

David James and Robbie Keane
Are just two names that I have seen
Whoever signs will be top-notch
Next season we’re the team to watch

While Kevin Keegan is the man
Bernstein has the five-year plan
City back where we belong
This time nothing will go wrong

OPINION: VIEW FROM THE USA

I haven’t posted for a while but just had to add my voice to the undoubted maelstrom of praise for the boys.

Last time we were promoted, I listened to the Blackburn game sitting in Reagan National Airport in Washington DC. This time was somewhat more prosaic – checking the Wolves score on Soccernet while I sat at my desk in Minneapolis. Who cares – the feeling’s the same.

Blessed thanks to all the regular contributors who keep my passion alive at such long distance – with no opportunity to see the games. I have only been able to imagine Ali and Eyal bossing the park, the Goat and Huckerby feasting on hapless defences, the (seemingly) radical improvements of SWP, Super Kev and Dunney.

Next season I’ll get to see a lot more of us on PPV. And this time, with Kevin at the helm it really seems we could go places. He won’t let the board settle for second best, that’s for sure. It should make for an interesting (and expensive) few years.

Good luck also to England in the World Cup – if you think the start times are bad in the UK, imaging being 6 hours behind! I think I’ll go to Australia for the month.

OPINION: CLINT MATHIS I

I read with interest the item in the last issue where it said the KK was looking at Clint Mathis. You will see Mr. Mathis this June in the World Cup. I think he would be an outstanding signing for City and probably wouldn’t cost much unless he does extremely well in the tournament. Mathis is young, strong and has a bit of a selfish streak that all good goalscorers have. He will have a go at goal whenever he can and gets into good positions – you can’t teach that.

It is mouthwatering at the list of prospective signings and what a difference a couple of years make! I know a lot of it is media BS but there is no doubt we will add a couple of big talents before next season. There might be a couple of more Yanks KK might want to have a look at. We might do well to get another goalkeeper since it’s doubtful that Weaver will ever “dry out”. Kasey Keller would be an excellent addition to the team. There are also two young American players that would do very well but I don’t know their contract situations. Watch for a youngster named Landon Donovan who will play in the World Cup and also DaMarcus Beesley who may or may not play a rôle in The USA’s matches. Both are young, quick, talented, creative, and have great on the ball skills. Just a thought!

OPINION: CLINT MATHIS II

As was mentioned in MCIVTA 800, City are indeed scouting US sensation Clint Mathis of the Metrostars. Clint score a brace in Germany and recent reports here in the US mentioned that City scouts were in Denver, Colorado yesterday as the US beat Mexico 1-0 in a friendly. Mathis was the scorer yet again. He’s got a seven game scoring streak for the US and scored in the Metrostars’ season opener last week.

OPINION: ITV DIGITAL FIASCO

It may be wise to assume that when the lawyers get to work unravelling the ITV Digital contract, we will all find that the Football League will simply be a large creditor of an insolvent company and that the parent companies and major shareholders, Carlton and Granada will not be liable in law for the outstanding monies owed to the Football League under the terms of the original contract.

If press reports are to be believed, this will trigger the collapse of goodness knows how many football clubs in England and Wales. As we know, ITV Digital (in administration) is only being kept going at the moment by way of short term funding by Carlton and Granada. There is talk in financial circles that Carlton and Granada may let ITV Digital go into liquidation and then buy back from the liquidator (at a knockdown price of course) certain parts of the failed company, thus enabling ITV to keep its own digital platform.

What can be done about this worst case scenario? In law, probably nothing, except squander vast sums on legal fees.

In reality though, there is one area where companies like Carlton and Granada are vulnerable and that is in the area of public opinion. In particular, protecting their brand name in the eyes of their advertisers and shareholders.

We will all have seen much air time given to ITV’s current discomfort by BBC and Sky. We’ve probably all read the many articles in many national and local newspapers. But have we seen much airtime devoted to the potential demise of ITV Digital and numerous football clubs on ITV News? Of course not!

I’ve heard various theories such as footie fans boycotting programmes such as ‘Blind Date’ and ‘Coronation Street’ to upset the advertisers, from whom ITV rely on for their income. To follow that logic through, we should all stop watching ‘The Premiership’ as well.

Instead of this (or as well), it might be an idea for fans from different clubs to collectively protest outside the headquarters of Granada and Carlton, on a rolling programme, daily. Invite BBC and Sky along to each ‘circus’ (and they would love to come), as well as the local press for every football team potentially affected. Keep maximum exposure on ITV to ensure the cringe factor becomes so high that the term ‘ITV’ becomes associated with untrustworthiness – as we all know, their brand name is all important to them.

This form of action, admittedly, would take some organising, and would involve liason with the police in London and Manchester. The police may accept five to ten minute peaceful ‘demos’ as long as they could be assured by the organisers the action was purely for the benefit of the TV crews, to gain public exposure and, most importantly, would be limited to the kind of timespan mentioned. This could be done perhaps through various supporters’ clubs of different teams, on a daily basis, in the early evening to catch the ten o’clock news programmes and the deadline for the press for the following day.

By putting public pressure on Carlton and Granada, we can try and push them into a position where they feel it to be a good business decision to take moral responsibility for the actions of their ailing sibling. They can ‘spin’ it any way they want as for example, as being ‘in the interests of the national game’, but as long as they pay up the balance owing on the contract, it doesn’t matter.

Radical? It has to be. If this goes as far as reaching the Courts, the patient will have died as many clubs will have gone under by the time we get to that stage. This battle has to be fought through the media and with the help of the media, or at least, the anti-ITV factions of the media that can be persuaded to back such a campaign.

You may feel this does not directly concern City now we are assured of our place in the Premiership next season. But the actions of Carlton and Granada are putting the grass roots of football at tremendous risk – somebody out there do something!

OPINION: SONGS

Amidst the general euphoria of Saturday’s game, there was plenty of singing and pretty much the enitire repertoire of songs was aired. However, pop pickers, for me this week’s number one is one which I think was sung by the wags in the North Stand, who came up with “… singing Aye Aye Ipee Sun Jihai”

Class!

REQUEST: GILLINGHAM vs. CHAMPIONS, LIVE TV IN MILTON KEYNES

Milton Keynes Blues will be meeting on Saturday to watch the game at the Duke Of Wellington, Stony Stratford – kick off is 1pm on ITV Sports. Note that children are also welcome. So if you are in the Milton Keynes area on Saturday why not come along and join us?

If you would like any more details please get in touch with me. Note also that this weekend there is no Premier League game overlapping the kick off time to compete for the TV screen!

REQUEST: POMPEY TICKETS I

Having been a lifelong Blue but based overseas, my nephew and I have never had the privilege of seeing our beloved team playing at Maine Road! We are currently in the UK for family reasons and know if we miss the Portsmouth game we will never get another chance! If anyone has two tickets please please contact us. We will be travelling up from the South West so will be happy to give lifts as well.

REQUEST: POMPEY TICKETS II

Probably no chance at all, but does anybody have a spare ticket or two for the Portsmouth game? It’s my 30th birthday (ouch) and I’d desperately love to be there. Any offers will be rewarded with an abundance of ale.

WHY BLUE?

The reason I support City? Same as others, dad supported United! Like many other stories, dad came from a large family, half of whom supported City, the others United; I felt that dad should have some competition in the family! I was born in Preston but North End really was a dead-end as far as I was concerned, both parents were from Manchester, so my roots were really there rather than Preston.

I used to go to watch regularly in the 70’s, mainly with a friend who supported Derby but who was at university in Manchester and had a season ticket to Maine Road. He had a seat just behind the dugout and usually managed to get me a seat alongside. We then used to go and watch Formula 1 Stock Cars at Belle Vue in the evening and round it off with 10-pin bowling, those were the days!

Anyone else out there do the same?! My best memory was a game I didn’t attend, when City beat United in the cup 4-0 in ’74(?) with a young Gary Owen (who I always felt was very underrated) and Peter Barnes. Dad had gone out and I couldn’t wait to tell him the result when he got back, the goals were even on the TV for him!

RESULTS

Recent results from 4 April 2002 to 7 April 2002 inclusive.

7 April 2002

West Bromwich Albion  1 - 1  Rotherham United      22,376
Birmingham City       1 - 1  Portsmouth            25,030
Crewe Alexandra       0 - 0  Crystal Palace         6,724

6 April 2002

Manchester City       5 - 1  Barnsley              33,628
Burnley               2 - 0  Gillingham            16,236
Norwich City          1 - 1  Grimsby Town          20,075
Preston North End     4 - 0  Coventry City         15,665
Sheffield Wednesday   0 - 2  Nottingham Forest     21,782
Walsall               1 - 0  Stockport County       6,322
Watford               0 - 3  Sheffield United      13,377
Wimbledon             1 - 2  Bradford City          5,595

5 April 2002

Millwall              1 - 0  Wolverhampton Wndrs   17,058

4 April 2002

Wimbledon             2 - 0  Crewe Alexandra        5,007

League table to 07 April 2002 inclusive

                             HOME          AWAY        OVERALL
                    P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  GD Pts
 1 Manchester City 44 18  3  1 60 18 11  3  8 42 32 29  6  9 102 50  52  93
 2 West Brom A.    44 14  4  4 34 11 11  4  7 24 18 25  8 11  58 29  29  83
 3 Wolves          44 12  4  6 32 18 12  6  4 41 23 24 10 10  73 41  32  82
 4 Burnley         44 10  7  5 38 29 10  5  7 30 30 20 12 12  68 59   9  72
 5 Millwall        44 14  3  5 40 21  6  8  8 25 26 20 11 13  65 47  18  71
 6 Birmingham City 43 12  4  5 39 19  7  8  7 24 27 19 12 12  63 46  17  69
 7 Preston N.E.    44 12  7  3 43 20  7  5 10 26 36 19 12 13  69 56  13  69
 8 Norwich City    44 14  6  2 34 16  6  3 13 22 35 20  9 15  56 51   5  69
 9 Wimbledon       44  9  8  5 30 21  9  5  8 33 34 18 13 13  63 55   8  67
10 Coventry City   44 12  4  6 33 18  8  2 12 26 33 20  6 18  59 51   8  66
11 Crystal Palace  44 12  3  7 40 22  7  3 12 28 38 19  6 19  68 60   8  63
12 Gillingham      44 12  5  5 37 23  5  5 12 23 39 17 10 17  60 62  -2  61
13 Sheff. United   44  8  8  6 34 29  7  7  8 19 22 15 15 14  53 51   2  60
14 Watford         44 10  5  7 36 27  5  6 11 23 26 15 11 18  59 53   6  56
15 Bradford City   44 10  1 11 41 38  5  8  9 26 35 15  9 20  67 73  -6  54
16 Nottm Forest    44  7 10  5 24 19  5  7 10 23 28 12 17 15  47 47   0  53
17 Portsmouth      44  9  6  7 36 30  4  8 10 23 38 13 14 17  59 68  -9  53
18 Sheff. Wed.     44  6  6 10 26 35  6  7  9 20 31 12 13 19  46 66 -20  49
19 Rotherham Utd.  44  7 12  3 30 27  3  6 13 20 35 10 18 16  50 62 -12  48
20 Walsall         44 10  5  7 27 25  2  6 14 21 44 12 11 21  48 69 -21  47
21 Grimsby Town    44  8  7  7 31 27  3  7 12 15 41 11 14 19  46 68 -22  47
22 Barnsley        44  9  9  4 37 31  1  6 15 21 53 10 15 19  58 84 -26  45
23 Crewe Alex.     43  7  8  7 21 32  4  4 13 21 39 11 12 20  42 71 -29  45
24 Stockport C.    44  4  1 17 16 43  1  7 14 23 56  5  8 31  39 99 -60  23

MCIVTA FAQ [v1.7]

[0] MCIVTA Addresses

 Articles (Heidi Pickup)        : editor@mcivta.city-fan.org

 News/rumour (Don Barrie)       : djb1305@yahoo.co.uk

 Subscriptions (Geoff Donkin)   : subscriptions@mcivta.city-fan.org

 Technical problems (Paul)      : paul@city-fan.org

Comments concerning this FAQ should be sent to David Warburton using the address: mcivtafaq@warburton.org

[1] MCIVTA Deadlines

Deadlines for issues are nominally Monday and Thursday evenings.

[2] MCIVTA Back Issues and Manchester City Supporters’ home page

http://www.uit.no/mancity/ is the unofficial Manchester City Supporters’ home page. Created in 1994, it is the longest running of the Manchester City related web sites. Back issues of MCIVTA are also hosted on the site.

[3] Club Web Site

The official club web site can be found at http://www.mcfc.co.uk/

[4] Supporters’ Clubs

Manchester City FC recognises three supporters’ clubs: The “Official Supporters Club” (http://www.mancity.net/osc/index.html); the “Centenary Supporters’ Association” (http://www.callnetuk.com/home/sef/) and “The International Supporters’ Club” (http://www.mcfc.co.uk/extra/fanzone/isc.asp)

[5] Fans’ Committee

The Fans’ Committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. It has its own website, http://www.mcfc-fans.com/ containing info about forthcoming meetings as well as minutes from previous gatherings.

[6] City of Manchester Stadium Progress/Web Cam

The latest information regarding the progress of our new home can be found at http://www.commonwealthgames.com/

[7] Match Day Broadcasts

Live match commentaries and archives of games, reports and interviews can be found here: http://www.mcfc.co.uk/comment.asp. An alternate live commentary service, hosted by Yahoo, is located at: http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/foot/audio/live/schedule/index.html. GMR Saturday Sport is also available live online between 1-3pm, and 4.45-6pm at http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/sport/index.shtml

[8] City on TV

City’s games when broadcast on TV are generally carried by ITV Digital; http://www.itv-digital.co.uk/company/home/publocator/locator.html provides a list of pubs that will be showing the games.

Granada television also has the rights to show a small number of games from the North West region. As Sky now carry ITV regional services these matches can be watched outside the intended region by “adding” channels to your Sky Digital receiver. Under “services/system setup” enter the following details: Frequency 10.891 – H – 22.0 – 5/6. Select “find channels” and you will be given a list of the available ITV regions. From here select the regions you want to add. In order to view the channels you have added, you have to make your selection via “services/system setup/other channels”.

[9] Goals on the Net

http://www.citygoals.com/ has available for download, usually within 24-48 hours of a game being played, all the goals from City’s matches.

[10] 01/02 Season Match Day Theme Tune

The music the teams run out to at Maine Road this season is “Nightmare”, by Brainbug, and is available on the Positiva label.

[11] Acknowledgements

Thanks go to John Arnold for providing the information regarding match day music and to Ian Bell for pointing out the alternate live match commentary service.

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.

Heidi Pickup, heidi@mcivta.freeserve.co.uk

Editor: