Newsletter #142

Well, I thought that I’d be writing that we had managed to unload one of our overpaid underachievers today but it appears that the deal is in danger at the eleventh hour. Apparently there is some sort of financial problem to be sorted that concerns City and City only. Let’s guess… how about that Phelan has a clause written into his contract that when he is sold City have to pay him some obscene 6 figure sum… heard that one before somewhere. I know many of you like Phelan but personally I think he’s been a very poor player for some considerable time and the sooner he goes the better.

There’s an interesting note from Ken Foster about Roy Paul. Does anyone know who City played in the last match of 1955 and if so, can you say whether or not the opposition won and thus didn’t get relegated? My father would be turning in his grave (if he hadn’t been cremated) at the thought of the Welshman throwing a game. Anyone else see the programme on which this appeared and can you confirm what Ken, Paul and I heard?

Next game, Sheffield Wednesday away, Saturday 18th November 1995.

NEWS – PHELAN ON HIS WAY?

City are set to sell Terry Phelan to Chelsea. A fee thought to be in the region of £1.5 million has been agreed between the clubs and the player is now discussing personal terms.

NEWS – PHELAN?

I have just read on Teletext that City have agreed a £1.5 million deal with Chelsea for Terry Phelan. I am not a big fan of Terry at full back, but I thought he deserved a run in midfield, being (probably) City’s quickest player. If we now go for Clough (who I rate incidently), our big problem is going to be pace up front. Even I’d fancy myself in a 100 metres dash against Quinn, Creaney, Rösler and Clough.

NEWS – KIPPAX LOUNGE OPEN

As a Kippax season ticker holder I received an invitation to join the new lounge suite which opened for the Bolton game. Having talked to a few others it seems that not everyone has had one for some reason or other. I did take a look at the facility after the Leeds game; it’s at the very top of the Kippax and is without doubt an attractive place to eat and drink but it doesn’t come cheap. It’s also not that big so I guess membership will be quite limited. So, if anyone has £95 to spare…

‘Manchester Evening News Lounge’

This superb new facility, which is located at the back of the second tier, is being made available to Kippax season ticket holders for the remainder of the current season for joining fee of only £95! This includes access to the Suite for all League and Cup matches (seat tickets for Cup matches must be purchased in the usual way from the ticket office).

The Lounge will open 2 hours before kick-off, at half-time and for one hour after the final whistle. It features a bar area, Close Circuit T.V. for highlights/replays of the day’s action and a selection of quality hot food similar to the sample menu [enclosed]

Membership will be strictly limited so if you want to make sure of your places, complete and return the form below as soon as possible.

If you have any queries, please contact the Commercial Department on 0161-248-9999 or 0161-224-5000 ext. 230. We look forward to hearing from you.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

Did anyone see the BBC programme on Monday night regarding the abolition of the maximum wage back in the early 60’s? Roy Paul was interviewed and unless I’m going senile he seemed to indicate that the players were so poorly remunerated that they were paid to throw important games. I had visions of them all being fine, upstanding gents being proud to wear the maroon shirts of that most noble of Association Football teams, Manchester City. The merest thought of corruption would be firmly rebuked with a “Not here matey, don’t you know that it is against the rules to behave in such a manner!”.

My visions of purity shattered. At least George Graham owned up in the end and didn’t wait for 30 odd years to come clean. I know there were some bribery scandals in the 60’s, but involving City! surely not.

I saw it too but his Welsh accent was almost impenetrable. However, I thought he said that he was given £300 to throw the last game of the season in 1955 which they did and the opposition stayed up.

LONDON GAMES

Last season John Shearer volunteered to coordinate a mini-email list of London & SE-based Blues to try to arrange meets before games. Having chatted on Saturday in the Old Abbey, John suggested that we abolish the list and instead just try to advertise a pub to meet in before a game so that as many people who want to, who are travelling to that particular game can meet up. Paul has a book which lists pubs which welcome away supporters so we’ll try and advertise a friendly pub to meet up in for a few jars before a game in the preceding MCIVTA. So, if yu want to go to a game and want to meet up then just send in a mail and we’ll try to advertise it.

WWW LAYOUT CHANGES

Some of you may have noticed some changes in layout on the WWW-pages. Back in July we started using navigation buttons, and a graphical homepage was created. The non-graphical homepage started to get really big, so I split it up in three sections; one for the club, one for the players and one for the supporters. It’s nothing radical, just to keep the information separated instead of hidden 🙂 We’ve also got a humour page, which mostly contains jokes snipped from MCIVTA. It’s maintained by Paul, who’ll add any new jokes appearing in our extremely wonderful newsletter (etc. etc.). Needless to say, I’ve had quite a few comments on the pages, mostly nice ones. Even the rather biased reaction from Mr Gallivan managed to cheer me up a bit:

“I bet you get a lot of this – Man City are shite. But I hate them less than Man U. Up the Villa”

I even got one from a guy in South Africa who wanted a Man. Utd. shirt for his 14-year-old son. I couldn’t resist answering him:

“Well as a matter of fact I thing the Rags have just changed their strip for the 12th time in 6 months, so if you’re lucky you should be able to get it fresh before it’s changed again… But why not buy him a much nicer blue shirt, to keep him separated from the crowd ?-)”

I also provided him with the telephone number of the United Souvenir-shop and the club’s address. It’s one of those things that separates us from the animals!

Another response was from an Everton-fan who tried our site for information on how to get to the ground. If someone cares to put together a guide to Maine Road, it would be wonderful. I’m also looking for someone to cover the reserve team. Probably someone who goes to some of their matches, or looks up information in the local newspapers. Nothing big, really. Just some words about each match plus line-ups and goalscorers. If it gets regular he/she will get name and picture plastered over the “Mean Team Page” 🙂

Finally, I just have to mention that last Thursday I found out that our manager (and ass. manager) were missing from the “officials” page on the WWW. Needless to say they were added immediately, and somehow I can’t help wondering if this had some effect on the Bolton game. Hopefully not, because this means our lousy start of the season is my fault :-< We’ll see on Saturday.

OCTOBER PLAYER OF THE MONTH

20 replies this month, so it’s getting slightly better. Eike ran away with it this, despite conceding 10 against Liverpool. The full results were:

IMMEL     33% (37 votes)
KINKLADZE 22% (24 votes)
SYMONS    21% (23 votes)
SUMMERBEE  7% ( 8 votes)
OTHERS    17% (19 votes)

Other players who received votes: Quinn, Rösler, Curle, Phelan, Flitcroft.

Thanks to everyone who sent in votes.

BOOKS

When AB was manager of Blackpool he wrote a book called (imaginatively) “It’s All About A Ball”. My mum bought it for my dad as a Christmas present but he didn’t want it and made her get the money back. It is something I have since looked for in the library to no avail. Has anyone read it? I recently read Cloughie’s autobiography and I noted a couple of points relevant to City. He nearly became a Labour MP for Moss Side. He was offered the chance to run but changed his mind at the last minute. The other point concerned Wiggy Swales. When Clough was interviewed for the England job, Swales was President (or Chairman?) of the FA management committee. He spoke to Clough about the job before his official interview. Swales was so impressed that he promised Clough that he would vote for him. Guess what, he didn’t. Are we glad or what to see the back of that 2 faced slimeball?

In Bobby Robson’s World Cup Diary it says that he left Trevor Francis at home in favour of Kerry Dixon for the 1986 Mexico tournament! He also says that Tony Coton would have gone as the 3rd string ‘keeper but he left him behind because of disciplinary problems at Birmingham. Apparently he had a court case pending. Does anyone know what this was all about?. This is a really wierd book. I have a lot of sympathy for the guy but his strategy with the players was strange to say the least. Utd. were forever knocking his requests for players back saying that the club was more important than England (i.e refusing to get Robson’s shoulder operated on until the end of the season when it would be too late for England). As everyone knows, the op. never happened, he still took him to Mexico, the shoulder popped out 3 times, and he missed the important games. Robson (Bobby) would play a few second choice players (i.e. Francis, Barnes, Hoddle) and we would beat somebody convincingly. He starts blabbing on saying, although they did a great job it would be nice to get the first choice players (i.e. Robson, Wilkins) back for the next match. He would rave about a Francis performance then drop him for the next match, just because he had an ‘ideal’ team in his mind.

FIXTURE LIST

I don’t think adding the fixture list at the end of each mailing is a very sensible idea. After all, the people who want or need this information will in most cases already have it, and having got it, won’t want it sending with every edition of MCIVTA. It would be of no interest to the vast majority of subscribers.

Possible alternatives would be to post the FAQ to the list either periodically (e.g. once a month) or on request to anybody that wants it. I am willing to look after this activity if it is what people want.

EBBRELL – ON OR OFF?

Does anyone know if the alleged Phelan for Ebbrell swap is on or off? I saw Sunday’s game between Everton and Blackburn and Ebbrell looked okay. He isn’t exactly Matt Le Tiss or Ginola, but he battled in midfield and got a few balls into the Blackburn box. He also won ‘Carling Man Of The Match’. He may just be the player we need to keep us fighting over the next few months.

A famous Blue who hasn’t yet been mentioned is Paul Calf. Check out Steve Coogan’s new show (featuring Paul Calf) on Friday November17th.

FAMOUS BLUES

What! No mention of the one, the only Stuart Hall? I had always assumed that he was a Blue, from the nature of his reports from Maine Road – even more over the top than those from elsewhere; but I do recall that the last time this subject surfaced, some time ago (last season anyway), I did note that he had been clocked in one of the football mags as being a True Blue.

OASIS AND FAMOUS BLUES

Any further rumour about Noel Gallagher’s City song with the likes of Johnny Marr and co.? Last time we had an instalment of this story, they had made the song and video, but nothing seems to have come to light. In an interview in Loaded a couple of months back, NG said that the song, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ is the song he wants City to sing as we’re going down (sic). Furthermore, famous City fans part III. Simon Topping, ex. lead singer with A Certain Ratio is a Blue (from Urmston) as well is Rob Gretton who manages New Order.

Others include (some already mentioned):

• Bernard Manning
• Steve Coogan / Paul Calf
• Eddie Large
• Stuart Hall
• Mark E Smith (The Fall)
• Mark Burgess (Chameleons)
• Godley & Creme (they made the awful City song in the 70’s)
• Curly Watts
• Mike Pickering (M People)
• Nick Leeson – now there’s a man with money

IS IT TRUE?

After suffering all the piss-taking about our poor start to the season, I was rather pleased to be informed of an interesting fact by my True Blue Uncle. According to him, City’s start to the season isn’t the worst after all. No No, that accolade belongs to a certian team called Manchester United!!!!

Cheers Uncle Bernhard – you made my day.

P.S. can anyone verify this heart-warming fact?

TEN FAVOURITE GOALS

‘It’s A Dream Day For Manchester City’.

Considering that we won on Saturday, I thought now would be a good time to send in my ten favourite City goals. They aren’t all scorchers or net breakers, but I have fond memories of all of them. I’m not too sure of the exact years so you’ll have to bear with me.

1. Tommy Hutchinson

1981 F.A. Cup Final vs. Tottenham Hotspur

Hero and villian Tommy Hutch was the oldest player on the pitch at Wembleybut still showed great agility to score off Ray Ranson’s cross with amemorable flying header.

2. Steve MacKenzie

1981 F.A. Cup Final Replay vs. Tottenham Hotspur

Tommy Hutchinson set this cracker up with a lovely little header, then bang!!- what a goal, must be one of the best ever scored at the twin towers. Even asa nine year old I appreciated it.

3. Mick McCarthy

1987(?) vs. Rags

Stevie Redmond won a corner (should have scored). Short one taken, metperfectly by big Mick to cancel out Stapleton’s fluke at the other end. Itook a German exchange student with me to this game and had to keeptranslating the City songs in the Kippax. When we scored some bloke grabbedhim and shouted “what a f***ing goal!!” – no translation required!

4. Tony Adcock

1987-88 season vs. Huudersfield Town

Famous 10-1 game. His second goal, a cracking volley as the ball whippedoff the wet grass, flew in. Good hat-trick, great day – although he was craphe even scored another treble 3 days later against Plymouth.

5. Trevor Morley

1989 vs. Bournemouth

Infamous 3-3 draw. The trickster got the ball just outside the box on theleft hand side. He switched feet, cut in and curled the ball into the fartop corner of the net – bananas galore !!!

6. Kevin Reeves

1981 vs. Norwich City (F.A. Cup)

6-0 thrashing of John Bond’s old side included a delightful flick shot byReeves with the outside of his foot. Didn’t John Bond fall and break hisribs at the end of this game? (real shame!).

7. David White

1988(?) (F.A. Cup?) vs. Watford.

Great goal set up by Paul Lake who sold a lovely dummy to 3 defenders andthe ‘keeper (TC?) leaving Whitey with a simple tap-in.

8. Ian Bishop

1989 vs. Rags

My greatest day as a City fan as we thrashed United 5-1 in a game thateveryone thought we were going to lose badly. Steve Redmond broke free downthe right after intercepting a pass. He played a wonderful ball with theoutside of his foot to David Oldfield who then sent in the perfect crossfor Bishop to meet. Took the score to 3-0 just before half time.

9. Paul Walsh

1995 vs. Blackburn Rovers

Excellent 3-2 win away from home against the future champions. I wasn’tactually at this game but can remember going crazy watching it in a pub inLeeds. Good control and lay-off by Quinn to Summerbee, fine shot saved byFlowers enabled Walshie to score with the follow up to give us a welldeserved 3 points. Rounded off a great weekend, following our successagainst Liverpool. Perhaps not a contender for goal of the season, butcertainly one of our most important and impressive displays.

10. Nicky Summerbee

4th November 1995 vs. Bolton Wanderers

I had to include this for obvious reasons. Quinn to Kinky to Summerbee – enoughsaid, we won!!!

BLUE HUMOUR

A man desperate at City’s situation decides to top himself (wot more suicide jokes?). In his living room, alone, he prepares to hang himself. At the very last moment, he decides upon wearing his full City kit as his last statement. A neighbour, catching sight of the impending incident, inform the police. On arrival, the police quickly remove the City kit and dress the man in stockings and suspenders. The man, totally confused asks why. The policeman simply replies, “it’s to avoid embarressing your family.’

RESULTS

Wed 08 Nov

Newcastle United 1 – 0 Blackburn Rovers

Wed 08 Nov

Team                Played   Won Drawn Lost  For  Against   Points
Newcastle United      13     11    1    1     30     9        34
Manchester United     12      8    2    2     23    12        26
Nottingham Forest     12      6    6    0     23    13        24
Arsenal               12      7    3    2     16     6        24
Liverpool             12      7    2    3     25    10        23
Aston Villa           12      7    2    3     17     9        23
Middlesbrough         12      6    4    2     12     7        22
Leeds United          12      6    3    3     18    14        21
Tottenham Hotspur     12      5    4    3     19    16        19
Chelsea               12      4    4    4     11    14        16
Blackburn Rovers      13      4    2    7     16    17        14
West Ham United       12      3    4    5     11    16        13
Everton               12      3    3    6     13    16        12
Sheffield Wednesday   12      3    3    6      9    13        12
Southampton           12      3    3    6     13    20        12
Queens Park Rangers   12      3    1    8     10    19        10
Wimbledon             12      3    1    8     16    29        10
Bolton Wanderers      12      2    2    8     12    23         8
Coventry City         12      1    4    7     10    24         7
Manchester City       12      1    2    9      4    21         5

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Thanks to Jeremy, Jon, Paul, Charles, Tony, The Mole, Svenn & Ken.

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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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