Newsletter #492

Firstly, let me start by saying thank you to Mark for doing an excellent job as guest editor, especially in light of his disappearing hardware!

It was certainly a curious experience being in Germany for a week over Easter. Although our friends had access to BBC WS TV, the teletext doesn’t run to anything as mundane as the English 2nd Division results. I did make a few half-hearted efforts to find the scores (Easter Saturday and Monday games) on other channels; however, I wasn’t really all that committed, due to a quite irrational belief. I was acutely aware that any attempt to phone home would result in City losing both games. Naturally the games had already taken place, so my behaviour was apparently based on some hidden ability of mine to change the timeline, merely by dialling 0044. However, 4 points was better than I had hoped for, so I was fully vindicated!

City continued their winning ways on Wednesday evening with a 2-0 stroll past Luton; 2 up inside 9 minutes and the rest was almost like a practice match. A play-off place now seems more than likely, and there’s still hope of an automatic slot should Walsall slip up. The best news was reserved for today though; JR was on GMR announcing that City have done a deal with United to sign Terry Cooke. Everything was apparently cut and dried with only Cooke’s signature outstanding due to his impending fatherhood. JR promised he’d have ’em delivered (papers not baby) – to the maternity unit if necessary. This signing is, in my opinion, crucial for us; he’s not coming cheap, but a failure to secure his signature would have been a really huge blow, as he’s a key player with obvious quality. To be honest, it was all the sweeter as I’d almost accepted that we wouldn’t clinch a deal; just goes to show what a pessimistic bast**d I am.

I’m afraid we have no match report, so I’ve done a quickie myself. Can anyone send in a full match report for Monday? Apart from that, there’s discussion of Gillingham’s position, a defence of Lincoln and a good Why Blue.

This one reaches 2,455.

MATCHVIEW

A good crowd of over 26,000 turned out to watch City brush aside a neat, but totally ineffective Luton side. City were 1-0 ahead inside 2 minutes when a long ball to Goater was headed past the Luton defence – who’d all pushed up to catch Dickov offside – only for them to see the flag stay down. We all watched as Dickov sped goalward, waiting for his usual powder puff effort. The goalie however, made it reasonably easy for him by staying on his line, allowing Dickie to come inside and casually slot the ball in at the near post.

It was mostly City and 7 minutes later it was two. Goater appeared to have conceded a goal kick, but this was strangely given as a corner. The ball was swung over, headed on at the near post, and Vaughan headed home, unmarked at the rear post some 6mm from the line! At this point I thought we’d score a hatful (geddit!) but it wasn’t to be. Luton played a reasonable passing game but to no avail; they looked totally impotent up front and fairly vulnerable at the back, especially as they persistently played the offside trap almost at the halfway line. The Blues had several opportunities to increase the lead, but a combination of good saves, poor finishing and ludicrous offsides (passing to an offside player instead of shooting) meant that the score stayed the same. To be honest, it really was like a practice match, City passed the ball around at will, whilst Luton really looked like they could play for a week without scoring.

Ratings:

Weaver 8 – a couple of straightforward saves from long-range efforts, and entertained the crowd with his usual pass-back antics, baiting the Luton forwards.
Crooks 7 – Strong player who can pass well. His big problem is that he’s too blinkered. There were several opportunites for first-time passes to Cooke which he missed, because he simply doesn’t look around enough.
Edghill 6 – Looked OK but came off just before half-time with what looked like a hamstring injury.
Morrison 8 – Won almost every ball in the air and made the Luton forwards look very inexperienced.
Vaughan 7 – Not troubled at all; just needs to curtail that tendency to hoof it.
Horlock 7 – Made some good runs forward, but didn’t really impose himself.
Brown 7 – Steady performance, but needs to be more composed in front of goal.
Bishop 9 – An absolute delight to watch. Bish ran the midfield and showed everyone what a lovely passer and moulder of the game he is. To think I would have dropped him several games ago!
Cooke 6 – Largley anonymous, not given the ball very often and when he did get it, his crosses were poor. Perhaps something else on his mind?
Goater 5 – Poor again; had a few chances but failed to capitalise.
Dickov 6 – Scored a good goal but missed several others and was caught offside 60 zillion times!

Subs:

Mason for Edghill – (8) Looks a great prospect, could in fact be a clone of Bishop. Plays an attractive one-touch game and has plenty of skill.
Taylor for Goater – (5) Not on for long but missed a couple of chances. Did actually score but it was ruled offside as Dickov passed forward to him when it would have been easier to score.

Ref 7 – Didn’t book anyone, though there were a couple of rash challenges; did however stop the game too often.

NEWS SUMMARY

Cooke Set to Sign

Contrary to the widespread rumours earlier in the week, Terry Cooke is staying at Maine Road. At the time of writing (mid-afternoon on Thursday), the on-loan winger hadn’t actually put pen to paper, but reports reckon he will have done by the time you read this – he’s expected to sign on Thursday, the reason he didn’t do so earlier in the day being his presence at the maternity unit, his pregnant fiancee having gone into labour. The news was greeted with unreserved enthusiasm on BV, and is certainly a boost to City – while it can’t be said to guarantee promotion, it allows us to preserve for the remainder of the season and beyond the balance which has given us a real chance to claim a more elevated status. The fee for Cooke could rise to as much as £1 million, with an initial payment of £600,000 and the remainder dependent on the player’s and the club’s future success. This is probably more than would have been the case had we waited to sign the player for a tribunal-assessed fee in the summer, but I agree that it’s worth paying the extra to know that he won’t be lured away by a rival offer when out of contract and to have him available for what will hopefully be three but may well be six extra crucial matches this season.

City “Toy” With Hatters

With four of the top seven dropping points on Tuesday night and eighth-placed Stoke managing only a home draw the following night, Wednesday’s home match with mid-table Luton, a side ostensibly with little to play for, offered the Blues an excellent chance to consolidate their position near the top of the table. They duly did so, with strikes from Paul Dickov and Tony Vaughan sealing a 2-0 win. With both goals coming in the first ten minutes, it appears that the remaining 80 minutes were played out in relative comfort, though some on BV labelled the performance the worst in recent weeks. I suspect this may be a little unfair, since each of the several on-line reports I’ve managed to dig out has referred to an extremely comfortable win. The report in Football 365 even suggested that City spent the match “toying” with Luton, and that at no time were the Blues ever in danger. Whatever, it was a win we needed, and even if we took our foot off the accelerator when a major boost to our goals scored column was there for the taking, the three points must be regarded as the most important thing.

League Position – Analysis

I hesitate to say it, but, barring self-destruction on a scale unusual even for us, we can be as confident as Manchester City fans ever can about our prospects of competing in the play-offs. Home draws for Stoke and Wigan (the only realistic play-off contenders outside the top six) have left those sides thirteen points adrift of us, and even with two and three games in hand respectively, that’s a very big gap to make up in the space of three weeks. The midweek results are even more significant because this marks the first time this season City’s position above Bournemouth and Gillingham would be assured even if those teams won games in hand. Each still has to play five matches compared with City’s four, but they’re now respectively five and four points behind the Blues. In fact, City are now in third position, but fourth-placed Preston, a point behind and with a superior scoring record, would overtake us if they even drew their game in hand. While automatic promotion can’t be conceded until mathematically impossible, if we don’t achieve it, a finish in third or fourth place is important, as it would see us play the second leg of a play-off semi-final at Maine Road.

Since Christmas, City have been consistently averaging at least two points a game, but until recent weeks this had achieved little beyond seeing us hover around sixth place. Our form in January and February saw Bournemouth and Gillingham appear in our sights, but those sides continued doggedly to pick up enough points to hold us in sixth, and at one point we were looking over our shoulders at a resurgent Wigan and a recovering Stoke. Meanwhile, Preston and Walsall were somewhere in the distance, and while there was certainly a notional possibility that we could join the race for second place, it appeared a daunting task. Finally, though, our relentless run (45 points in 20 games, an average which, had it been repeated throughout the season would see us battling with Fulham for an all-time points record), appears to be paying dividends.

This is graphically illustrated by the example of Preston North End. In MCIVTA 479, just after our 1-1 draw at Chesterfield at the end of February, I noted that, “City dropped to sixth in the table, with the gap between us and second-placed Preston widening to thirteen points after North End followed up their midweek rout of Lincoln with another home win against Oldham.” Admittedly, we had a game in hand on Preston at the time, but it was looking a very hard gap to bridge. To do so required both a Preston slump and continued championship form on our part. Since the beginning of March, despite on the first two Saturdays of that month City dropping home points to relegation-threatened opponents, that’s exactly what we’ve had. City have played ten matches and amassed 23 points, while Preston have picked up only nine points from eight fixtures. Having looked favourites for second place for so long, North End look increasingly likely to be participating in the play-offs, and unless they improve their results quickly, they’ll be doing so with a poor run of recent form behind them. Moreover, the on-loan Southampton striker Steve Basham, their most potent attacking weapon with eight goals in his last ten games, has to return to the Saints before the play-offs.

Of the four teams we needed to overhaul to claim second place, Walsall are proving by far the toughest nut to crack. The Saddlers have been the season’s surprise packet after being third favourites for the drop last summer, and all along, I’ve been looking at the players they have available and feeling it’s a question of when, not if, they’ll feel the pressure. However, if they’re going to crack up, they’re leaving it late, and their 1-0 win in a tough fixture at Bournemouth on Tuesday may prove a crucial result. Before that game, even victories in all our remaining games would have left us needing Walsall to slip up in three of their last seven matches for us to take second place. Our position in relation to them hasn’t changed after the midweek fixtures (we’re still two points adrift having played two games more), so now we need them to falter in three of their last six. It’s not impossible by any means and they have a fairly tricky fixture list, but the ball’s very much in their court.

Stadium Work Set For Autumn

The work on City’s new stadium at Eastlands is now expected to begin in the autumn. Of course, it was scheduled already to have started but there were certain problems with disused mine workings at the site, which led to rumours recently that the stadium may not be built at all. However, council leaders are confident that construction of the stadium as it will be used in the Commonwealth Games should be completed by December 2001 at the latest, in plenty of time for the Games in the summer of 2002. There will then be further work to convert the stadium into a purpose-built football arena, with City scheduled to move in for the opening of the 2003-2004 season.

Gillingham Away – Preview

Saturday sees City’s first ever league visit to the Priestfield Stadium, though we did play a cup tie there in 1908, when Gillingham were in a previous incarnation and known as New Brompton. We may be facing them again in the next six weeks, however, either again at Priestfield and Maine Road, or maybe even at Wembley. The Gills are currently in fifth place and, despite a couple of recent slips including a 3-0 reverse at Craven Cottage on Tuesday which enabled Fulham to clinch promotion, their form looks good enough to secure them a play-off berth. There’s no denying that Tony Pulis and his team deserve credit for their achievements this term, especially in view of the enforced sales of some of last season’s stars like winger James Corbett and striker Ade Akinbiyi. Front pair Robert Taylor and Carl Asaba have formed a potent duo and the Gills have been in contention in the top six all season. A victory is crucial for the City cause if we’re to keep up any kind of pressure at all on Walsall, but against opponents with an excellent home record who are by all accounts organised and physical, any win would certainly be hard-earned. Still, maybe the 1908 cup tie provides an omen – we managed a 2-1 replay win at Priestfield after a 1-1 draw in Manchester, and our home league fixture against Gillingham in November also ended all square. For the Blues to fulfil the second part of the bargain in Saturday’s trip to Kent would be very welcome indeed.

PROMOTION ANALYSIS

Tell me if I’m being too simplistic:

Ignoring the teams behind us and assuming that we win our four remaining games, we will be automatically promoted if Walsall lose at least twice and draw one of their other four games. Even if they win their other three, they will be on 87 points (the same as us) but hopefully with a still inferior goal record.

I’m assuming that Walsall will lose to Fulham and hopefully to Preston. They may also struggle against Macclesfield who are desperate for the points and have recently been doing us a few favours!

GILLINGHAM AND OTHER THINGS

After being seconded to East Kent for the last 8 months and having to rely on the magnificent MCIVTA for all my Blues related news I thought it was about time I contributed a little.

I do think that too many Blues spend too much of their time having a go at the team from Stretford. However, having been surrounded by Southeners in red shirts for the past few months I have found pleasure on several occasions in starting conversations about the great city in the north with these red clad sheep, only for most of them to humbly confess that they have actually never been there. They are therefore unable to share any fond recollections of navigating their way around the discarded kebabs down Wilmslow road after staggering out of one of the fine curry dispensing establishments at 3am on a Sunday morning.

Back to a Blue theme, I have got to know the Gillingham physio this year due to his work with the running club in Canterbury I have been training with and have been told some encouraging news. Apparently, Gillingham had a similar season last year to this, being in a play off position for the majority of the season. However, needing to win the last game of the season to get to the play offs, they lost. Now the physio believes this was down to the players being exhausted and despite their best efforts, they had just ran out of steam after a long season and a bit of a fixture pile-up. He also disappointingly (for him, but not for us Blues) believes that the same may happen this year, with players lying around on the physio table before the games in need of a massage just to get them out onto the pitch as if they had just played a hard 90 minutes. The situation at Gillingham is also not helped by the alleged lack of co-operation from the chaiman with the manager, whose relationship has “allegedly” declined to a string of post-it notes left in each others’ office, as they do not have face-to-face communications. This has resulted in the manager’s efforts to strengthen their relatively small (compared to City’s) squad by bringing in loan players all being blocked by the chaiman, due to “lack of finance”.

Now I do not think we as City fans should be remotely concerned with the goings on at a club such as Gillingham and I still have to pinch myself to realise that we are in the same division as them and in fact, until our great run since Christmas, they were performing far better than us. However, the fact remains that we do have to compete against them for promotion and I think we should be grateful we have, in my opinion, a great chairman who is willing to do all he can to provide this club of ours with the success we all think we deserve. Just think what position we would be in if he had blocked the loan period of Terry Cooke, regardless of whether we keep him or not. As an already successful businessman he has no need or desire to milk the club for his own personal wealth or to inflate his own ego as previous City chairmen and other Chairmen of league clubs might. It cannot be argued that the success on the field of MU is unrelated to their financial standing as the richest club in the world and their ability to bid for the most expensive players and Martin Edwards’ rôle in putting them in that position has to be ranked as highly as certain football pundits view the job AF has done with the team at OT. Therefore, I think it is imperative for the future success of City that DB remains our chairman for a long time. It may have been expected we should bounce straight back to the 1st Division, but we expected the same after relegation from the Premiership and that didn’t happen. I believe we will return at the first time of asking to the 2nd tier of English football but I think we should not accept that it happens just because we get 30,000 people coming to our home games every week. As soon as we didn’t get back into the Premiership after relegation, our saviour FL was turned on and hounded out of the club. How about we do the opposite to the current chairman when his leadership leads us back on the path to the Premiership and heap some praise on him so that a City chairman may feel his work is appreciated for the first time I can ever remember.

P.S. Is there a pub anybody knows of in Gillingham that would serve as a meeting place for Blues before the game on Saturday, preferably close to the train station?

IN DEFENCE OF LINCOLN

Right. As it seems that I am the only person who both supports MCFC and lives in both Lincoln and Manchester (lucky me), I’ve got to stand up for the town. Basically, this reply is aimed at Tony Burns. See, without ever going to Lincoln, he feels that the whole city can be summed up as tractor driving yokels who all live on farms and the like. Okay, so maybe he’s trying to be satirical, making a joke, ha ha.

The point is I feel, we should have a little respect for a team that has screwed the great institution of Manchester City Football Club over 3 times in the last couple of years. If anyone has the right to be p****d off with them it should be me, God only knows that I’ve got it in the neck from the 4,000 odd people that were at Maine Road on Saturday at sometime or another. Have a heart mate, Christ, this could be the last time we play them in the league for a very long time (that’s the jinx, they’ll stay up, we won’t get promotion, you know the story). I think we should remember that not so long ago, we were all stereotyped as being the football thugs that turned in not for the football, but for the scrap afterwards (we were the early 80’s northern version of Millwall). To be honest, that was probably closer to the truth than we would like to admit. But come on, Lincoln: A city of farming yokels, two tractors in every drive. Be real, what planet are you on for God’s sake? Chances are that no-one out of the 2,400 odd people that get this mail won’t agree, but you’ve got to live in both cities or at least have been there to slag ’em off in my book.

OPINION – COOKE SET TO SIGN

I’ve just seen the official club web site and read the ‘Cooke Set to Sign’ piece. Can we believe a deal is to be struck so close to the deadline, and if so are we really to believe that Ferguson has dropped either his promise to have Cooke back/the asking price of £1.5 million? And unless Terry’s girlfriend is a talentless so-called posh condiment slapper how can he really be cover for Beckham? The lad seems to operate on a different planet to that piece of London trash anyhow.

OPINION – MAINE ROAD; LAST SATURDAY

3:00, the match against Lincoln kicked of and within 10 seconds, the 2 lads behind me were slagging City off. They also were annoyed at the lack of Richard Edghill, who, according to them, takes the long throws, not Michael Brown. More rubbish was said and I realised that these were not devotees of our loyal cause. The atmosphere was totally different to that of recent weeks, it was there, but it wasn’t ‘real’. Chants of ‘Who the f*** are Man United’ and ‘Who’s that dying on the runway’ were soon ringing in the North Stand. These songs hadn’t been heard for a while, not for a very long while, since back in the old First Division days. It was then I realised, City, in a good run, had attracted glory supporters, not unlike the droves of armchair Reds that can be found. I don’t like them destroying our atmosphere. I believe the only good that can come from it is the way we may be able to make them pump loadsamoney into the club by adopting a Man U new kit every 2 months policy (hopefully not), although are we already doing that with the new Lotto kits?

OPINION – CUP FINAL

This year’s Cup Final should be interesting: 30,000 glory hunting b*****ds from Newcastle who’d never been to a match five years ago, 30,000 glory hunting b*****ds from London, Malta and Dublin who’d never been to a match five years ago and 20,000 glory hunting b*****ds for whom it’ll be the only game they’ve been to all season. Promises to be a cracking atmosphere!

Anyway, The Vocalist and myself are going somewhere out of the way with a tent for a day or two that particular weekend (preferably where they haven’t got a telly). Anyone got any suggestions?

Up the Blues anyway!

REQUEST – AGGRESSIVENESS!

I am helping some colleagues with some football research. Therefore, I am interested in finding people’s opinions as to the aggressiveness ratings of all the players in the Manchester City squad. I realise that many people’s opinions will differ, therefore I would like to build an overall picture using a cross section of opinions.

I am defining aggressiveness by:

Positive Attributes

Usually, players with a high aggression rating are players who are prepared to ‘get stuck in’ and can sometimes use their aggression to turn the course of a match. Often an aggressive player can be seen as a match winner.

Negative Attributes

A player with a high aggression rating will often be prone to wild tackling and making rash or reckless decisions on the field. This can often lead to him being careless and getting into trouble through hostile, violent, angry or petulant behaviour. These negative attributes, combined, can often lead to a player having severe disciplinary problems.

To help, here is a list of ratings at present (out of 100), although these are generated by the computer with regard to discipline etc. and are not a true picture.

Tommy Wright        NIR  GK  15
Nicky Weaver        ENG  GK  15
Michael Brown       SCO  GK  35
Tony Vaughan        ENG  CB  53
Gerard Wiekens      HOL  CB  25
Richard Edghill     ENG  RB  53
Richard Jobson      ENG  CB  0
Andy Morrison       ENG  CB  66
Daniel Tiatto       AUS  LWB 73
Kakhaber Tskhadadze GEO  CB  21
Nicholas Fenton     ENG  CB  41
Kevin Horlock       NIR  LB  58
Lee Crooks          ENG  RB  30
Murtaz Shelia       GEO  LB  49
Stephen Rimmer      ENG  DF  21
Shaun Holmes        NIR  CB  0
Ian Bishop          ENG  CM  22
Terry Cooke   [L]   ENG  RW  19
Jim Whitley         NIR  W   32
Neil Morley         ENG  W   0
Jamie Pollock       ENG  CM  54
Gary Mason          SCO  LM  0
Andrew Porteous     SCO  MD  0
Jeff Whitley        NIR  RM  0
Gareth Taylor       WAL  CS  35
Shaun Goater        BER  AT  31
Mark Robins   [L]   ENG  CS  0
Danny Allsopp       AUS  AT  0
Paul Dickov         SCO  ST  60
Alan Bailey         ENG  AT  0
Craig Russell       ENG  ST  0

Also there are the players who are out on loan. All help/assistance/comments would be truly appreciated.

REQUEST – REAL AUDIO

I have tried on many occasions now to hear the broadcast live and cannot get this to work, although any other site in the EPL does work. I have to admit I did not try the Rags though. Am I doing something wrong or is it AOL user related? Does anybody know? I have E-Mailed real audio, Wookie etc. and have yet to recieve a response from any of them. I even E-Mailed The Planet. Help! The play-offs are coming.

REQUEST – CANTONA PHOTO

Can anyone help? I’ve been scouring the Internet for a copy of that famous picture of C*ntona ploughing into that Palace fan. I thought it would be humorous (to me anyway) given work pressures, to have it framed on my office wall. Entitled “The day the s**t hit the fan”.

WHY BLUE?

I am a Londoner by nature, but I was born in Helsinki, Finland. At primary school in Richmond, Surrey, the majority of pupils were Chelsea supporters; I wanted to be different.

Watching Match Of The Day and The Big Match, I noticed that Manchester City didn’t seem to defend, they obviously just attacked. I liked their style and the colour of their shirts and at the age of eight my mother bought me a plastic football with a picture of Francis Lee on it. He looked like my friend Kevin whose parents ran the local pub.

The first football match I ever went to was a European Cup Winners’ Cup Semi-Final against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge where my dad and I ended up alongside the City fans. I remember the game well. I remember comparing Joe Corrigan to a gorilla as he swung on the crossbar during the warm-up. City lost 1-0, but I was not deterred and I returned home with a light blue and claret Cup winning rosette, a committed City fan.

I’d started playing football myself and was using Colin Bell and the like as rôle models. My father worked in the Foreign Office at the time and he was posted to New Zealand. Again, I was not deterred that I would follow City from 12,000 miles away and still try to emulate their brightest stars. My school in New Zealand was rugby-playing, but a friend of mine in my class played for a Wellington soccer club called Rarori Swifts. I was offered a trial and I’m not being modest here… I scored a goal from the kick-off whilst sporting the classic red and black striped City away kit. I had a successful career with the team and discovered that our coach ‘The Fuzz’ – an enormous man with a beard – was a Mancunian who also supported City. I joined the City Supporters’ Club in New Zealand and I didn’t know which were the most difficult to get to: the home games or the away games; I thought United fans were stupid. When City reached the League Cup Final in 1974 and lost 2-1 to Wolves I heard the result on the Sunday morning through the World Service. I also managed to introduce soccer to my school, Scott’s College, through a democratic process.

Back to England: boarding school and another rugby enclave. I introduced and organised soccer here as well and I was particularly pleased when Dennis Tueart scored the goal that won the League Cup in ’76, although a disastrous memory came when Derby County beat City 4-1 in a crucial League match and the Derby fans in my house taunted me as the radio commentary described the repainting of the penalty spot etc.

Since then I have suffered as City have. Life is not easy, but when your football team is not doing well it makes things worse. I was in Israel when Paul Power scored the winning goal against Ipswich in the 1981 FA Cup Semi-Final. We all know what has happened to City since, but I actually believe that City can make it to the Premiership in the first year of the Millennium. Here’s hoping…

N.B. This article also appears in the current edition of Bert Trautmann’s Helmet.

RESULTS

Second Division Results, Tuesday, April 13 1999

Blackpool                 0-2  Burnley                5,658
                               Payton (26)
                               Little (57)
Bournemouth               0-1  Walsall                8,390
                               Wrack (14)
Fulham                    3-0  Gillingham            13,119
Hayles (22)
Coleman (81)
Horsfield (88)
Lincoln City              2-2  Reading                2,518
Barnett (53)                   Caskey (40, 84)
Thorpe (78)
Macclesfield Town         2-0  Chesterfield           2,216
Payne (45, 65)
Northampton Town          2-2  York City              3,294
Oldham Athletic           2-1  Bristol Rovers         3,913
Sheridan (57)                  Roberts (22)
Rickers (64)
Wigan Athletic            2-2  Preston North End      5,396
Liddell (2)                    Murdock (3)
Haworth (38)                   Eyres (40)

Second Division Results, Wednesday, April 14 1999

Manchester City           2-0  Luton Town            26,130
Dickov (4)
Vaughan (10)
Millwall                  2-0  Colchester United      4,686
Grant (1, pen 16)
Stoke City                2-2  Wycombe Wanderers      6,569
Wallace (38)                   Devine (29, 89)
Oldfield (61)

Second Division Table

Up to and including Wednesday, April 14 1999 (10:40pm)

                              HOME            AWAY
                         P  W  D  L  F  A   W  D  L  F  A   Pts   GS
Fulham                  40 17  2  1 42 10  12  4  4 27 16    93   69
Walsall                 40 11  6  3 30 20  12  2  6 25 21    77   55
--------------------------------------------------------------------
MANCHESTER CITY         42 12  6  3 33 12   8  9  4 27 17    75   60
Preston North End       41 11  5  4 43 20  10  6  5 30 22    74   73
Gillingham              41 14  5  2 41 15   5  9  6 24 24    71   65
Bournemouth             41 14  5  2 37 11   6  5  9 24 28    70   61
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Wigan Athletic          39 11  4  4 34 14   7  4  9 25 26    62   59
Stoke City              40  9  4  8 29 28  10  1  8 23 23    62   52
Millwall                41  9  7  5 31 21   8  3  9 18 26    61   49
Reading                 42  9  6  6 27 25   6  7  8 24 31    58   51
Chesterfield            40 13  3  4 33 16   3  7 10 11 24    58   44
Notts County            40  7  5  7 26 23   6  5 10 21 31    49   47
Luton Town              41  9  4  7 23 23   4  6 11 23 33    49   46
Blackpool               41  6  8  7 21 21   6  5  9 16 26    49   37
Wrexham                 40  7  6  7 18 23   5  6  9 21 32    48   39
Burnley                 41  7  6  8 22 33   4  7  9 25 37    46   47
Bristol Rovers          41  7  8  6 30 26   3  7 10 24 24    45   54
Colchester United       41  7  7  6 20 25   3  8 10 23 35    45   43
York City               41  5  7  8 25 30   6  3 12 26 42    43   51
Oldham Athletic         41  6  4 10 22 27   5  5 11 19 31    42   41
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Wycombe Wanderers       41  7  4 10 27 23   3  7 10 18 30    41   45
Northampton Town        41  4  9  7 18 23   5  5 11 16 26    41   34
Macclesfield Town       40  7  4  9 19 22   3  5 12 16 29    39   35
Lincoln City            40  8  4  8 26 25   2  3 15 10 43    37   36

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

MCIVTA ADDRESSES:
Contributions: Ashley – mcivta@tollbar.u-net.com
News & Rumours: Peter – brophy_peter@hotmail.com
Subscriptions & Club Questions: Steve – sbolton@buxtonrd.u-net.com
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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.

Ashley Birch, mcivta@tollbar.u-net.com

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