Newsletter #1264

A well earned point at Goodison on Saturday thanks to another injury time equaliser from Richards, although to listen to the various media reports after the game the only incident of note was a certain player deciding to show what he thought of the Evertonian banter. In a move that totally dispels the myth of the scouse sense of humour, some fans reported him to the police, who are now trying to get to the bottom of the matter.

We have a live match report thanks to Colin, who has had a busy weekend as he also brings us part 4 in the finance series. There is also opinion on the bungs enquiry, the official website and the usual requests.

For those who cannot wait until 14th October, the reserves are in action tomorrow night (Tuesday) at MiniCoMS against Wigan Athletic.

MATCH REPORT ‘LIVE’: EFC 1 MCFC 1

A trip to Everton is as much about the social as the football side for me as I know many Evertonians. We went for a Chinese before the game with some of them, including my nephew Benjy, who I promised a name check to. I also enjoy visiting Goodison as it’s a real, old-fashioned ground; crammed in among terraced houses with wooden floors (and wooden seats in some parts). We used to have one like that I seem to remember. It was also my first live match for a few weeks and I had a good feeling about this one for some reason. There were stories that we hadn’t sold a lot of tickets but the upper tier, at least, looked full and was in good voice.

For City, it was a changed side from the one that beat West Ham with Samaras preferred to Corradi in a 4-5-1 formation that many of us have been pleading for. The defence was as per usual but Ireland started alongside Hamman, Barton, Miller, and Sinclair in midfield.

Last season, Everton came out of the traps like men possessed and battered us for ninety minutes but this time we seemed better prepared. The early action was pretty well all City, with Miller getting an early chance but his weak header was straight at Howard. Samaras found a good position but was ruled offside in what looked like a borderline decision. Everton’s first chance came on 20 minutes when Johnson could only direct a header straight at Weaver. Dunne played a good ball out to Miller on the left and he touched it on to Ireland but Everton got bodies in the way quickly.

Sinclair lost the ball and Beattie had a good run, which was spoiled by a very poor ball that went out for a goal kick. Tricky then made amends when he floated in a cross that Howard flapped at and lost and he had to chase the ball out of the area to rescue his team. On 37 minutes there was a scare as Beattie found the net but the referee had already blown for a foul. There was another scare a couple of minutes later when the defence had a little game of statues but Johnson couldn’t keep the ball from rolling out for a goal kick. It was all looking reasonably comfortable, if not particularly convincing, in the run up to half time but some of the City team were clearly thinking about their half-time cuppa a bit too early.

A quick free kick for Everton was taken from the wrong place and while the ball was moving. Johnson brushed off Distin and pulled the ball back for Beattie, just about on the penalty spot. He made such a hash of his shot that the City defence were taken aback and Dunne made a bit of a mess with his clearance into touch, which was square rather than well down the field. From the throw in, a good cross from Neville found Johnson in space and the ball took a wicked deflection off Distin to leave Weaver stranded and Everton went 1 up with just 90 seconds remaining in the first half. The goal was bad enough but the Everton fans behind the goal, who had done a very passable impersonation of Madame Tussaud’s stockroom up to then, suddenly became the world’s best supporters.

Weaver was in action early in the second half, following a good save after poor defending. Then Hamman, who’d had an ineffectual first half, found his shooting boots and won a corner. A second corner was cleared and Beattie had a good run, ending with a City foot getting in the way of a shot, causing a wicked, looping ball to head towards goal and Weaver did well to stop it.

With twelve minutes gone, Corradi came on for Ireland, who had not really been in the game too much. Soon, he set up Samaras who took too long over his shot, which went straight at Howard. Johnson then found space and set up Beattie. He placed a shot that stayed low and Weaver could only parry the ball towards Johnson. A second goal looked a formality but Dunne somehow got his body in the way. City returned to the attack but looked to have taken too long when Barton swung in a high, teasing cross from which Samaras shot wide. City then started to give a passable impression of a Sunday pub team for a while, with poor passing and clearances. It looked as though they were falling to pieces and had given up but somehow they pulled themselves together.

Beasley replaced Miller on 21 minutes but Everton had the next goal attempt. A corner was headed goal-wards by Lescott but somehow Weaver got to it. Then there was a controversial decision from a City viewpoint. I think it was Beasley burst through and was just in the box when he was brought down by a desperate and crude tackle. It looked just inside the box and the defender seemed to be the last man but all we got was a free kick, plus an Everton yellow. However, City had finally found some passion and energy and Everton dropped deep as we came at them. Reyna replaced Hamman and there seemed to be some booing; quite unbelievable. Richards burst into the box and seemed to be pushed but again no penalty.

With 37 minutes gone there was a good attack but Samaras, who had the ball on the left in a good position, put over a shocking cross that was nowhere near a City player. Then Samaras received the ball through the middle and seemed to be well offside but there was no flag. I suspect he couldn’t believe his luck and hesitated long enough for the defender to get to him and scramble it away. Then it looked as though our chance had come. Beasley did well and could have shot but chose to pull the ball back to Samaras. His shot eluded Howard but hit the post. With the ‘keeper stranded Sinclair seemed to have a great chance to level but blasted it over the bar.

The City support was getting a little restless now and there was a chant of “What the **** is going on?” The game seemed to be lost and Everton were trying to run the clock down. With three minutes of injury time virtually up, Everton substituted Johnson. He took an age to get off and the referee clearly indicated he was adding on time. We had one last heave and the ball was hoofed up into the box by Distin, where Corradi got a flick. It fell to Richards who smashed it into the roof of the net, in a reprise of his Aston Villa goal. It was literally the last kick of the game and, if Moyes hadn’t done the last substitution then we wouldn’t have had the opportunity. The City support went crazy and, best of all, the Everton fans were reduced to silent fury.

As the City players came over to salute the fans, Barton came in for particular stick from the Everton fans and responded by dropping his shorts as he walked away from them. Nice one Joey – it’s alright for them to scream abuse at you but show them a naked buttock and it’s a complaint to the police. Bet it’s the first time many of them have spoken to the police without their solicitor present. Get a life you Scouse saddos.

Performances:
Weaver 10. It had to be that – he was superb and kept us in the game on a number of occasions.
Richards 7. Good performance anyway but the goal earned him extra marks.
Dunne 9. A couple of slack clearances, one of which lead to their goal, slightly marred an otherwise towering performance.
Distin 7. Did well but never as dominant as Dunney.
Jordan 5. Average marks for a very average performance mostly.
Sinclair 6. Consistently wins headers and works hard but that’s about all he does.
Hamman 5. Poor in the first half but looked more like the player I thought he was in the second, before his substitution.
Barton 8. A typical battling display and our most effective midfielder. Correction – our only effective midfielder.
Ireland 5. Just never in the game enough and not terribly effective when he was.
Miller 6. Worked hard enough but Neville kept a tight leash on him.
Samaras 6. Did his best but he’s not a target man in the way Corradi is. Needs a partner to be most effective.
Subs:
Corradi 7. We started to win more of the ball when he came on. Maybe should have started.
Beasley 7. Got involved and looked dangerous on occasions.
Reyna 6. Did nothing wrong particularly.

Overall “Out-Of-The-Seat” Factor 7. Not much action in the first half but plenty in the second and what a finish.

OPINION: REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Before the West Ham game, City’s season was balancing on a knife edge, despite it being so early in the season. Balanced because the pattern of results could have gone either way. Look at it this way.

At home, City hadn’t, and still haven’t, conceded a goal and are unbeaten.

Away, they had yet to gain a point, haven’t looked like winning a game and look likely to concede goals.

So, therefore, if City could start to get a couple of points here and there away, added to the home record, we could look forward to City moving up the table.

However, if we look at it another way that should City start to leak points at home, coupled with the poor away record, then it might be a struggle for the rest of the season.

Since then, of course, they have continued the good record at home by beating West Ham, with another clean sheet, and have now earned (and I mean ‘earned’) a valuable point away at a very difficult venue where not many teams will come away unbeaten, Everton.

So where will the pattern now continue? Will it be the first scenario of picking up points away whilst maintaining a good home record, or start to lose points at home coupled with a poor away record?

One swallow doesn’t make a summer but let’s hope that the point gained at Everton is a pointer to the future. It certainly gives the team something to build on.

Come on City.

OPINION: MCFC FINANCES PART 4

The Profit & Loss Accounts

This is the fourth article in the series but the first to focus on the actual financial statements, again using the 2005 accounts for illustration.

However, before that I have to point out that I made an incorrect assumption in the previous article, when I mentioned that we had £7 million in our account and that it was probably the extra £7 million introduced by Wardle. It turns it I wasn’t quite right and thanks to the person who pointed this out (I think you read MCIVTA so you know who you are). I will explain the actual scenario in the next couple of articles but it really highlights the true state of our current finances.

The P&L account, quite simply, is a statement of our income and expenses for the year in question. There’s nothing terribly complicated about it – take the expenses from the income and that’s our profit or loss for the year. We can all do the same, looking at our income and subtracting our expenses such as mortgage or rent, gas and electricity, etc.

The first issue is, however, what expenses can we take? The second is that making profits, although desirable, does not necessarily tell the whole story because some of the key items are accounting rather than cash transactions. What does this mean? Well if you buy a pie and a pint at the ground and hand over £4, that’s a cash transaction, as money has changed hands. You’ve got £4 less and the catering outlet has got £4 more (you’ve also got a gassy pint of liquid and a lukewarm concoction consisting of some of the less appealing parts of a dead animal but that’s by-the-by).

However, if the outlet runs out of pies and gets some from another outlet that has plenty, that doesn’t affect the number of pies in total or the total takings but both outlets would have to account for these. Otherwise their takings would appear to be wrong as one would have appeared to have sold all their pies but didn’t have enough money and the other would appear to have too much money. So the transfer of the pies would be an accounting transaction.

In addition, there are ways to make the profits appear larger or smaller, depending on the way you account for some things. One example is the value of any stock you have at the year-end. The higher you value this the higher the profit will be. However, stock is not a great factor in the City accounts. Another thing to bear in mind is that these accounts, in common with most others, are prepared on an “accruals” basis. This means that a transaction that relates to this financial year is shown, even if we haven’t paid for it at the year-end. Therefore it we take delivery on a van-load of pies close to the year end, they will still appear as an expense in the accounts even if we don’t pay for them until after the year end.

This also applies to items we might pay for in advance so if we pay council tax in full in April, with our May year-end two months will be shown in the current financial year but most will belong to the following financial year. The same applies to season ticket income. We collect most of that before the year-end but it isn’t accounted for until the following year because it relates solely to the next season, which is covered by the next year’s accounts. I’ll talk about this in the Balance Sheet article.

But to get back to the 2005 accounts, you will see that a number of different figures appear for our profit or loss. There’s the Operating Profit, the Profit or Loss after Amortisation, the Profit or Loss before Interest. Some show a profit and some show a loss. So which is the right one? Well they all are – there is a standard way of reporting these things that leads to all of these as I’ll explain.

The first figure in the P&L Account is turnover of £60,864. This is actually £60 million, as the figures are shown in thousands to make them more readable. Next to it is last year’s figure (£61,932) and if we look at Note 2 on Page 23, it tells us how these are broken down. In 2005 £15,073 (£15 million) was gate receipts, £26,143 was TV income and £19,501 was described as Other Commercial Activities. This is probably match day hospitality, shirt and other sponsorship and income from both the other sporting and non-sporting use of the stadium. There is also a (relatively) small contribution from the development association.

The first thing that is clear from all this is that the ordinary supporter, either with a season ticket or paying on the gate, is the least important of the three major income streams. TV and other commercial income combined bring in three times more than gate money. However a good cup run or European football does make a difference as they can bring in well over £1 million per home game before any TV money is taken into account. We had neither in the 2004/5 season and even though we had a decent league finish, our gate receipts were significantly lower because of that. TV income I believe includes the so-called Merit Money for league placement.

The next figure is Operating Expenses of £57,359. This is in brackets as it needs to be subtracted from the Income figure. It is pretty similar to last year and the first group of figures in Note 3 shows a more detailed breakdown, with a summary at the end.

The biggest single item is (surprise, surprise), staff costs of £37,677. Note 4 shows the split between staff and player numbers (but not wages) but you can clearly see that to reduce costs to any great degree involves reducing the wage bill. These wages include the cost of Keegan’s departure and that could have been up to £2 million. This, together with the loss of some higher earners at the end of the 2004/5 season should lead to a significant reduction in wage costs for this last year. I would be expecting just over £30 million in the forthcoming accounts. The proportion of our income spent on wages is a key measure for football clubs. In our case, in this year it works out to 61.9% and in practical terms means that if you pay £500 for a season ticket then over £300 of that goes out in wages. This is about the average for the Premiership over the last few years.

There is plenty of football research suggesting that the higher your wage bill the better you do. This is hardly surprising as bigger squads of better players (who will be paid more) should out-perform smaller squads of less well-paid players over time. However, one club spectacularly bucked that trend last season and despite having one of the highest wage bills, finished in the bottom six. No prizes for guessing who it is!

Note that the Operating Expenses does not include any expenditure on transfers or debt interest. It only relates to the direct expenses of running the club and the stadium. This gives us an operating profit of £3,505 (that’s £3.5 million don’t forget). This is fine, as the wage bill alone outstrips income at some other clubs. However, from a profit point of view that’s not the end of the story.

The other part of our operating expenses comes under the heading of depreciation. You’ve all heard of this – if you buy a new car it depreciates as its value goes down year on year. Therefore depreciation can be summed as a measure of the loss of value of an asset over time. It’s an accounting transaction as we don’t actually put the cash aside and can be looked at as a charge for the use of that asset during the year. Note 1 shows the depreciation charge on various types of asset. So the 2% charge on Freehold Buildings means that we expect these to have a useful life of 50 years because it will take this long at 2% per year to write the whole cost off. Similarly we allow only 4 years for Computer Equipment as we write off 25% of that each year. “Straight Line” means it is applied to the original cost so if we buy a computer for £800, we would charge £200 depreciation on that for each of the next four years. The depreciation on our business assets like buildings, fittings and computers is included in Operating Expenses.

The same concept applies to players, except it is called amortisation. It has a slightly different meaning in theory but for our purposes is the same thing. Therefore if we sign a player for £6 million on a 3-year contract, we charge £2 million amortisation to the accounts for each of those three years. The large figure of over £11.5 million in the accounts reflects our high expenditure on players over the last few years. However, we only charge amortisation for transfers in and while the player is still on our books so the combination of Bosman signings and Academy players won’t attract this level of charge in future accounts. However, adding in this charge in these accounts reduces a £3.5 million profit to a loss of just over £8 million. It’s important to remember though that we’ve not actually paid money out in respect of depreciation/amortisation, even though it’s turned a profit into a loss.

The next group of figures include the profit or loss on disposal of fixed assets and players and it’s important to be aware of how this is worked out. The book value of a player at the time we sell him is not his cost but his cost less all amortisation charged on him (and this could include a part charge if we sell him part way through the financial year). Taking the example of a £6 million player on a three year contract, we have already said we would charge £2 million per year. Therefore if we sell him at the end of his second year for £3 million it looks like, on the surface, we have lost £3 million. However, in accounting terms we have actually made a profit of £1 million. How come? Well, we’ve charged two lots of amortisation (2 x £2 million), which totals £4 million and this reduces his accounting value to £2 million (£6 million cost – £4 million amortisation). So this explains how the club can claim we made a profit on the sale of a player even though we got a lot less than we paid for him. This means that the sale of SWP, who cost us nothing, will generate a huge profit in the 2006 accounts. The small profit we show in these accounts reduces our overall loss from £8,060 to £7,721.

The next group of entries relate to interest, both payable and receivable and something called Stadium finance lease charges. As we are in debt, we obviously pay more interest than we receive. It also, as far as I’m aware includes the interest that has been added to the loans from Wardle and Makin, whether or not we actually pay it to them. The charge for lease interest represents the interest that we believe would have been charged if we’d borrowed the money and is part of the actual payments we make during the year. The actual lease payments are not themselves expenses, just the interest element and likewise for other loan repayments and bank interest. Notes 5 & 6 are not desperately illuminating as all they do is split out bank interest from total interest on our other loans.

The subject of tax is very complicated but suffice it to say that, with our losses, we pay no tax. The last figure of loss per share (or earnings per share if we make a profit) is explained in Note 8 and is a key measure used by financial analysts but is more useful for companies that pay a dividend on their shares.

What does all this mean at the end of the day? Well, we’ve made a loss of over £15.5 million but that doesn’t mean we’ve spent £15.5 million more cash than we received in income. £11.5 million of this, for example, was for the accounting entry relating to amortisation and no cash is involved. We can see what our income is, how it is split and how much we pay in wages. We can also see what our overall interest bill is. So we can get some idea of where all the money goes and it partly answers the question that people often ask: “How come with one of the biggest incomes in world football we never seem to have any money?” However, it doesn’t tell us how much net cash we generate or what our overall financial state is.

In the 2006 accounts our profits will presumably be pretty impressive but much of this will be down to the £21 million received for SWP, which should be pure profit. The salient figures will be our income, in which a decent cup run was negated by a fifteenth place finish. So there’s probably not going to be much change there. The wage bill should be reduced and it will be interesting to see by how much. Amortisation of players should also be a lot lower. So even without the SWP sale, I would expect we should be close to an overall profit. But that doesn’t mean much in itself although the club PR machine will undoubtedly focus on it.

In the next article I’ll attempt to explain the Balance Sheet and this, I think I can promise you, will make very interesting reading.

OPINION: THE BUNGS AND MANAGERIAL BUNGLES

I see KK has declared that he’s never seen or been offered bungs during his management career. I’m glad he’s cleared that up and we can now rest assured that the following signings were just a case of poor judgement:

Vuoso – what can one say? City paid £3.5 million for an unknown Argentinian while Arsenal bought Gilberto Silve (who just won a World Cup winners’ medal with Brazil) for £4 million. I’ve heard it alleged that KK was surprised to find his new signing didn’t speak English.

Macken – bought for £5 million when promotion back to the Premiership was assured. He came carrying a knee injury that kept him out for the first 18 months of his Premiership career. As it turned out the transfer market collapsed during the close season when ITV Digital went bust.

Negouai – wasn’t he going to be the next Patrick Viera? Only just missed that target didn’t he?

Put these with other errors of judgement such as Fowler, Seaman and MacPointyman and it’s no wonder the Club’s skint.

One further thought – will Bolton fans be adapting the Baggies’ chant and singing Bung, Bung, Bolton, Bolton.

OPINION: SCOUSE SENSE OF HUMOUR BYPASS I

Can someone tell me just when fun was surgically removed from our game?

I’m talking of course about our wayward son’s latest activity, i.e. Blue Mooning at the end of the Everton game.

When there is talk of police and FA action over some daft boy flashing his backside, I think it really is time to give up all hope. The only police action required would have been for some burly Sgt to have given him a clip round the ear and tell him to get home before he went to see his parents.

I mean really, players nowadays are not allowed to go to supporters after scoring, nor take their shirt off. They are not allowed to react to the crowd’s banter, for God’s sake they are even told not to make eye contact with people in the crowd.

I don’t know if anyone else would remember this, but once back in the 70’s when we had a good team, City were playing Everton at Goodison, the Everton supporters had been jeering Mike Sumerbee all through the first half of the game, and were chanting “Concorde” at him because of his huge nose.

When the players came out for the second half, Summerbee had a big plastic cup on his nose!

The Everton fans loved him for it and he got a massive round of applause off them simply because he joined in the banter.

Nowadays he would probably have been locked up by the police, and faced a massive fine and ban from the FA for inciting the crowd.

I think it’s about time someone realised that the game is supposed to be fun!

Keep the faith.

OPINION: SCOUSE SENSE OF HUMOUR BYPASS II

Well Joey Barton ‘blue-mooned’ the crowd. For goodness sake things are getting rather out-of-hand now; soon you won’t be able to pick your nose in public ’cause someone doesn’t like it or the person doing it. I can imagine Rodney Marsh or Stan Bowles doing something like that, and everyone would laugh!

How times have changed. In this pathetic PC world we now live in, the fun is going out of life, you can’t do this and you can’t do that etc., and I’m not a Joey Barton fan but for goodness sake, people are starving in this world, dying from AIDS and cancer and we worry about a footie player dropping his pants at the crowd.

We all need a reality check, and that includes the twits at the FA (hmmm FA, wonder what the stands for?!).

A good point at Everton if a bit late! Go easy on him Stu.

OPINION: OFFICIAL SITE

Some months ago, I wrote that I thought that the City website was rubbish and someone from the club wrote to me and pointed out something that I always believe myself. Don’t criticise unless you think there is a better solution.

At that time, I thought that other clubs had much better websites than City’s and it was easy to criticise. I also had a particular irritant in the way that the City scores were displayed on the Fixtures/Results page. Only occasionally, does someone put the ‘Home’ team score first when in a list of opponents. But City were one of them. This used to get right up my nose.

Well, after a number of moans about this, City corrected this and, I hope everyone agrees, the results are much easier to read down the list at a glance as you know without looking whether the game was at home or not, if City won lost or drew as the City score is now always first. May I thank the powers that be for that. They have satisfied at least one supporter.

But on the general website, they began giving it a new look a couple months ago and it was all over the place. Pictures were overlapping written data and it just looked a mess. I believe that these were teething problems as it seems to be OK now.

As for how it looks now, it is much the same structure, but it definitely looks better, particularly the home page where there is always an up to date picture to go with the latest headline. It now has a more modern look to it and is easier to navigate than it was before.

I gave my negative criticism so now I think it only fair to express positive criticism. Much, much better. Well done City.

[You see John, they do listen! It’s a vast improvement, and good to see that City haven’t gone down the route of so many other clubs with those awful Premium TV sites – Ed]

OPINION: WEDDING DAY BLUES

Come on Billy, you’re from my era, you’ve got to have Paul Simpson!

REQUEST: SWINTON BLUES

The next meeting of the Swinton branch is on Thursday 5th October, K.O. 8-00pm. Our guests for the evening are Alex Williams MBE and Fred Eyre.

We will be presenting Alex with a cheque to the value of £2,500 for City In The Community. This money was raised at the successful CSA Gala Dinner held last May in the presence of Stuart Pearce and other notable guests.

Admission is £1-00 adults, U/16s free. There will be the usual Q&A with our guests and all Blues are welcome. The venue is Swinton Conservative, Swinton Precinct, Swinton. For further details, if required please contact me on 0161-281-7517.

RESULTS

1 October 2006

Blackburn Rovers      2 - 1  Wigan Athletic        17,859
Manchester United     2 - 0  Newcastle United      75,664
Tottenham Hotspur     2 - 1  Portsmouth            36,063
West Ham United       0 - 1  Reading               34,872

30 September 2006

Bolton Wanderers      2 - 0  Liverpool             25,061
Charlton Athletic     1 - 2  Arsenal               26,770
Chelsea               1 - 1  Aston Villa           41,951
Everton               1 - 1  Manchester City       38,250
Sheffield United      2 - 1  Middlesbrough         27,483

League table to 01 October 2006 inclusive

                             HOME          AWAY        OVERALL
                    P  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F  A  W  D  L  F   A   GD Pts
 1 Manchester Utd   7  3  0  1  8  2  2  1  0  6  2  5  1  1  14   4  10  16
 2 Chelsea          7  3  1  0  7  2  2  0  1  5  2  5  1  1  12   4   8  16
 3 Bolton Wndrs     7  3  1  0  5  0  1  1  1  2  3  4  2  1   7   3   4  14
 4 Portsmouth       7  2  0  1  4  1  2  1  1  6  2  4  1  2  10   3   7  13
 5 Everton          7  2  2  0  8  4  1  2  0  4  2  3  4  0  12   6   6  13
 6 Aston Villa      7  3  0  0  6  1  0  4  0  3  3  3  4  0   9   4   5  13
 7 Reading          7  2  1  0  5  3  2  0  2  4  4  4  1  2   9   7   2  13
 8 Arsenal          6  1  2  0  5  2  2  0  1  3  2  3  2  1   8   4   4  11
 9 Blackburn R.     7  2  1  1  7  6  1  1  1  1  3  3  2  2   8   9  -1  11
10 Liverpool        7  3  0  0  7  1  0  1  3  1  7  3  1  3   8   8   0  10
11 Manchester City  7  2  1  0  3  0  0  1  3  3  9  2  2  3   6   9  -3   8
12 Fulham           6  1  1  1  2  3  1  1  1  3  6  2  2  2   5   9  -4   8
13 Newcastle Utd    7  1  1  1  4  4  1  0  3  2  6  2  1  4   6  10  -4   7
14 Tottenham H.     7  2  1  1  4  3  0  0  3  0  6  2  1  4   4   9  -5   7
15 Wigan Athletic   6  1  1  0  2  1  0  1  3  4  7  1  2  3   6   8  -2   5
16 West Ham United  7  1  1  2  4  5  0  1  2  2  5  1  2  4   6  10  -4   5
17 Middlesbrough    7  1  0  2  2  6  0  2  2  4  6  1  2  4   6  12  -6   5
18 Sheff. United    7  1  2  1  4  4  0  0  3  0  6  1  2  4   4  10  -6   5
19 Watford          6  0  2  1  2  3  0  1  2  2  4  0  3  3   4   7  -3   3
20 Charlton Ath.    7  1  0  3  3  6  0  0  3  2  7  1  0  6   5  13  -8   3

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

[5] What supporters’ clubs are there?

Manchester City FC recognises three supporters’ clubs: The “Official Supporters Club” (http://www.mcfcosc.com/); the “Centenary Supporters’ Association” (http://www.reddishblues.com/CSAWebsite/CSA.htm) and “The International Supporters’ Club”.

[6] Where can I find out about the fans’ committee?

The Fans’ Committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. The Fans’ Committee has been relaunched as “Points of Blue”. It has appeared on the club website as a minor entry under “Fans Zone”.

[7] What match day broadcasts are available on the web?

The Radio Manchester (née GMR) pre and post match phone-in is available on the web at http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/sport/manchester_city/index.shtml.

Live match commentaries and archives of games, reports and interviews can be found at http://mcfc.videoloungetv.com/do/preLogin?clubSiteCode=MCFC&CMP=AFC-003.

[8] Where can I find out if City are live on satellite TV?

http://www.satfootball.com/pl.html provides a listing of Premiership games being shown on UK domestic and foreign satellite channels. Useful sites for North American viewers are http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer, http://www.soccertv.com/, and http://www.livesoccertv.com/.

[9] Do we have a Usenet newsgroup?

Yes we do: uk.sport.football.clubs.man-city is our home on usenet. If you are not familiar with usenet, a basic explanation is available here: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci213262,00.html

[10] Do any squad members have their own web pages?

There are a number available and direct links can be found at http://www.uit.no/mancity/players/

[11] Can I buy shares in the club?

Yes you can: Shares in Manchester City PLC are traded on OFEX. The latest prices can be on found the Plus Markets Group web site http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/ or in the business section of the Manchester Evening News.

[12] Where can I find match statistics?

Statistics for the current season are available from the club site, but for a more in-depth analysis try http://www.mcfcstats.com/.

[13] I hear there is a TV programme specifically about City?

InsideMCFC is broadcasted by ChannelM. It is available on the SkyDigital (ch.203) and NTL (ch.26) platforms as well as being transmittedtraditionally within the Manchester area (ch.39). In addition, theprogramme is available to watch via the web. More details and schedule:http://www.channelm.co.uk/features/city.html

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, editor@mcivta.city-fan.org

Editor: