Newsletter #1289

Shock news as City win three games in succession and emerge from the festive period with 9 points out of 12.

Tonight we have opinion on the Christmas programme, an open letter about the investment and state of the club, views on the potential Richards transfer and a plea from fans at Arsenal.

Email problems now resolved and normal service resumed from Thursday’s edition!

OPINION: CHRISTMAS CHEER

Two wins back to back, and away from home, takes City back up the EPL table. A hard fought game gave the Blues a win against a battling Sheffield United on Boxing Day.

Then on December 30th the Blues burst the West Ham supporters’ bubble, as they sang “I’m forever blowing bubbles”. Beasley came on as a super sub, and scored a great individual goal, I sure hope that Beasley stays fit now to play on the left flank.

Credit must be given to Stuart Pearce for how he selected the players for both games, he used his subs with great game plans, and got his players motivated to play with passion.

January 1st let’s make it three in a row with a win against Everton, a hat trick of wins!

Come on you Blues! It’s going to be a great year!

Keep the faith in Stuart Pearce.

OPINION: HALF TERM REPORT

Well 2007’s here and for what it’s worth here’s my half-term report.

Nicky Weaver: Outstanding, thrilled for him. Player of the season so far.
Onuoha: Glad to see him back as well.
Dunney: A couple of lapses, so what? A tower of strength at the back.
Distin: Appears lazy at times, prone to costly mistakes, but great with Dunney.
Jordan/Thatcher: Good and bad moments.
Trabelsi: Has talent, doesn’t always use it.
Barton: Having a good season.
Dabo/Hammann/Reyna: All disappointing, and injured.
Richards: Looks the goods.
Ireland: Plenty of talent and skill, as SP said, “needs to become more selfish”.
Vassell: Runs/runs/runs, at times looks very uninterested.
Samaras/Corradi: Would be nice if you could score occasionally guys. We desperately need a fifteen goal a season striker (ten would be nice!).
Stuart Pearce: At times tactics are a bit baffling. Has a bad habit of praising the opposition manager before we lose. Needs to call them a mongrel! Hope he becomes successful with City.
Team: 10/20 teams, and as my old teachers would say, “Has ability, but could do better”.

Hope for a good 2007,

OPINION: AN OPEN LETTER

To David Makin and John Wardle

Saturday 14th February 1998. On that day David Makin rang GMR with a rant that resulted in the sacking of Frank Clark and the removal of Francis Lee as Manchester City chairman.

To quote Ashley from MCIVTA 372 on Monday 16th February 1998:

“However, the most notable event of the day occurred in Cheadle Hulme at 5.30pm – well actually, I was in Cheadle Hulme at that time, and the event occurred on GMR. Steve had nipped into the off-licence for some Prozac substitute (Boddies and wine) whilst I waited outside, despondently listening to GMR. Finding myself increasingly irritated by the pontifications of Wilf the Red, the programme was illuminated by someone who actually knew what he was talking about – David Makin. Now David Makin is a the co-owner of JD Sports and 10% shareholder in the club; what was he ringing up for, did he want to tell us all to keep the faith and stick with Frannie? Nope! What came next was real (and undoubtedly still is) headline stuff, he was obviously pretty choked up and first of all apologised for speaking out on public radio when he’s a shareholder. He then went on to say that the club was in a terrible position and that the man responsible was – Francis Lee! He then went on to describe how FHL rode roughshod over all at the club and had created an appalling atmosphere in which it was very difficult to work. Furthermore, he was privileged to know that there were people waiting to come in and take over. He said that Frannie should swallow his pride and walk; however, he reckoned he’d be waiting for the best deal (read into that what you will) but that he shouldn’t wait too long as the price will drop dramatically when we hit the 2nd Division!”

Well the time is now for you David Makin and John Wardle to do what you promised. Yes, you spent a lot backing Keegan to get us back into the Premiership but that was then and this is now. This club is going down unless you two do something about it. I know it, most fans know it and the players know it. So either sell the club pronto or unveil this investor. For we have to spend £20 million to stay up.

(Note: Not that for one second do I actually believe that there is a potential investor – I believe it was another half-truth in a series that has been delivered by a board who are hopelessly out of touch with the fans and were desperate to avoid awkward questions at the AGM.)

Whether we keep Stuart Pearce as Manager is irrelevant. A club simply cannot sell its best players and not replace them and expect to stay in the Premiership. We pocketed £33 million from the sale of Anelka and SWP and others and have spent £8 million (Note: Samaras has only cost us £3-4 million so far). Put simply, we have no pace on the flanks or up front and nobody who can score. Unless these problems are corrected (and quickly) we are going down. Personally I think SP has done well to keep us in the league so far on a very small budget. But can he keep us up? Well unless he’s allowed to spend the cash or unless he plays the kids (and they succeed – which is unlikely) then I doubt it.

The bad news for our two leading shareholders is that a proven goal scorer in the Premiership or from Germany or Spain will cost £8+ million and a decent wide man will cost £5+ million. That means we need to spend £15+ million in the transfer window – but will they splash the cash? I actually doubt it. All their actions indicate that they are no longer interested in spending money on City but they don’t want to sell either.

So Mr Makin, in light of what you said in 1998, the time is now for you to act – as actions speak louder than words. The options are thus:

1. We spend and (hopefully) stay up
2. You get someone else in who can spend and (hopefully) stay up
3. We spend peanuts and go down
4. Sell while we can (from a position of strength) and prepare the clubfor Division 1 where we have a reasonable financial base

But like FHL in 1998 are you and Mr Wardle yourselves now “holding on for a better offer”? If you are then just like in the FHL days the club is going to suffer. To me, looking in from the outside, it’s like the end of Animal Farm when the animals looked in at the window and could no longer tell the difference between the humans and the pigs!

If you’re going to spend then you need to have the players in place by January 1 (and not January 31st). And if you spend the money you have to think long and hard as to who the manager should be who spends the money. Of course if you aren’t going to spend – best to sell our best assets while we can – before we have to give them away after relegation. But if you do the latter you’d best hire good security to protect yourself from the nutters!

Of course, City being City, we’ll probably spend big and still go down.

OPINION: THE RICHARDS SAGA

So Stuart Pearce thinks if Micah Richards goes to Chelsea it would be “the death knell” of the club. Memo to Stuart: Players have come and gone and some very good ones at that, and the club still survives, with a scare or two.

From the skills of Kinkladze, Lake, Goater, Wright-Phillips, Bell, Summerbee, the list goes on, players come and go and I really think that Manchester City will continue, and in the Premiership. Maybe Stuart should look at some of the duds he has bought into the club (and they say Keegan made some bad choices).

What’s good for the club is the main concern, and although I would hate to see him go, life will go on. The question to Micah is, does he want to be a bit player like Shaun, or does he want to play every week? I know the answer I’d choose.

Glad for the win at Bramhall Lane, and looking ahead in a couple of years we’ll still be in the Premiership, and moaning about the players that might leave, some things never change and that’s the joy of following City (just imagine how boring it would be winning the title year after year, where’s the fun in that?).

Have a good New Year.

REQUEST: FOOTBALL FANS UNITED

I received the following from a fellow Blue and believe we should all support this…

I am writing to every decent Club forum in the UK regarding this issue of national flags being banned from the Emirates Stadium by Arsenal FC Directors. We are aiming to get a 20,000 signature petition from fans of not only our club but from all decent football fans that are fed up with being dictated to by fat cats on the board. We have had a good response from Glasgow Rangers fans regarding this issue and I am therefore now going to ask our friends at Manchester City to help us in our quest; the issue is: on Saturday 16th December 2006, Arsenal Football club implemented a ban on not only home supporters but all visiting supporters going to the Emirates Stadium asking them not to display national flags within the stadium; this includes the cross of St George and the Union Flag.

As working class people and lifelong football fans, who pay the players’ wages through over inflated admission prices, we have had enough of being told what to do and having the enjoyment of the game taken away from us by corporate busybodies.

We respect that we are a club supported worldwide by people from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, but the fundamental issue is that we are a British club. Arsenal FC is a British institution, we haven’t sold out to Russian, American or Middle Eastern billionaires and we should be proud of that fact.

In banning all national flags from the stadium, it seems to us as though, through this decision, the club has been hijacked by the virus known as “crazy political correctness” that is sweeping our country. We think it is a ludicrous decision by the club to ban fans from displaying flags that show our national identity.

We have been informed that the flag that caused offence was that of Northern Cyprus, which understandably is offensive to our Greek Cypriot supporters. However, would it not make more sense to ask the owner of the flag to leave it at home of face ejection from the stadium, rather than punishing the whole of our support and all visiting supporters?

It is an age old tradition of the game to have flags and banners and the spectacle it provides and addition to the atmosphere can be amazing.

It costs not only individual supporters, but the supporters’ clubs in the UK and also around the world, a lot of money to have these flags made/customised to include the club names and emblems stitched into them, we are proud to show off our flags and banners when we travel abroad, fans from other clubs have their photos taken with us and us with them, so what happens now? Opposing European clubs come to The Emirates and are told sorry but your national flags are banned? What happens if we stage another international friendly, is the ban lifted then?

This decision stinks of another step to total corporate takeover of our club and there is a similar scene around the country, a blow to fans like myself that have been going to football for over 30 odd years, slowly but surely, everything we came to love about our beloved game is disappearing.

We ask you all collectively as football fans to get together on this and sign our petition, which will be presented to the club when we reach the 20,000 mark. We hope to try to make them see sense and change their minds, as we are certain that there will be many more complaints against this decision than those for it.

We hope you will join us in this and thank you for your support; the petition can be found on the link. http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/flagsafc

RESULTS

League table to 30 December 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  21  9  1  1 26  7  8  1  1 21  6 17  2  2  47  13  34  53
 2 Chelsea         21  7  4  0 20  8  7  1  2 17  9 14  5  2  37  17  20  47
 3 Bolton Wndrs    21  7  1  3 17 10  5  2  3 10  8 12  3  6  27  18   9  39
 4 Liverpool       21  8  2  0 20  3  3  2  6  9 13 11  4  6  29  16  13  37
 5 Arsenal         21  5  5  0 24  8  5  1  5 13 11 10  6  5  37  19  18  36
 6 Portsmouth      21  7  2  1 19  7  3  3  5 13 14 10  5  6  32  21  11  35
 7 Everton         21  6  3  2 18  8  2  4  4  9 12  8  7  6  27  20   7  31
 8 Tottenham H.    21  8  1  2 19  9  1  3  6  6 18  9  4  8  25  27  -2  31
 9 Reading         21  5  1  4 12 13  3  2  6 12 17  8  3 10  24  30  -6  27
10 Manchester City 21  4  4  2  8  5  3  1  7  9 19  7  5  9  17  24  -7  26
11 Fulham          21  5  2  3  9  8  1  6  4 13 24  6  8  7  22  32 -10  26
12 Aston Villa     21  4  3  3 12 11  1  7  3 11 14  5 10  6  23  25  -2  25
13 Newcastle Utd   21  5  2  3 14 11  2  2  7  7 15  7  4 10  21  26  -5  25
14 Blackburn R.    20  5  2  4 14 13  2  2  5  7 16  7  4  9  21  29  -8  25
15 Sheff. United   21  3  4  4 12 14  3  1  6  4 12  6  5 10  16  26 -10  23
16 Wigan Athletic  20  3  2  5 12 15  3  2  5 11 14  6  4 10  23  29  -6  22
17 Middlesbrough   21  5  2  3 10 10  0  4  7  8 16  5  6 10  18  26  -8  21
18 West Ham United 21  5  1  5 10 11  0  2  8  2 16  5  3 13  12  27 -15  18
19 Charlton Ath.   21  4  3  4 10 13  0  1  9  7 23  4  4 13  17  36 -19  16
20 Watford         19  1  5  3  8  9  0  3  7  4 17  1  8 10  12  26 -14  11

MCIVTA FAQ [v0607.01]

[1] MCIVTA Addresses

Articles (Heidi Pickup)          : editor@mcivta.city-fan.org
News/rumour (Don Barrie)         : news@mcivta.city-fan.org
Subscriptions (Madeleine Hawkins): subscriptions@mcivta.city-fan.org
Technical problems (Paul)        : paul@city-fan.org
FAQ (David Warburton)            : faq@mcivta.city-fan.org

[2] What are MCIVTA’s publishing deadlines?

Deadlines for issues are nominally 6pm, Monday and Thursday evenings bu email. Unfortunately we cannot accept email attachments.

[3] 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.

[4] What is the club’s official web site?

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: