Newsletter #1445

Alex’s monthly round-up tonight, opinion on Dr T’s latest court case, Sparky taking up the reins and plenty of requests.

We also have details from the Faroe Islands on travel options as the club announce their official deals for £885 for two nights.

JUNE MONTHLY ROUND UP

The revolving door has been put in place at Eastlands this month with a complete overhaul of the backroom staff. After a long drawn out two month struggle, Sven finally left the club on the second of June only to sign up with the Mexican national team one day later. Sven thanked the players, the staff and the fans for their constant support over a difficult time and was gracious enough to wish the club every success in the future. Having spent time and energy trying to keep Sven in the job, Blues’ fans had to come to the realization that it was time to move on and two days later, they had reason to.

Mark Hughes agreed terms with the club on the fourth and was unveiled to the club on the fifth. Some fans automatically feared that since ‘Sparky’ was an ex-Red he might either lack the passion to do the job properly or would use the club as a stepping stone to jobs such as Chelsea, Barcelona and Stretford Reds. It is only fair to say that Hughes did a brilliant job at Blackburn Rovers during his time there. When he joined they were a club scrapping against relegation, lucky to remain in the division. By the time he left, the club had transformed into one that expected top ten football all season and went on to challenge for a European place. Hughes twice helped Rovers progress through the UEFA Cup stages and also has the experience of creating a Wales squad capable of beating then to be world champions Italy. City have brought in a young, successful, British manager with European experience and a good eye in the transfer market as proved by his £3.3 million acquisition of Roque Santa Cruz last season. Set aside the fact that ‘Sparky’ may have once played on the wrong side of Manchester and City fans should be very excited by what is to come.

As Tord Grip and Hans Backe followed Sven out of the club, Hughes brought in his own backroom staff. Mark Bowen joined as assistant manager, Kevin Hitchcock replaced Eric Steele as goalkeeping coach and Derek Fazackerley left the club to be substituted by Eddie Niedzwiecki as first team coach. Long serving Chief Executive Alistair Mackintosh left City by mutual consent following the appointment of new Executive Chairman Garry Cook. Cook was introduced to the club by Shinawatra as the man to put City on the map and with his international/top of the ladder connections within the sports industry, City hopes of breaking Europe and the rest of the world have been given a great boost. It is important though to thank Alistair Mackintosh for his decade of service, which saw him drag City through the difficult times alongside former Chairman John Wardle – it is thoroughly appreciated by the fans. Paul Aldridge was next to join the club from Leicester City as Chief Operating Officer but time was up for Ian Miller and Stefano Marrone who have both been shown the door following the backroom revolution.

Special mentions must go to Vedran Corluka, Andreas Isaksson, Gelson Fernandes and Georgios Samaras who all represented the club at the Euro 2008 Championship. Joe Hart made his first senior appearance for England against Trinidad and Tobago right at the start of the month but it was revealed that the clause in Hart’s contract regarding international appearances that would lead to a cash windfall for Shrewsbury will not be activated until Hart’s first start for his country. On the same day that the club extended its shirt sponsorship deal with Thomas Cook, the club paid tribute to Mark Vivien Foe to commemorate the fifth anniversary of his death. The man who played thirty eight games will always be remembered for his tragic death on the football pitch but Manchester City FC continue to respect his memory with the retired number 23 shirt.

With the Jo deal on the verge of completion and rumours of Ronaldinho still surrounding the club, July promises to be an interesting month as ‘Sparky’ uses his supposedly huge transfer budget to create a squad capable of competing in the UEFA Cup this season.

OPINION: ENOUGH ALREADY

Anyone out there as pee’d off as me with how long it’s taking the relevant TV companies to decide which games they will broadcast? It is my opinion that they have no regard for us football fans bearing in mind that it’s now three weeks since the fixtures were announced.

So come on guys in TV land, get your bl**dy fingers out.

I also wanted to thank Paul Dickov who has ended his time at Man City, for that goal at Wembley, and indeed being a player who always gave 100 per cent, good luck to you Paul.

I hope that all this speculation about Ronaldinho signing for City comes to end soon, it’s doing my head in to be frank. Has anyone seen pictures of this guy recently? Well if not check it out, he has some Ned Kelly on him. Even worse than mine and I am over 50.

OPINION: ON YOUR SPARKS, GET SET, GO

Sparky has got off to a very good start as team manager/coach, making his priorities the extension signings of Dunne and Hart completed, and the signing of Brazilian striker Jo, his main target. Also by letting ten players go, and making room for new players perhaps.

The media is full of Ronaldinho’s brother agent claiming that he wants to play for AC Milan and that it is now 90% certain that he will be going to Milan.

Whilst AC Milan Vice President Adriano Galliani tells the Italian Newspaper La Stampa that Ronaldinho has stated he does not want to go to Manchester City, he goes on to say the only stumbling block from Milan signing him are the wages of Ronaldinho; Milan have so far only offered half the amount that MCFC have offered.

I just feel if Ronaldinho has not jumped at the offer from MCFC, then he is not going to come to City with playing for City in his heart and we are better off without him.

Sure, I like many others do not know what is truly going on behind the scenes, and can only go on what the media and press are feeding us, but this has been going on for such a long time all because of contracts that Ronaldinho has on and off the pitch, and his unwillingness to say that he wants to play for City.

As far as I am concerned, let Sparky find another player, one who has playing for City in his heart and will probably cost the club a lot less; as fans are not too interested in the marketing as much as it is very important to the club – we want a winning team.

We want a team of stars that make up a great team, without a prima donna in the team.

Come on you Blues and good luck Sparky.

OPINION: DR T’S PICNIC

Courtesy of Crain’s Magazine.

I can only say it must have been a very large snack box to accommodate £30,000 worth of Thai Money. They must have got it from Jade Goody or Michelle McManus or maybe TV big bird Fearn Britton sold it on ebay after she had her gastric band fitted. Either way it’s a lot of dough in such a small receptacle.

With Dr T’s brother in law as the acting Ministry of Justice this can only go one way and we can have £980m to spend.

Don’t you just love the beautiful game, nothing’s changed has it?

Coats for goalposts, steel toe caps, hot vimto at half time, a waggon wheel for the walk home, bad language and a stench of cheap tobacco filling the terraces…

What do we have now?

Corporate seating, image rights, Singha beer, no smoking all seater stadia, golden ballet shoes and the transfer kitty relying on the outcome of a fraud trial in SE Asia…

World’s gone soft.

Court bars Thaksin from leaving Thailand

Thailand’s supreme court has barred Manchester City owner Thaksin Shinawatra from leaving the country pending hearings on a corruption case against him and his wife, Thai newspapers reported today.

The former Thai Prime Minister had planned to travel to China, Japan and Britain in the next few weeks.

But his request to go abroad was not granted because it coincides with the appearance of prosecution witnesses in the case.

Charges against Thaksin and his wife accuse them of breaking laws that ban serving politicians and their spouses from striking deals with Thai state bodies. They deny any wrongdoing. Telecoms billionaire Thaksin is currently trying to recover around £980 million in assets that were frozen when he was ousted in 2006.

Thaksin’s lawyer and two legal advisers were jailed last week after being found guilty of an apparent attempt to bribe supreme court officials with £30,000 hidden in a snack box.

OPINION: BOOK REVIEW

Manchester: A Football History by Gary James

I’ve just finished reading this superb book and as I ended up ordering several more copies for other people from Amazon, I thought I’d put a review on their site. This is it:

The pleasure I have received from reading this book has left me morally obliged to do my first ever Amazon Review. Whilst I will attempt to wax lyrical, a little story first that will probably be more convincing in its way than any words of praise that I can muster.

Although a Manchester City fan, I joined a coachful from our pub to go and give Stockport County a cheer in their play-off game at Wembley against Rochdale. The coach was a fair mix of County (obviously), City and United fans. I took Gary James’s book to while away the journey. Suffice to say that others took an interest in it and were blown away with the ‘differentness’ of it. By the time we returned, I’d taken a total of 11 orders for copies!

The book clearly has a ‘wow’ factor. I think one of its main qualities is the author’s refusal to merely compartmentalise each Manchester club’s history. Instead it is largely chronological and dwells many times on the relationships between clubs rather than just significant events in their individual pasts. Whilst United and City inevitably figure prominently, there is due credit given to the likes of Bury who were Manchester’s first truly successful club. At the other extreme, newcomers FC United are given respect for their efforts to return affordable football to the grassroots supporter. In between, every club from the area has its roots explained and its triumphs and tribulations related accurately and entertainingly.

One of my favourite sections is the rise and unfortunate demise of Manchester Central FC. If United and City had not combined and connived to keep this fledging club out of the League in the late ’20’s/early ’30’s, then either there would have had three city centre teams or an ailing United could have gone to the wall.

Gary James has researched so deeply that many errors have been found in clubs’ official histories. Whilst such fine detail is to be commended, the narrative never lapses into a tedious list of dates that only the ‘anorak’ would appreciate. Instead it flows and has you wondering what happened next, even when on some occasions you were fairly sure you knew your football history.

As the guys on the coach found, this is a ‘once seen – must have’ book and I for one will be buying several more copies, as I have absolutely no doubt that as a Christmas or birthday present it will received with total delight.

I am now going to re-read Dave Wallace’s recent ‘Century City’ book. I have read selected chapters, but think I’ll return to the beginning and read it cover to cover. I’ll let you have my opinions later. It does beg the question though. What is your favourite City or general football book? Biography (auto, or otherwise), my favourite is undoubtedly Alan Rowland’s ‘Trautmann – The Biography’. The research and general standard of writing compared to some of the efforts published today (e.g. Robbie Fowler’s appalling recent book) is miles superior.

[A non-City recommendation is My Father & Other Working Class Football Heroes by Gary Imlach – Ed)

REQUEST: FAROE ISLANDS TRAVEL

We are the biggest bus company on the Faroe Islands. And now that we expect some of your fans here later this month, we were speculating if it would be in you interest to put at link to our website, somewhere on yours or to forward it to the right person.

We are capable to transport around 600 perons with our own coaches, and are capable to raise more capacity if needed.

You will find our website on http://www.bus.fo/ unfortunately it’s only in Faroese now but on Monday or Tuesday we will have it in English too.

REQUEST: ONLINE VIEWING

John Nisbet points out that upcoming City matches will be available to view online via livefootyonline, for a fee. These guys ask you to pay for something you can get for free elsewhere.

Firstly just download a free application called Sopcast to your PC (Google it). Then visit myp2p.eu which lists all available matches, and click on the Sopcast link next to the match you want. In my experience it’s completely safe (no trojans, adware etc.) and viewing is reasonably smooth 99% of the time.

REQUEST: CITY VIDEOS

I’m currently getting rid of all my video tapes and have just got round to the sporting ones. Rather than just rid them via eBay, I thought I’d offer them up via MCIVTA first as there are a couple of rareties in there for the collectors amongst you. The videos are all VHS and are in good condition:

• ‘Kick-off in German with Uwe Rösler’ (1996) – a short 15 min film about UweRösler issued by the Goethe Institut. I seem to remember reviewing this forMCIVTA way back then!
• Official video of the famous Huddersfield 10-1 game (1987) – back before thedays of such things, so basically the TV game and a matchday cover in a rentaltype box, sold at the City Store
• ‘Soccer Legends – Lee, Bell, Summerbee’ (1990) – BBC offering with lots ofinterviews, as well as goals!
• ‘Match of the Day – Manchester City’ (1993) – BBC offering, basically a ‘bestof’ MCFC down the years – nothing after 1993 though 😉
• ‘City are Back’ – official video of the 1998/99 season, including the epicplay-off at Wembley.
• ‘Over the Moon’ – official video of 1999/2000.

First decent offer gets them!

MCIVTA FAQ [v0708.01]

[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 Points of Blue (formerly the Fans’ Committee)?

The committee operates as an interface between supporters and the club. Points of Blue appears 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] 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/.

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: