... and in Other Football News

Outstanding performance from Villa.
Think I chose the right game to watch last night.

 

And note our crowd, and in comparison to the likes of Sunderland and Massive.

 

That last Div 4 match: Notts County 2-1 Bournemouth is interesting as it sort of brings back some personal memories.

Charlie Crickmore - former Tigers left winger (also played for Bournemouth) when I first watched City.

Tony Hateley - father of Mark who was briefly player-manager at City.

Ted MacDougall - once scored 9 goals in an FA cup game (the same day I happened to score 4 in a match).
My bloody team mates took the piss out of me, calling me rubbish in the bar when the MacDougall feat was announced on the radio! The only time I got more than 2 goals in a game in my life. Not one of 'em bought me a pint!

 

70/71 was a really good season - the Terry Neill feel-good factor was bringing them in; bottom line, we just didn't have the impetus to get us over the line into League 1, some good football played but after that season I don't think we looked like a true promotion side (to the top flight) until 2008.

I think I'm right in saying (happy to be corrected) that 70/71 was the season where the conspiracy theory that ''we threw promotion because we couldn't afford to go up'' was mooted by those allegedly ITK.

 

Another one was the Watch Committee, extra policing costs, extra trouble, blah blah.

I'm not sure which is the best way to disseminate the rumours. Seat by seat in the stadium, or just bung a load of bollox on here? With due respect and apologies to those ITK. Arrrffffff.

 

A Newcastle win by more than 1 tonight would see Citeh slip into the Europa League places...

 

Pele’s club Santos have been relegated for the first time in their 111 year history. That leaves only 2 Brazilian clubs who have never been relegated.

 

It's rubbish. The 'cannot afford to go up to the First Division', or 'City don't want First Division football' myth was wheeled out by the doubters way before the 70/71 season.
If City really didn't want promotion under Neill in 70/71 they wouldn't have spent £60k on Ken Knighton and another wedge on bringing Billy Baxter here after the Stoke FA Cup 6th rd defeat in March of 71. The real weakness in Terry Neills team was Neill himself and between the sticks.

 

70-71 became an almost mythical season for 37 years, how close are we to it this season?

 

It’s going well for them so far.

Was bollox anyway

 

That season was when I first went to City and became interested. What is interesting is that we were led to believe we had a free scoring attacking team. Looking at the table, we scored considerably less than most of the top half.

 

The fabled free scoring team was in 65/66 with 109 goals, by 70/71 that had halved!

 

jarrod bowen has played in seven premier league away games this season and has scored in all seven (he missed the win at burnley).

 

Can remember watching Ken Knighton in his City debut, a night game at Bramhall Lane, when City won 1-2 to go second in the table. Was a hell of a hard competitor. Can't recall if he replaced Chris Simpkin or if they played together briefly. That would have been some tough mid-field pairing. It was Sheff. United who eventually gained promotion and we missed out that season.

 

I would agree that there's very little anecdotal evidence that we tried to avoid promotion back in the day.It wouldn't have made sense as our capacity and fan-base would've been geared up for Division 1 Football.

70/71 was my first full season, I was 9 and just starting off my love affair with Hull City and the game of Football.Perhaps that's the reason why Terry Neill and Ian Mckechnie always stuck in my mind as important/pivotal names in the set up back then and I think of them both fondly from that era...

You being a bit older and wiser probably accounts for the difference in opinion? What was it that put you off Neill and McKechnie?

 

It was Neill's first attempt at management. So he was very much an apprentice manager and of course made mistakes. Managing and playing at the same time effected his game and judgement and to me he was the worst player in the team, but could he drop himself? I too remember McKechnie as probably the first name on the team sheet at the time and cannot remember him ever being dropped. He was a huge character and very popular but again, just my opinion,....not a very good goal keeper. Have a look at some of the old you tube clips of those days. The FA Cup game v Stoke 70/71 is a good example. There was a reason he was a free transfer from Southend United and was actually on the verge of emigrating to Australia before City signed him. I don't want to tarnish the memory of Ian McKechnie at all because he was a pivotal part of a City team that so nearly made it to the First Division, and I do believe if we had of recruited a more experienced manager instead of Neill and maybe just signed Terry Neill as a player, and maybe another keeper to give McKechnie a bit of competition the team may well have won promotion. I too remember talk at the time of wanting to sign Alex Stepney who was at Millwall and Dave Watson a centre half at Sunderland who I believe went onto to play for England, and probably, in hindsight it's a pity we didn't. I was there when we wallopped Leicester, the champions to be, 3-0 at home and inflicted upon, the runners up, Sheffield United, their first home defeat, as late as March of that year. The season fizzled out after that, with Neill getting himself sent off in a crunch game at Luton and missing a penalty at QPR.

 

i remember that the two promoted teams only took one point each from us.

 

Billy Baxter's debut too, both signed the day before the Sheffield United game which was the Monday after the Stoke FA Cup 6th rd defeat, a game we should have won after being two nil up . Knighton from Blackburn and Baxter from Ipswich, let go after a punch up dispute with the Ipswich manager, the late Bobby Robson