Your favourite promotion season?

[M18CTID]

For the football played, it has to be Keegan's season in 01-02. Nothing else comes close for me but although I got a hell of a lot of enjoyment out of that, I didn't get to quite a few of the away games so for personal reasons it's 98-99. It wasn't just because I did every away league game but also because there were so many new grounds to visit and on the whole I had a great time at virtually every game regardless of the result due to the fact that I went to most of the games with the Levenshulme branch and each match day was an event in itself. York away may well have been our lowest ebb but it was a legendary piss-up. Lincoln was the shittest away day by a mile. I couldn't get out of work early enough to get on the Leve coach as we were short-staffed so I had to book on the official travel club coach. No beer allowed of course, having to listen to Radio fucking 4 throughout the whole journey, and to top it all a late departure time coupled with horrendous traffic problems as we neared Lincoln meant that I couldn't even get a couple of pre-match pints once I arrived. What followed was a shit display on the pitch and then I had to look forward to a journey home on that fucking coach. Luckily, I negotiated a trip home on the Leve coach which at least made things a little bit more bearable!

As for those promotion seasons where I wasn't attending matches or only attended a few, 84-85 was good but my favourite is 88-89.

 

[bluesking]

However, for personal reasons, I'll nominate 1988/9. Partly, this was because I was at university in the south so, as well as making it to most home games, I started going away regularly as well for the first time, which I really enjoyed. We took good numbers (in relative terms during an era of low gates), and were vocal, but it was the height of the inflatables craze so it was always a laugh. And there was something about that team, too. Six members of the 1986 youth team were regulars that year: Hinchcliffe, Redmond, Lake, White and Moulden all made more than 40 appearances in all competitions, while Ian Brightwell reached 30. They were all a similar age to me and I loved watching them. I identified with them in a way that's much more difficult today. They'd grown up with the club and it was totally evident both how much Manchester City and how much playing with one another meant to them, which was lovely to see. And their youth seemed to offer us hope for the future. From 1982 onwards, things at City had been pretty gloomy, but heading for promotion with a talented young core of the side couldn't help but make you feel optimistic.

This and well articulated mate. Sums up my feelings exactly. I was 16 at the time and other than the 81 Cup Final and the earlier 84-85 promotion season there had been bugger all to celebrate. I remember going to Hull for the first match of the season at Boothferry Park and in "Typical City" mode parading our new signings such as Brian Gayle and Wayne Biggins etc.. and hitting the woodwork 4 times after outplaying the home side and still getting beat with a late goal!!

Even after losing at home to Oldham with Palmer getting his customary goal against us I thought that it would our year culminating with Bradford away and I just cannot describe to my daughters the feelings of euphoria after the final whistle. Probably the title winning goal from Sergio in 2011/12 but they were great days that's for sure!