The wasted years.

paulchapo

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23 Nov 2010
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I have just been reading the thread on our worst players and by God have we had more than a few! Sitting here reflecting is anyone else angry about all those wasted years? The fact that a club that was right at the top competing in England sunk to the depths of the old third division and didn't win a major trophy for THIRTY FIVE YEARS! How in the hell was this allowed to happen?

Sure we can say we had some laughs along the way, that it was character building and that in part is true. To not win even a bloody league cup in all those years though was mismanagement of the highest order and a disgrace! So yes I may have all those crazy memories, it may have been character building and all that tosh but I am bloody angry that for half of the average man's life span we were a laughing stock and won fuck all. It should never have happened and I wish it never had.
 
We had to go through the shit times to really appreciate the great times we are now being blessed with
 
Of course it's all too easy to be angry about the wasted years but those shit days played a huge part in making us what we are, both as a club and as fans. I often wonder "what-if"?

What if Joe Mercer had kept his promise to step aside and given Big Mal a free run at the manager's job. There would probably have been no boardroom battles, no Swales and the Alexander family would have remained the majority shareholders. Mal would still have fucked up in all likelihood as he was temperamentally unsuited to the manager's job with all the skills required to do that properly. But we'd have had someone in the boardroom who would probably have kept a cooler head, made a decent managerial appointment and we'd probably have gone into the mid-1970's in decent shape. That team we had then was as good as any we've had before but it was a bit unlucky not to win more that it did.

Swales got rid of a perfectly competent manager in Tony Book and brought back Allison. I'm fairly certain Eric Alexander would have given Book more time, certainly wouldn't have brought Allison back and that great team wouldn't have been broken up as it was but rebuilt carefully. Book might have gone eventually but there would be a steady hand at the helm and we wouldn't have had the managerial revolving door we had under Swales. At worst we might have been a mid-table side but we might also have had some success as well. However we might have been run much more carefully, done OK financially and not needed a takeover. It's possible we could have been on a par with someone like Everton, just below the top clubs with an occasional decent cup-run.

Everything happens for a reason and the fact Swales fucked up so badly, that Lee couldn't put things right, that Bernstein was forced out just when things seemed to be coming together, the fact that we were owned by a skint billionaire who nearly finished us off completely. All these things played a part in getting us to where we are today.
 
Of course it's all too easy to be angry about the wasted years but those shit days played a huge part in making us what we are, both as a club and as fans. I often wonder "what-if"?

What if Joe Mercer had kept his promise to step aside and given Big Mal a free run at the manager's job. There would probably have been no boardroom battles, no Swales and the Alexander family would have remained the majority shareholders. Mal would still have fucked up in all likelihood as he was temperamentally unsuited to the manager's job with all the skills required to do that properly. But we'd have had someone in the boardroom who would probably have kept a cooler head, made a decent managerial appointment and we'd probably have gone into the mid-1970's in decent shape. That team we had then was as good as any we've had before but it was a bit unlucky not to win more that it did.

Swales got rid of a perfectly competent manager in Tony Book and brought back Allison. I'm fairly certain Eric Alexander would have given Book more time, certainly wouldn't have brought Allison back and that great team wouldn't have been broken up as it was but rebuilt carefully. Book might have gone eventually but there would be a steady hand at the helm and we wouldn't have had the managerial revolving door we had under Swales. At worst we might have been a mid-table side but we might also have had some success as well. However we might have been run much more carefully, done OK financially and not needed a takeover. It's possible we could have been on a par with someone like Everton, just below the top clubs with an occasional decent cup-run.

Everything happens for a reason and the fact Swales fucked up so badly, that Lee couldn't put things right, that Bernstein was forced out just when things seemed to be coming together, the fact that we were owned by a skint billionaire who nearly finished us off completely. All these things played a part in getting us to where we are today.
Still wrecks my head and makes me laugh that we were owned by an billionaire who was potless, only city could do that
 
Of course it's all too easy to be angry about the wasted years but those shit days played a huge part in making us what we are, both as a club and as fans. I often wonder "what-if"?

What if Joe Mercer had kept his promise to step aside and given Big Mal a free run at the manager's job. There would probably have been no boardroom battles, no Swales and the Alexander family would have remained the majority shareholders. Mal would still have fucked up in all likelihood as he was temperamentally unsuited to the manager's job with all the skills required to do that properly. But we'd have had someone in the boardroom who would probably have kept a cooler head, made a decent managerial appointment and we'd probably have gone into the mid-1970's in decent shape. That team we had then was as good as any we've had before but it was a bit unlucky not to win more that it did.

Swales got rid of a perfectly competent manager in Tony Book and brought back Allison. I'm fairly certain Eric Alexander would have given Book more time, certainly wouldn't have brought Allison back and that great team wouldn't have been broken up as it was but rebuilt carefully. Book might have gone eventually but there would be a steady hand at the helm and we wouldn't have had the managerial revolving door we had under Swales. At worst we might have been a mid-table side but we might also have had some success as well. However we might have been run much more carefully, done OK financially and not needed a takeover. It's possible we could have been on a par with someone like Everton, just below the top clubs with an occasional decent cup-run.

Everything happens for a reason and the fact Swales fucked up so badly, that Lee couldn't put things right, that Bernstein was forced out just when things seemed to be coming together, the fact that we were owned by a skint billionaire who nearly finished us off completely. All these things played a part in getting us to where we are today.

I agree with all this. I spoke to Tony Book's best mate in Tenerife and he said he felt Malcolm let him down. Tony could probably write a great book as could Halford but I doubt they will ever get written unfortunately. Plenty of sliding doors moments at City for sure. I appreciate a lot of the mad moments and hard times but as we lived through them I doubt many of us thought they would last so long. Character building and appreciating the good times could have been achieved in ten years or so it didn't have to be thirty bloody five lol!
 
This stuff is really interesting to me as pretty much the only thing i remember from the 90's is my mates dad screaming up in his 7 series and jumping out to say Utd got cole for 7m. My childhood was pretty shit as a city fan tbh, i fucking deserve what we have now damnit xD
 
The barren years were shit. We made the most of it mostly by running self deprectiating jokes about our crazy plight.

As they say; If we didn't laugh at ourselves, we'd have probably all burst out in a collective synchronised crying marathon.
 

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