Did “player power” begin at City?

[stan bowles]

I've just published a piece about Ron Saunders' four months as City manager in the 1973-74 season.

Saunders had been a military police officer during his National Service, but the sergeant major approach he brought to City caused a lot of resentment among some of the senior players.

He was sacked after Swales and two other directors called players into the players' lounge one by one and asked them what they thought of their manager. I haven't come across anything remotely similar elsewhere in football before this, and I think it's a good example of how often City have been at the forefront of wider footballing trends throughout our history.

The other thing that struck me was how City's buying-power in the early 1970s was not too different from today. We broke the British transfer record in the 1973-74 season with the £275,000 signing of Dennis Tueart. Most of that was recouped with the sale of two players who had come up through the youth team, Derek Jeffries and Tony Towers.

We also had the money from winning lots of trophies, of course.

The story is free to read via this link:
https://mcfchistory.substack.com/p/the-peter-swales-years-pt-1

Interested to know what contract Saunders signed on joining City and what his termination settlement was, if you have this information ?

 

[johnnytapia]

I've just published a piece about Ron Saunders' four months as City manager in the 1973-74 season.

Saunders had been a military police officer during his National Service, but the sergeant major approach he brought to City caused a lot of resentment among some of the senior players.

He was sacked after Swales and two other directors called players into the players' lounge one by one and asked them what they thought of their manager. I haven't come across anything remotely similar elsewhere in football before this, and I think it's a good example of how often City have been at the forefront of wider footballing trends throughout our history.

The other thing that struck me was how City's buying-power in the early 1970s was not too different from today. We broke the British transfer record in the 1973-74 season with the £275,000 signing of Dennis Tueart. Most of that was recouped with the sale of two players who had come up through the youth team, Derek Jeffries and Tony Towers.

We also had the money from winning lots of trophies, of course.

The story is free to read via this link:
https://mcfchistory.substack.com/p/the-peter-swales-years-pt-1

“We broke the British transfer record in the 1973-74 season with the £275,000 signing of Dennis Tueart. “

We didn’t.

 

[Andrew Keenan]

“We broke the British transfer record in the 1973-74 season with the £275,000 signing of Dennis Tueart. “

We didn’t.

Yeah, you're right. Everton had signed Bob Latchford from Birmingham a month earlier for £80,000 cash plus Howard Kendall (valued at £180,000) and Archie Styles (£90,000), valuing him at £350,000.

I should have said that City matched the British record cash transaction of £250,000 in the Tueart exchange deal.

 

[Andrew Keenan]

Interested to know what contract Saunders signed on joining City and what his termination settlement was, if you have this information ?

He was given a four-year contract for a reported £12,000 a year. Not sure what compensation he received.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Jimmy Hill

 

[LongsightM13]

I would always defer to @Gary James but I believe that Billy Meredith had enormous influence as a player on the then selectors/committee
Wasn’t he effectively a player/manager at some stage?

 

[LongsightM13]

I would always defer to @Gary James but I believe that Billy Meredith had enormous influence as a player on the then selectors/committee
Wasn’t he effectively a player/manager at some stage?

Also must be said that the likes of Lakey and Tony Coton would scoff at the idea of players having any power whatsoever under Swales.
The thieving fucking miser crippled them lads

 

[NPBlue]

I would always defer to @Gary James but I believe that Billy Meredith had enormous influence as a player on the then selectors/committee
Wasn’t he effectively a player/manager at some stage?

I have some recollection from reading a book by Gary James there was an altercation during a match at Aston Villa, and in the ensuing investigation Billy Meredith spilled the beans about illegal payments being received by City players, which was frowned upon by the powers that be at the time resulting in most of City's players being sold and Ernest Magnall, City's manager at the time, decamping to united.

I don't recall reading about him being being a player manager at City,

As an aside, I went on a school hoiday in 1972 to Spain, and on the next table to us during breakfast and dinner there was a very pleasant guy with his young family. He chatted football with us along with other subjects, and when he found out our teachers had arranged a football match between us and the waiters, he was very keen to find out where the match was taking place. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he watched us play the game, and he was Billy Haines, the first £100 a week footballer.

We had no idea who he was at the time. We were 15 years old and happy to chat with a very pleasant and personable bloke sitting on the next table to ours.

We only found out who he was at the end of the holiday when our teachers told us.

 

[Bluemoon230989]

Will have a read later. In my (admittedy failing) memory the first widely publicised example of player power in my lifetime took place in the immediate years after Busby retired.
The established leaders in the dressing room such as Charlton, Law and Crerand were said to have got shut of McGuinness and O'Farrell.
Maybe even Sexton after that, but that's also possibly bollocks!

 

[Andrew Keenan]

Will have a read later. In my (admittedy failing) memory the first widely publicised example of player power in my lifetime took place in the immediate years after Busby retired.
The established leaders in the dressing room such as Charlton, Law and Crerand were said to have got shut of McGuinness and O'Farrell.
Maybe even Sexton after that, but that's also possibly bollocks!

Your memory is still better than mine. Frank O'Farrell was sacked by United in December 1972 following a dismal run of results, and it certainly appears to be a good example of “player power” at work. What was unique about Saunders' sacking was that all of the first team players (except Lee) and even some of the reserve team had given their views on the manager to directors just before he was fired.

It's interesting that Law was at United when O'Farrell and McGuinness were sacked but had returned to City by the time Saunders arrived. I wonder what role he played in the sackings, particularly as Saunders had made a point of humiliating him in training.