30 years ago today

M18CTID

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In the cricket club at Burnley away
Although this was just before I started attending away games and have since seen us play at over 100 different grounds, this remains one of my favourite City games of all time. With no away win in the top flight since (I think) January 1986, and desperately in need of points to avoid being relegated, we went to title-chasing Villa and hardly anyone (City fans included) gave us much of a prayer of winning this game. We hadn't been losing too many in the previous couple of months in the lead-up to this match but we weren't winning any at all and it seemed to be draw after draw which wasn't going to be enough to keep us up. For me, this was the day it all came together under Kendall and it wasn't just the result either. We played Villa off the park that afternoon and you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was City who were challenging for the title:



And of course, it was the same day that this started:

 
Great memories. Wasn't our game live on the big match on the Sunday? Me and a few mates was driving back from Southport pleasureland and had it on the radio, we nearly crashed the car when Reidy scored.
As for the riots we must have gone down there every night at least, we only lived 10mins away in whitefield so that was us sorted for a few weeks. And the sight of the touts selling t-shirts outside still tickles me. You know what we're like in Manchester, anything going on and you can sell a t-shirt for it. :)
 
Great memories. Wasn't our game live on the big match on the Sunday? Me and a few mates was driving back from Southport pleasureland and had it on the radio, we nearly crashed the car when Reidy scored.
As for the riots we must have gone down there every night at least, we only lived 10mins away in whitefield so that was us sorted for a few weeks. And the sight of the touts selling t-shirts outside still tickles me. You know what we're like in Manchester, anything going on and you can sell a t-shirt for it. :)

Yep, it was live on ITV. Think it was a really weird kick-off time - 2.35pm?
 
Although this was just before I started attending away games and have since seen us play at over 100 different grounds, this remains one of my favourite City games of all time. With no away win in the top flight since (I think) January 1986, and desperately in need of points to avoid being relegated, we went to title-chasing Villa and hardly anyone (City fans included) gave us much of a prayer of winning this game. We hadn't been losing too many in the previous couple of months in the lead-up to this match but we weren't winning any at all and it seemed to be draw after draw which wasn't going to be enough to keep us up. For me, this was the day it all came together under Kendall and it wasn't just the result either. We played Villa off the park that afternoon and you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was City who were challenging for the title:



And of course, it was the same day that this started:




Wasn't it also the day that the Poll Tax was introduced?
 
We'd just dropped into the relegation places after Saturday's games, things were getting a bit twitchy but as so often happens City produced a performance completely out of sync with the rest of the season - excepting the 5-1. Great support too for a match that was live on ITV, we had half the seats in the side stand as well as the terrace behind the goal.
 
We'd just dropped into the relegation places after Saturday's games, things were getting a bit twitchy but as so often happens City produced a performance completely out of sync with the rest of the season - excepting the 5-1. Great support too for a match that was live on ITV, we had half the seats in the side stand as well as the terrace behind the goal.

It always struck me when watching it on the box that we had a great following there that day and were vocal throughout. Granted, that was usually the case at Villa Park on many of my visits in future years but it kind of stood out more in that particular game.

With Villa in a serious title challenge, I always had it in my mind that it would've been at least a near-capacity crowd that afternoon, so imagine my surprise when this morning I found out that the attendance was less than 25,000. Considering the amount of shit flung by Villa fans at us about our support the other week at Wembley and considering they were going for the title, that was an utterly pathetic turnout from them.
 
It always struck me when watching it on the box that we had a great following there that day and were vocal throughout. Granted, that was usually the case at Villa Park on many of my visits in future years but it kind of stood out more in that particular game.

With Villa in a serious title challenge, I always had it in my mind that it would've been at least a near-capacity crowd that afternoon, so imagine my surprise when this morning I found out that the attendance was less than 25,000. Considering the amount of shit flung by Villa fans at us about our support the other week at Wembley and considering they were going for the title, that was an utterly pathetic turnout from them.
I think that's a "Peter Swales" attendance figure - plenty more than 25k there, even just looking at the footage there are no empty spaces anywhere and the Holte End is reasonably full.
 

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