Manchester City 1965 and 1966.

Great footage and how strange seeing the match cameras opposite where we mainly remember them. Then to see Osgood is giving his two fingered salute to those in The Kippax that have probably been giving him dog's abuse for most of the match!
Every game he played at Maine Road he got it from the kippax
 
66/67. This was the season Mike Summerbee was moved from the wing to centre forward at the Leeds away cup tie because of injuries. We never looked back for a decade. He held the ball up and and then passed it on to the marauding forwards to score. In season 67/68 all 5 forwards went into double figures. Championes!
Your post set me off, Old Git that I am, remembering more things from that first season back in the top flight..

I was usually playing for school and then my local youth club of a Saturday, so the Leeds cup match was one of only two away games I went to that season, when the weather meant games were called off. Both were 'linked' in my memory re. the way we were beginning to play as a team, as you say in your post.

The first was Stoke at the Victoria Ground in November '66. We were struggling a bit results wise and in danger of getting dragged into the relegation battle. Mercer and Allison had us playing with Tony Book as a sweeper, a la Herrera's Inter Milan, to keep us tight and eke out as many points as we could to get us to safety. This meant we didn't really pose too much of a threat going forward etc, so we weren't scoring many goals. Stoke away was a tough fixture and they had Peter Dobing (who joined them from us) scoring freely. That day we finally looked comfortable with the system and played Stoke off the park. If I recall correctly, 'Buzzer' was moved to centre-forward for part of the game and for the first time that day, scoring the winner. Near the end of the match he got a round of applause from the Stoke fans for bringing the ball back from the corner flag for a free-kick to them (though he took his time and later on admitted he was trying to run down the clock!) It turned out to be a big win as the team looked more confident as the season progressed.

The second was the Leeds cup quarter-final game. That day was memorable for so many things. It was the day Foinavon won the Grand National and I got home that night to find out The Old Man, who had been cursing drawing the horse in his works' sweepstake, had actually won a few bob on it! Also, I remember hearing the incredible roar of 'Leeds! Leeds!' from their open Spion Kop end, a noise I've never heard surpassed at any ground apart from Celtic's Parkhead.

Anyway, Mercer and Allison decided to take the shackles off as it wasn't a league game and bang! we were down Leeds' throat from the off. Formidable as they were at the time, Leeds couldn't cope with us, particularly Bell and Summerbee, and were clearly surprised that a team could have the temerity to take them on in their own backyard. We missed a few chances and then they managed to trick us into conceding from a corner (Jack Charlton doing his usual thing standing on the goalkeeper.. Harry Dowd wasn't the tallest anyway!) and that was it, we were out of the cup.

But, as your post suggests and as 'Uncle Joe' later said, it was that game against Leeds which gave everyone the confidence to have a go during the next season. A couple of new players (Mulhearn and Lee) and we were off, playing some of the best football ever seen in this country, sweeping up the First Division title, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup and being the first English team to win domestic and European titles in the same season ('No 'Istry', my arse!)
 
You clearly don’t understand ‘istry! It only started in 1992 apart from Liverpool where it ended in 1992.

In the case of United it ended in 2013 and Arsenal circa 2005.

For City, ‘istry started in 1977 and ended in 2010.
 
Great memory.. Yeah, that was some night, seeing the three World Cup winners as West Ham spanked us 4-1, our first home defeat in more than a year (we were unbeaten at Maine Road during the previous promotion season).. I remember West Ham flooding all over us, Byrne, Sissons, Peters and Hurst pulling the defence all over the place.. but most impressive of all was Bobby Moore who just ran the game, effortlessly.. he cruised around the pitch like some God come down from Heaven.. best defender I’ve ever seen and that includes Baresi and Maldini..

Bobby Moore was fantastic but he could never cope with Colin Bell
 

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