Falastur said:
I'd be interested to see Gary James' take on this.
"Manchester The City Years" (my latest book, published in August) starts with the story of the area in the 1850s and goes through the key steps that led to the first known game and on to the formation of MCFC in 1894.
Within the period 1857 to 1894 there are many key decision making dates when games took place or clubs were formed or names changed. None of the printed dates however tell the full story and it's important to understand and interpret those dates and actions based on all available material.
It is a fact that MCFC came in to being in 1894 and it was put forward by all involved that this was a new club - so that's MCFC's formation. The same happened with Ardwick in 1887, Gorton in 1884 and so on. None of that however tells the full story and the lineage. For me one of the strongest aspects of MCFC has been the people - and there are people directly involved who in the early 1900s talked of the club's roots going back to 1880 and St. Mark's. Heavy research in dusty old archives (much of this stuff is not online) has always backed this up. There has been confusion in the period 1882-1884 but Paul Toovey did some excellent research on this (please read his book - it simply presents information as he found it and makes some interpretation). Even that confusion didn't alter the views of those involved at the start that this was the same club.
The one thing that was always clear was that some of the people continued to be involved with the club and claim it as the same organisation from 1880 through to the 1940s - as they were directly involved I think their views have to be remembered.
Personally, I've never been convinced that the Nov 1880 game with Macclesfield Baptists was the first - I believe there would have been at least one earlier game. Reports in all the credible newspapers of the period do not show a report, nor do they show information about the formation, but I believe there's enough evidence out there to show that it could have happened (and that's the main point really - lots of circumstantial evidence but actual facts are harder to prove).
I'd urge everyone to read "Manchester The City Years" (borrow it from a library - it's usually free and if they don't have it in ask them to order it). The book covers City's full history and contains almost 500,000 words but even then there's so much more I wanted to include.