1978-79 | The self-implosion of Manchester City

[petrusha]

For me the only thing close was Leeds in the mid-90s ironically, however... and I never thought I would say this.... ours was pretty much a partnership of the board and the playing side.... with Leeds it was much more boardroom driven....Still hate Swales though!

I was going to say, Leeds under Risdale was a disaster. The outcome was 15+ years in the 2nd & 3rd tier. Ours was a more lengthened period of pain with multiple relegations, but we always seemed to get ourselves back to the top flight fairly quickly. We were quite lucky in hindsight, as we would never have got the Etihad & in turn Sheikh Mansour without PL football.

Yes, Leeds probably is the closest parallel. The distinction I'd draw between us and them, though, is that they generally bought players who made the team better, while we made ours worse while similarly crippling ourselves financially.

I know that not all their signings came off, which is inevitable - Seth Johnson springs to mind. But we spent GBP 3.5 million, a huge sum, on our three most costly acquisitions - Daley, Reeves and Robinson. We got five years' service combined from the three of them and recouped GBP 800K in total upon selling them. Leeds paid a record fee for Rio Ferdinand but received even more when they sold him on.

IIRC, their undoing was that they gambled on making themselves annual CL qualifiers. The rewards for doing so then would have been vast in relative terms, but missing out twice, as they then did, left them in real trouble.

I suppose the big difference between them and us after relegation was that they faced an environment in which the financial chasm between the PL and CL was widening. When we went down twice in the 1980s, gate money was by a mile a club's principal source of revenue and the home club by then kept it all.

That allowed us to avoid catastrophic drops in income after being relegated. Unfortunately, having to pay GBP 500K per annum on our debts, a vast proportion of turnover, left us unable to compete with even clubs that could generate much less revenue than we could.

 

[StillBluessinceHydeRoad]

Yes, Leeds probably is the closest parallel. The distinction I'd draw between us and them, though, is that they generally bought players who made the team better, while we made ours worse while similarly crippling ourselves financially.

I know that not all their signings came off, which is inevitable - Seth Johnson springs to mind. But we spent GBP 3.5 million, a huge sum, on our three most costly acquisitions - Daley, Reeves and Robinson. We got five years' service combined from the three of them and recouped GBP 800K in total upon selling them. Leeds paid a record fee for Rio Ferdinand but received even more when they sold him on.

IIRC, their undoing was that they gambled on making themselves annual CL qualifiers. The rewards for doing so then would have been vast in relative terms, but missing out twice, as they then did, left them in real trouble.

I suppose the big difference between them and us after relegation was that they faced an environment in which the financial chasm between the PL and CL was widening. When we went down twice in the 1980s, gate money was by a mile a club's principal source of revenue and the home club by then kept it all.

That allowed us to avoid catastrophic drops in income after being relegated. Unfortunately, having to pay GBP 500K per annum on our debts, a vast proportion of turnover, left us unable to compete with even clubs that could generate much less revenue than we could.

When we talk of Daley, Reeves and Robinson it still brings me out in a cold sweat. They were all pretty good players, but that was the problem - £756 000 for Robinson, a million for Reeves and a million and a half for Daley were not fees that changed hands for pretty good players, especially when you look at the players who'd been shown the door and the fees brought in for them. When Bond lost faith in Daley, Daley turned down a move to Chelsea and in the end went over to the US for peanuts for the club, just to get rid, Johnson moved to Brighton (!) but John Bond understood City's financial woes at first hand and lured Kevin Reeves down a division to Burnley for a tenth of what we had paid for him. Bond had managed to to browbeat Swales into bringing a rather injury prone Trevor Francis to the club but by the end of the '81-2 season the club was having 'phones ripped out because it couldn't afford them and so Francis' wages were non-starters. So he was sold at a loss of half a million. The economics of the madhouse doesn't even begin to describe it. I think Leeds are probably the nearest case to ours, especially as one of their preoccupations was to knock the rags "off their perch" but the context was rather different and for such wanton destruction of a much venerated football club to feed the vanity of two severely flawed personalities City's case is unique. Enough has been said about Swales but I remember Allison going to great lengths to stress that in Portugal (at Sporting Lisbon?) he had changed the tactics, nearly all the squad, the way the team trained and the way the club was run. This was what he brought back to City - any success the club had must be down to Allison and only Allison, the players had to be there because they owed everything to him and they did as he wanted. I can also remember that he was less than charitable when he explained that Bill Taylor had been sacked because he, Allison, had no need of him. No compliments, no kind words and when Taylor died he was rather less than sympathetic and quite graceless.

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

What year did coach Bill Taylor leave City? He passed away in 1981 (at the age of just 42) but pretty sure he left before Allison came back.
I think his departure was one of the reasons why the slump started

 

[chaddblue]

What year did coach Bill Taylor leave City? He passed away in 1981 (at the age of just 42) but pretty sure he left before Allison came back.
I think his departure was one of the reasons why the slump started

He left city for Oldham in 1979

 

[blueparrot]

What year did coach Bill Taylor leave City? He passed away in 1981 (at the age of just 42) but pretty sure he left before Allison came back.
I think his departure was one of the reasons why the slump started

My memory is a bit hazy , but I thought Alison came in to replace Taylor. Think it was Swales appointment ,over Tony Books head .

 

[petrusha]

What year did coach Bill Taylor leave City? He passed away in 1981 (at the age of just 42) but pretty sure he left before Allison came back.
I think his departure was one of the reasons why the slump started

Taylor was shown the door in January 1979, about a week after Allison returned. His role had involved him taking training and Mal was going to be doing that from then on, so poor Bill was surplus to requirements.

I always felt sorry that Tony Book didn't stand up for Taylor more because Bill was certainly treated shabbily by the club. I suppose that, given that earnings in top-level football back then weren't of the stratospheric levels they are now, Tony may have had a mortgage or whatever and not been in a position to risk a spell out of a job, but it always appeared to me that he stood by while Taylor was shafted.

 

[Mikejl]

51 year old here too. Just like you...when I started we were seen as one of the biggest 4 or 5 teams in the country and trophies were always within reach. Oyur generation have seen it all. I'd say the majority of the people in Porto were from our generation: kids wwhen we were good, men staying defiantly loyal when we were shit, drinking it in when we became great. It felt like the end of that journey out there but wasn't to be, which in itself was king of fitting.

No Man United fan could ever understand how it felt when we won the FA Cup in 11, the league in 12 and how it will feel when we finally reach the pinnacle and with the Champions league.

54 here and this nails it

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Taylor was shown the door in January 1979, about a week after Allison returned. His role had involved him taking training and Mal was going to be doing that from then on, so poor Bill was surplus to requirements.

I always felt sorry that Tony Book didn't stand up for Taylor more because Bill was certainly treated shabbily by the club. I suppose that, given that earnings in top-level football back then weren't of the stratospheric levels they are now, Tony may have had a mortgage or whatever and not been in a position to risk a spell out of a job, but it always appeared to me that he stood by while Taylor was shafted.

I remember going to Bill Taylor’s testimonial. City v England at Maine Road. I think he might have died so testimonial is probably the wrong word.

 

[petrusha]

I remember going to Bill Taylor’s testimonial. City v England at Maine Road. I think he might have died so testimonial is probably the wrong word.

That's right. After losing his job at City, he went to Oldham but died in 1981 when he was only in his early 40s. Yes, there was a game at Maine Road, billed as a memorial with the gate receipts going to his widow and kids. I went along that night, too. There was a thread about it on here a few years ago, which I see, having searched for it, that you started and I posted on.

A link to the thread is here: Bill Taylor Testimonial

And below is the cover of the match programme:

 

[JGL07]

Midfielder converted to left back....it's almost like current City have been here before.

No it was following Glyn Pardoe from much earlier!