35 years of hurt...your top five low points

[squirtyflower]

Everyone here old enough to remember the Pleat/Luton incident seems to be really bitter about it.

You bet your life. Took the club 30-odd years to recover from what was for me the birth of the 'Typical City' phenomenon.
I was in Piccadilly Station last weekend and the AFC Wimbledon fans were getting handshakes and high fives from us after they did Luton in the play-off. Old school Blues bear grudges to the grave.

bang on the money
the first time i ever cried after watching city, and it wasn't happiness
i've had no time for pleat or luton since
made me laugh when some posters were moaning it was unfair when luton were docked points last year, i think they didn't dock them enough and it should have been thirty years earlier

my other low points would be
lakey's injury against villa, you just knew he was going to be great and take us to greatness
tommy hutch's equaliser!
selling trevor francis after such a fantastic season
that complete and utter tool who won the world cup and then 'managed' us to oblivion

 

[jimharri]

Everyone here old enough to remember the Pleat/Luton incident seems to be really bitter about it.

You better believe it! Hated the twunt ever since.

 

[Balti]

Relegation to Div 3.

Relegation to Div 2 in 1983.

Relegation to Div 2 in 1987.

Relegation to Div 2 in 1996.

Relegation to Div 2 in 2001.

(Proper, old style division numbers used throughout)

I was shocked and stunned by the 83 relegation but by 2001 I was used to such things. The relegation to div 3 was just staggeringly bad. I still can't really believe it actually happened.

it was surreal. I watched loads of games that season and I can't quite believe it actually happened. Probably all the booze needed to numb the pain of how bad we were. Bury in a higher league than City! Fighting with a Bury taxi driver after him taking the piss out of City and going on about how Bury would always be a bigger team now. Thank god I woke up from that nightmare.

 

[Mr Partridge]

Everyone here old enough to remember the Pleat/Luton incident seems to be really bitter about it.

I might be wrong as I wasn't around in those days but my guess is, that that was the turning point for City. That was the beginning of the bad times. We had gone from a team that expected to be challenging for the league and winning trophies every year to all of a sudden expecting it all to go wrong and I think the fans mentality changed and I reckon it all came from that one game. I think it's finally starting to change back now.

That said I could be wrong as I wasn't born in 83, although I'm sure I was a City fan in a previous life, I still don't remember it!

 

[Project]

1. United 5 - 0 City. Was my 10th birthday. Torture in the playground the next day.

2. Relegation from the PL in 96. Just a complete shock for me as all I had known was PL football. I began to realise the enormity of it - no more MoTD. What if we didnt make it back? We will lose Kinkladze. For a 13 year old, this was tough to deal with.

3. Maine Road being knocked down

4. City 2 - 3 Oxford. Not the result, but what we reduced Dibble to. Bang out of order.

5. City 2 - 3 United. Just horrible.

 

[Skipdog]

Anyone else remember Jon Macken lobbing Weaver from the half way line at Deepdale?
Fucking North Enders still go on about t now

 

[deedee]

Luton relegation.
Gary Owen leaving.
Colin Bells injury.
The Ball years.
Halifax in the cup

 

[dukyblue]

I've got no idea why these 2 games stick in my head, but they were the closest i've ever come to giving up with football.

Reading at home - drew 0-0 and Kinkladze missed a penalty. I'd made the decision the night before that I wasnt going to go as i'd had enough, but come 14:00 i couldnt do it and got in the car and went to Maine Road. It was absolutely dreadful.

Oxford at Home - Lost 2-0. The one and only time i've ever left a match before the final whistle in 25+ years.

Other notable mentions go to Lincoln away (lost 2-1) when the only enjoyment was taking the piss with their keeper all match.

Getting beat 10-0 by liverpool in the space of 3 days, and Alan Ball enjoying it.

Port Vale on Boxing day i think it was. Merry Christmas.

 

[fathellensbellend]

york city away

city 2 spurs 4, in the cup

bob taylor putting gillingham 2-0 up, how empty was that feeling

notts county 1 city 0 gary lund

city 1 oldham 4 roger palmer hat trick

wycombe 1 city 0, did we have a shot

lincoln 4 city 1 -we were that bad it could have been 10

stuart pearce and the season of no goals at home, never left so many games early in my life

never ever surviving a last day relegation battle

 

[Chris in London]

Everyone here old enough to remember the Pleat/Luton incident seems to be really bitter about it.

I don't know if bitter is the right word, but I think if you were there, you were deeply affected by it. Especially if you are my generation who were mid-late teens at that time - young enough that football was more important than kids, jobs, mortgages etc that come later but old enough to have lived with a successful team (relatively speaking) all your life and to have grown up with the heroes of the 70s - Bell, Corrigan, Lee, Marsh, Summerbee, Doyle, Watson, Barnes, Owen, Tueart, Hartford.

I still remember Luton scoring. I was sitting in the old main stand, just to the left (if you looked at the stand from the pitch) of the radio commentary box in the corner near the North Stand. The Luton fans were in the right hand end of the Kippax by the Platt Lane corner, so almost diaganolly opposite the ground from me. When Antic's goal went in, there was a short time - probably about half a second, but it seemed a lifetime - between the ball hitting the net and hearing the sound of the cheering from the Luton fans. In that half second, you could have heard a pin drop. 28 years on, I can still remember feeling like a brick had hit the pit of my stomach during that half second of silence.