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

[The Pink Panther]

You could have a Top 5 of the Stuart Pearce era alone.

1) The SWP sale.
2) The Blackburn FA Cup game.
3) No goals at home after New Year.
4) Sitting at one game, cold, bored and completely disinterested then falling asleep.
5) The last home game against the rags when we were safe but still kept all eleven behind the ball and refused to attack them.

What about a top ten for Pearce with these additional five...

Naming an injured Samaras vs Wigan a couple of days before we really needed him in the Cup quarter final and bringing him on, only for him to suffer a re occurrence of the injury, thus missing the quarter final
Getting beat in the quarter final and Sun Jihai getting sent off
Corradi
Dabo
Beanie

and another to make it a top eleven

Playing piped fan songs and cheering through the PA

 

[Gary James]

You could have a Top 5 of the Stuart Pearce era alone.

1) The SWP sale.
2) The Blackburn FA Cup game.

Those two are extremely low points that I do agree with. If I was picking the worst from the last decade these would definitely be at the top because at this time I was also working behind the scenes at City and know how these were viewed by some very significant figures within the Club.

One official, when asked by schoolkids to name his greatest moment at City, said that selling SWP for £24m (or whatever the final figure actually was) was. Unbelievable - the day all our ambition disappeared in my opinion.

Blackburn - best not to say too much about this at the moment. It brings back too many painful memories.

 

[M18CTID]

In my 20-plus years as a season ticket holder, it's difficult to narrow it down to just 5 moments. This is what I've come up with:

1) Relegation in 1996 - despite a terrible first few months where relegation seemed like an absolute certainty, Ball oversaw enough of a revival that took us out of the drop zone only for us to fall back into it in the closing weeks of the season. The Liverpool players didn't seem particularly arsed that day, yet we still failed to beat them.

2) Relegation in 1998 - our worst-ever season IMO. We started it as favourites for promotion - mainly on the back of our form in the final few months of the previous season when Frank Clark took over around Christmas 1996. However, we struggled from day one of the 1997-98 season and it was a thoroughly disastrous campaign. There were plenty of shocking defeats that season but losing to Bury, Stockport, and Crewe summed up how crap we were.

3) The FA Cup Quarter Final defeat at home to Tottenham in 1993 - Like pretty much everyone else, I was beginning to think it could be our year after we beat Barnsley in the previous round and bagged ourselves another home tie. Nick Barmby was Spurs' star player at the time but Swales (being on the FA commitee at the time) did one of the few decent things for City (or so we thought) and insisted Barmby had to go and play in some World Youth tournament and would therefore miss the match. Unfortunately his replacement (some bloke called Nayim) scored a hat-trick as we were well and truly thumped.

4) The home defeat to United in November 1993 - already mentioned elsewhere, this was a catastrophic collapse after going 2-0 up at half-time. I disagree with Dave though - United were a miles better side, were reigning champions, and were runaway leaders while we were struggling near the bottom, and were in the middle of the Swales/Lee takeover saga. That said, it was still devastating seeing that second-half turnaroud and although there was an air of inevitability about it as we defended deeper and deeper, it didn't make it any easier to take.

5) Defeat to York City in December 1998 - our lowest-ever point in terms of league position, slipping to 12th place in the third tier. Thankfully, things improved from the following week with the 1-0 win at Wrexham. On the plus side regarding York, it was a cracking away trip!

 

[1_barry_conlon]

You could have a Top 5 of the Stuart Pearce era alone.

1) The SWP sale.
2) The Blackburn FA Cup game.
3) No goals at home after New Year.
4) Sitting at one game, cold, bored and completely disinterested then falling asleep.
5) The last home game against the rags when we were safe but still kept all eleven behind the ball and refused to attack them.

A notable one which would fit into this list is the defeat at home to Bolton. The one and only time i've ever fucked off at half time. Several of us went to the Marble Arch on Rochdale Rd and it seemed that quite a few blues had the same idea as us, it was rammed out!

 

[fallowfield]

low points are all different for us I'm sure.

As well as the usual ones I'm sure we all have some random one where we just wanted to scream and give it all up.

I remember back in the 80's Mcnab missed a late pen at Shrewsbury, it would have been our first away win in about 30 games. We get a 90th min pen and he fuckin missed.
I couldn't speak on the way home and was telling myself that was it, no more away games etc.
Made it all the sweeter at wolves & then bradford when we did finally win away & then away in the league

 

[MCFC BOB]

Well, I've only been a City fan since just before the turn of the millenium, so here goes:

1) Losing to United in the League Cup last year. We were 45 minutes from Wembley at one point, and then to lose it like that, to Rooney, at Old Trafford, at the Stretford End - only then did it dawn on me that we were just not as good as United. To go into school the next day, knowing the smug expressions would be plastered across their ugly faces made me shiver in my bed at night.

2) Losing 8-1 to Middlesbrough. While I was forced to watch United pick up the title away to Wigan, I saw the score flash across the screen that we were losing 2-0 to Boro... then 5-0... then 7-0. I was surrounded by United fans, almost dejected to the point of tears. It was the end of Sven, and almost the end of City, from what had been such a good start.

3) The Wright-Phillips to Chelsea transfer saga. Our best player was gone, and I honestly had no idea where we were going to head without him.

4) The 4-3: "The Greatest Ever Manchester Derby." That was awful. To go from being so happy at getting a point at Old Trafford in such a way, to have it snapped from our hands like that... that was painful.

5) Tal Ben Haim. All the money in the world, and we sign him. That idiot.

 

[peoffrey]

The $WP sale also helped clear a huge portion of the debt Keegan ran up before we could strengthen the rest of the side. Admittedly, Pearce made bad signings with it - but we made a huge profit on him and he's now back at City. All's well that ends well!

 

[pete1970]

1.Relegation to Luton 1983
2.Standing @ West Ham relegated by them 1986
3.Stoke 5-2 and getting relegated
4.Fiasco of forward with Franny
5.4-3 @ the Swamp

There are hundreds more,believe me!

 

[Midlands Blue]

1. Luton - complete shock
2. Spurs equaliser in the first cup game - not winning after being so close hurt more than losing in the replay, strangely.
3. Howard Kendal going. Again a complete shock when it looked like things were picking up.
4. Seeing the new so small Platt Lane stand for the first time and realising that we were falling further and further behind what were our equals a few years before and lacking ambition.
5. Drawing 0-0 at Groclin when one goal would have put us through. Looked like a complete lack of effort by players who were going through the motions with no love for the club.

 

[Citizen Green]

1) Leaving Maine Road
2) Eriksson's sacking and the financial meltdown that followed in the summer of 2008
3) City selling Cole and James for peanuts in 2006 and thinking were looking at relegation again here and somethings clearly wrong behind the scenes
4) F.A. Cup quarter-final at Ewood in 2007
5) Tottenham doing us at home last season