Best City team since when - name the year.

[Chelmsford City]

the current attack could get on a par with the 69 attack........

the midfield would struggle as Colin Bell was the best player in the UK by a country mile........irreplaceable........would leave Gerrard standing.........

the defence however would struggle to get with the 69 lot, Given could be better than Big Joe.......but there is no Mike Doyle...... who had blue blood.............

so with our 30 man squad full of internationals.....we just have to get the balance right and who knows........

Agree with this the '69 side had Colin Bell and you just can't explain to those who didn't see him to understand how good he was. My boy knows how highly I rate Gerrard and I say Colin was like him only much better and much better than Robson as well. England missed him just as much as we did. The '69 side had a much better defence as well. I would accept that this squad is stronger but not the first eleven

 

[kippaxblue76]

76/77 team, the best we have had in my life time, so unlucky not to win anything and IMO if it had been added to and not dismantled it would have won something.

 

[BL2blue]

Then as a 15 year old can someone please tell me how that decade went tits up after tow consecutive top 5 finishes?!?! was it the sacking of peter reid thing...?

We finished 9th the season after with a load of injuries, e.g. we had to get laon players off 2nd division clubs rather thna Swales back Reid anymore. You got moaners on about the style of football, how we should be challenging for the title etc. We were top 5 through a lot of hard work and motivation by Reid, whenwe lost him we suffered. We protested Swales out to get Franny in, but he was worse. We missed the premier league boat cus of it, only just getting back on track with Frank ad ADUG.

Sorry mate, have to disagree. Kendall got us 5th, Reid basically took Kendall's team to 5th again. Then he spent ALL our money (most of it on Curle and Phelan) and took us to 9th, playing shite long ball tactics.Then we started the next season looking like relegation contenders.

Peter Reid wasn't / isn't a good manager. Its one of those City myths. We were right to get rid. He had spent all our money whilst making us alot worse but we managed to appoint an even worse successor!!

 

[BL2blue]

The best team I saw was when Tony Book was manager with Corrigan,Watson, Doyle, Hartford, Barnes, Royle, Kidd etc..

I have seen enough video/DVD footage and obviously facts & figures to realise that the 67-early 70s squad was our best of all time. I just watched the 69 cup final all the way through and we seemed to have quality throughout the squad as well as some household names in there!

Dowd(Corrigan), Book, Pardoe, Booth, Doyle (Helsop), Oakes, Summerbee, Coleman, Bell, Lee, Young and so on

Until we win something I dont think we can compare our current squad to that lot.

 

[jimharri]

We finished 9th the season after with a load of injuries, e.g. we had to get laon players off 2nd division clubs rather thna Swales back Reid anymore. You got moaners on about the style of football, how we should be challenging for the title etc. We were top 5 through a lot of hard work and motivation by Reid, whenwe lost him we suffered. We protested Swales out to get Franny in, but he was worse. We missed the premier league boat cus of it, only just getting back on track with Frank ad ADUG.

Sorry mate, have to disagree. Kendall got us 5th, Reid basically took Kendall's team to 5th again. Then he spent ALL our money (most of it on Curle and Phelan) and took us to 9th, playing shite long ball tactics.Then we started the next season looking like relegation contenders.

Peter Reid wasn't / isn't a good manager. Its one of those City myths. We were right to get rid. He had spent all our money whilst making us alot worse but we managed to appoint an even worse successor!!

From what I can remember of that period, didn't Sam Ellis get a lot of the blame for the long ball, route one stuff we were playing back then?

 

[Corky]

We finished 9th the season after with a load of injuries, e.g. we had to get laon players off 2nd division clubs rather thna Swales back Reid anymore. You got moaners on about the style of football, how we should be challenging for the title etc. We were top 5 through a lot of hard work and motivation by Reid, whenwe lost him we suffered. We protested Swales out to get Franny in, but he was worse. We missed the premier league boat cus of it, only just getting back on track with Frank ad ADUG.

Sorry mate, have to disagree. Kendall got us 5th, Reid basically took Kendall's team to 5th again. Then he spent ALL our money (most of it on Curle and Phelan) and took us to 9th, playing shite long ball tactics.Then we started the next season looking like relegation contenders.

Peter Reid wasn't / isn't a good manager. Its one of those City myths. We were right to get rid. He had spent all our money whilst making us alot worse but we managed to appoint an even worse successor!!

Shame everyone has been a lot worse since then! We were olny out of the relegation zone for a few months under Kendal, who was a manager on the slide. Reid is the best manager given resources since Wilf. It was cus of moaners about Reid that we had our darkest hour. He was great at Sunderland too.

 

[Barry Conlons wig]

I think that anyone who could answer this would have to be about 45 years of age of which I am not, which really is sad to think that we have been deprived for all these years.

But by god am i enjoying the journey at the minute, have I died??????

 

[Bill]

this squad is the best squad we've ever had, the best 11 would be on par with the 69 best 11, thats where the simularity stops though. the 69 team WANTED to play for city, their heart was in the club, they played for joe mercer. no money issues, no flirting in and out of the country at a whim, no front page shit, nothing except they wanted to be champions.
i know all football has changed and its not just our lads, i also know that our squad has players that have the mindset of our 69 squad, the 69 team though they were ALL in on the project.

it was a sheer joy to watch them take to the field week in and week out.

 

[sw4blue]

It's the 67 - 70 teams for me.

But the 67-68 team played joyful attacking football all season, so it gets my vote.

Once Lee was signed, the team picked itself:

Mulhearn Book Pardoe Doyle Heslop Oakes Lee Bell Summerbee Young and Coleman.

Much of the credit must go to Mercer and Allison. They blended the team together very quickly after a lot of tinkering the previous season and coaxed great things out of players who had not really succeeded elsewhere (Heslop, Coleman) or at home (Young) or who were still relatively young and untried (Mulhearn, Doyle, Bell). They also handled the more challenging characters (Summerbee, Coleman).

Midfield and forwards were just awesome. I can still see Summerbee on the right wing - he almost always went outside the defender and had this ability at the end of his run to push the ball an extra foot forward to give himself space to get the cross past the defender. Worked every time (well, after 40 years I can't remember it not working).

And as someone else said, Bell was in a class of his own.

 

[blumoonrisen]

the team of '76/'77 that finished one point behind Liverpool were a fantastic unit.

Corrigan
Clements
Donachie
Doyle
Watson
Owen
Barnes
Hartford
Kidd
Royle
Tueart

One bloody point!
:-(

Yeah gotta agree with this... it was my 1st season (the one after we last won anythin..!)
It was normal then to be chasin the title and bein in europe every season beatin AC Milan etc... till fuckin Allison came and ruined it all..
in the 33yrs since then, the current team is the only one to match that...