City 3 - 2 Blackburn 1992 / 93

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

Footage here:

Ha! I remember that Terry Phelan own goal

 

[franksinatra]

Remember the game well. Real
Stirring comeback and if memory serves me correct biggest crowd of the season up to that point. Circa 27k and pretty sure the game was Oct/November time.

 

[BillCarlisle]

Can't remember much about our games in the 1990's, mainly because I chose to forget so many of them !

 

[dickie davies]

Was it the game White was brought down for a penalty but was at least a yard outside the box?

 

[warpig]

I watched this game with my old man at the Maine Road social club. great game and great night.

EDIT

Apologies - I am thinking of the away game 95!

 

[petrusha]

I'm a dozy sod, meant 2000 season.

Also, that game in the 1999/2000 season was 2-0, not 3-2. In those days, I used to be a regular attender of the Tribal Gatherings, an annual event when the internet fans (of whom there weren't all that many in those days) would arrive in Manchester from all over the globe for a weekend of City events centred round a game. This was that season's Tribal Gathering weekend.

The Blackburn game you're talking about was that year's Tribal Gathering match: https://bluemoon-mcfc.co.uk/History/Matches/Match.aspx?id=4360. Unfortunately, the link to match highlights on that page seems to be dead, so I can't be sure, but my memory is that we definitely scored one - and maybe both - of our goals at the North Stand end.

It was an important win, and a great atmosphere in front of what was more or less a full house, because Blackburn had been in the PL the previous season while we were in the third tier. We'd begun the season really well and they were struggling, but they still had a lot of names in their side who'd have been considered top-flight players, so beating them - outplaying them in the process - seemed an important statement that our promotion credentials were genuine, despite our being a newly promoted side. Of course, we did eventually go up, clinching promotion in the rather memorable return fixture.

Returning on-topic and remembering the January 1993 game that's the subject matter of the thread, I also recall that there was an excellent atmosphere for that one, which featured a comeback from 2-0 down. The page for the match in the history section of this site, helpfully linked to by @M18CTID earlier in the thread, gives a crowd of 29,000. Given that this was a Swales attendance figure, we can legitimately harbour strong suspicions that the actual number may have been quite a bit higher.

At the time, the Kippax was still a terrace and the post-Hillsborough capacity was 48,000, so if we posit that the actual gate was around two-thirds capacity, we may well not be far out. But however many actually were there, it was easily enough to generate the kind of atmosphere we remember as exemplifying the old ground at its best.

My experience at City down the years, and also of watching football elsewhere, is that crowds are at their best when the team has played well, unluckily trails and is busting a gut to get back into the game - especially against decent opponents. Another such match recently discussed on here (in the context of wearing our away kit at home) was the Spurs fixture in December 1990. Fans really tend to get behind the team in those circumstances, and if the deficit becomes a lead, an exultant feeling sweeps across the ground that reminds you why you love football so much.

So it was when we came from two down against a Blackburn team who were in the upper reaches of the table under Kenny Dalglish and had lots of star names given that they were throwing money around like a sailor on shore leave. We had a bit of luck - it appears to me from the highlights that another ref could have called a free-kick on the edge of the box for the equalising penalty, while White's winner definitely took a big deflection. But we were superb that day and undoubtedly deserved the three points.

We'd finished fifth in each of the previous two seasons, so this result and performance seemed to confirm that we might have a shot at earning a place in European competition through our league position or enjoying a decent Cup run for once. Everything was to go disastrously wrong with the collapse at home to Spurs in the FA Cup six weeks later and its aftermath, but on the night of the Blackburn game, City fans could bask in a warm glow of satisfaction.