City's 1960s team

DontLookBackInAnger

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I was pondering this this morning and I'm wondering for those that had the chance to see the 60s City team of Bell Lee and Summerbee, is it fair to say that they didn't achieve as much as perhaps they should have, given the level of talent they had? and if so what would you put it down to?
 
If you consider the ten year plus period from the arrival of Mercer and Allison through to the Tony Book era, there has to be some disappointment that the team did not win more. This era started with a Second Division championship and ended with a League Cup win with wins in every other competition between the two bar the European Cup.

I would have hoped for at least another First Division championship over this period and after. Derby County won two ffs! City only had the one crack at the European Cup and lost in the first round. That was a regret.
 
There was no one dominant team back then and teams winning back to back titles. Arsenal won the double in 71 which was a rariety back then.
Everton, Leeds, Rags, were all strong teams.
Also 2 points for a win had no teams running away with the title
This.
Even the great title win was on the last day when it was us or the scum to win it.
The scum lost at home to Sunderland, we won at Newcastle.
If the results had been reversed the scum would have won it.
No one ran away with it then and there were usually more than two teams fighting all the way through the season to be top dog.
 
This.
Even the great title win was on the last day when it was us or the scum to win it.
The scum lost at home to Sunderland, we won at Newcastle.
If the results had been reversed the scum would have won it.
No one ran away with it then and there were usually more than two teams fighting all the way through the season to be top dog.
Maybe but finishing bottom half the season after is hard to fathom though, similar to Leicester these days, or a Leeds when they won it.

You will have players explain the FA Cup was more prestigious than the league then, similar to Atherton saying the big games were the one day cup games never the county championship.
 
Cannot overstate how much more competitive it was back then. 7 different champions in successive seasons from '66 to '72 :-
Liverpool, Rags, City, Leeds, Everton, Arsenal, Derby.
Saying that, City should have won it in 1972 regardless of signing Marsh and probably would have won it in 1977 with a fit Colin Bell available.
 
I had the pleasure of watching City back then. As others have said, the top teams in those days were all tough nuts to crack. Plus, although there weren't as many games in the football calendar all the clubs took the cup competitions seriously. Thus, with much smaller squads there was a lot of strain on players. It wasn't unusual for a club to go a full season using only 13 or 14 players, without the sophisticated medical & recovery techniques of today.
IMHO this contributed to making the top 6 or 7 teams pretty well matched.
City did exceptionally well in the late 60's/early 70's considering where they were only a few years earlier. Our trophy count was up there with the best, and we were very unfortunate not to add another League Championship or 2. I do think that the boardroom wranglings did us a lot of harm with the demise of the Mercer/Allison partnership being the watershed. As we all know, it culminated in the club losing its way in the Swales era.
 
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Factors probably include:
  • A greater number of teams were realistically competing for the League title.
  • Managers didn’t field weakened teams in the FA and League Cups. Although nice to win, both competitions have seriously devalued since then,
  • Only one (or was it two?) team qualified for the European Cup, so we only had one crack at it.
 
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