conn having a dig again

[billfromthehill]

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/feb/27/manchester-city-league-cup-final-sheikh-mansour




Capital One Cup final, Manchester City v Sunderland, 2pm Sunday 2 March

Manchester City's ascent outstrips even the wildest of childhood dreams

The club's first League Cup final since their 1976 win over Newcastle is a reminder that Sheikh Mansour's investment has altered the landscape in ways nobody could have envisaged




David Conn


The Guardian, Thursday 27 February 2014 17.19 GMT






When Manchester City last went to Wembley to play in the League Cup final, in 1976, I was 11, and Dennis Tueart's overhead kick to beat Newcastle United 2-1 was the most breathtaking high point of a young supporter's life. The photograph of Tueart's goal, which decorated crowds of bedrooms, preserves him in his sky blue cup final shirt with no sponsor's name on the chest, the 100,000 crowd mostly standing to watch. Tueart's back is perfectly parallel with the pitch, his eyes fixed on the ball, right boot stretched overhead to arrow it down, three Newcastle defenders frozen around him. It is probably the image I have looked at more than any in my life, so much did I gaze at it as a kid.

Sunday's League Cup final return of the club bought in 2008 by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi – who has spent £1bn amassing Manuel Pellegrini's likely all-foreign team, Joe Hart excepted – prompts thoughts of how the club and English football have changed beyond anybody's 1970s imagining.

Even back then some old‑timers would grumble that football was not what it had been, that it had become too money-driven since the abolition of the maximum wage and clubs' retention of players' contracts. Sir Tom Finney's recent passing has reminded us that Preston North End thwarted his desire to move abroad and earn more, yet this tethering of his generation was presented as players' loyalty, which was eroding by the 70s.

Tueart and Dave Watson, another England international and defensive crag in that fine 1976 team, had been signed by City from this year's final opponents, Sunderland, for fees of £200,000 (Tueart was signed jointly with Mick Horswill) after they starred in Bob Stokoe's team that won the extraordinary 1973 FA Cup final against the power of Leeds United.

Yet alongside that pair, Joe Royle and the midfield sparkle of Asa Hartford, the other seven players in the City team named in the Wembley programme (cost: 20p) had been with the club since they were boys, from the long-serving Alan Oakes to the emerging talent of the winger Peter Barnes, who drove in the first goal.

In the writer Gary James' Manchester: the Greatest City, his encyclopaedic history of the club, there is a picture of a ticket for the 1976 final, located in Wembley's east standing enclosure. The price was £1.50. It was the modern era. Players' earnings and transfer fees had been unshackled, the game and Tueart's overhead kick were televised by ITV in colour, but at those prices even the highest class of football was recognisably the people's game.

Junior blues captivated by their team, which had been steadily rebuilt after the late 1960s and 1970 triumphs of the side featuring Colin Bell, Francis Lee and Mike Summerbee, had no inkling that 1976 would stand for so long as the last trophy won, and that within three years City would be deconstructed. Peter Swales, the chairman (football did not talk of clubs having "owners" then), brought back Malcolm Allison, coach in the golden years, believing he could finally vanquish United. Instead, he sold Barnes, Hartford and Watson – with Royle, Tueart and the 1976 captain, Mike Doyle, already gone – and signed eccentric replacements, most famously paying Wolves £1.4m for the midfielder Steve Daley.

My clearest memory of relegation in 1983 is not Luton Town's manager, David Pleat, skipping across the Maine Road pitch after their 1-0 victory, but of my friend's 21-year-old brother crying inconsolably. We had grown up with City as a top club, superior to United for most of the 70s, but we would learn there was no easy way back. The roared-in return of the former hero Lee, to supplant Swales finally in 1994, resulted only in relegation to the third tier in 1998. City only clambered out with that last-throes defeat of Gillingham in the Wembley play-off final, the year that United won their treble.

During those first years of football's transformation, spearheaded by United, into a Premier League breakaway business of eyewatering ticket prices, replica shirt selling and stock market flotation, some mistook City fans' glum humour and singing of Blue Moon as the embracing of failure. That was never true: there was always a conviction that "we're not really here" – a yearning fora return among the top clubs. Yet I do not remember it being part of anyone's dream that City needed a rich man to buy the club and pour fortunes in, that revival could not be attained by effort, determination, a youth policy.

Now Sheikh Mansour's extraordinary project, financially fuelling Manchester City into football's elite and into becoming a global billboard for Etihad Airways and Mansour's family-ruled emirate of Abu Dhabi itself, has met remarkable acceptance by City fans and the wider game. From a crowd that habitually scowled its resentment of the old chairman, Swales, who sat and took it, hangs a banner at the Etihad Stadium thanking Sheikh Mansour, who has attended only once.

How will today's 11-year-old boys, half-running up Wembley Way with their dads, remember this Capital One Cup final in 38 years' time, when they are their dads' age? Is it possible they will look back at this occasion, when the ticket prices are a mere £40-£100, the top players paid only £200,000 per week, both clubs are owned by overseas investors, as their age of glorious innocence?

Fukin ell fella move with the times.

 

[aguero93:20]

Nice pay-off line at the end there!

It seems we are in agreement, his political leanings have backed him into a corner, it's a conflict of interest, but not really, because he doesn't appreciate, or doesn't want to acknowledge football is actually about bringing enjoyment.

His political leanings? If he's a socialist, then the privileges and lifestyle enjoyed by footballers in 1976 should horrify him just as much as the money around now, they were still paid far beyond the ordinary man while many lived in poverty. He's a **** with a personal agenda.

I'd presume he has a slight Socialist leaning working for The Guardian!

His continued referencing of City is two-fold.

It's positive reinforcement for him and also keeps his employers happy.

Meaning, it keeps him in a well-paid job.

The irony, eh!

Yep, never listen to somebody who spends their disposable income on personal luxuries when they criticise the inequalities in society.

 

[Anonymous]

The bastard son of Colin Schindler strikes again. Is it any wonder we were down trodden for so long with cunts like those two "supporting" (and I use the term advisedly) us?

Tolmie put it succinctly enough in his post. Fucking hand wringing apologist for something he has no need to apologise for.

 

[morleyswife]

Still annoyed that the Mrs wasted our money and in return giving it to him. She bought me the book for Christmas (which santa delivered kids). I read the first chapter and it was all about him

Review
Dogshit

 

[bernabias home shirt]

I remember this **** on the radio when we won the title
Doesnt seem right that we won it with someone else's money,i'd rather do it the right way like utd do with money we have earned through the club...It was words to that effect anyway iirc

Absolute fucking tosspot of the highest order...

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

The bastard son of Colin Schindler strikes again. Is it any wonder we were down trodden for so long with cunts like those two "supporting" (and I use the term advisedly) us?

Tolmie put it succinctly enough in his post. Fucking hand wringing apologist for something he has no need to apologise for.

I sincerely apologise if this comes across as anything but a question, and feel free to remove it if it has crossed the line.

Are David Conn and Colin Schindler both Jewish?

Without wanting to smear either man, I have plenty of experiences of media in America where anything with an Arab backer is just ridiculed.

 

[chris85mcfc]

His friend's 21 year old brother is one of the people I'm going down to Wembley with. He won't hear the end of this!

Well give him some stick from me. The deluded belief that it's still possible to assemble a trophy winning side through "effort" and the "development of youth" never fails to press my buttons.

But isn't that just life, full stop? There is nothing in life these days that would cost you the same price in the 70s. It's like when I was at primary school (20 years ago) i could get the bus home for 18p, now that same ride would cost me about £3.50. I was speaking to my Gran the other day and she bought her house for £300, its now worth about £170,000.

It's all just a sign of moving times but this clown has made it sound as if its only football that has changed.

Move with the times, don't let time move you.

 

[aguero93:20]

The bastard son of Colin Schindler strikes again. Is it any wonder we were down trodden for so long with cunts like those two "supporting" (and I use the term advisedly) us?

Tolmie put it succinctly enough in his post. Fucking hand wringing apologist for something he has no need to apologise for.

I sincerely apologise if this comes across as anything but a question, and feel free to remove it if it has crossed the line.

Are David Conn and Colin Schindler both Jewish?

Without wanting to smear either man, I have plenty of experiences of media in America where anything with an Arab backer is just ridiculed.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Israel-Colin-Shindler/dp/1107671779" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Is ... 1107671779</a>
same Colin Schindler?

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

The bastard son of Colin Schindler strikes again. Is it any wonder we were down trodden for so long with cunts like those two "supporting" (and I use the term advisedly) us?

Tolmie put it succinctly enough in his post. Fucking hand wringing apologist for something he has no need to apologise for.

I sincerely apologise if this comes across as anything but a question, and feel free to remove it if it has crossed the line.

Are David Conn and Colin Schindler both Jewish?

Without wanting to smear either man, I have plenty of experiences of media in America where anything with an Arab backer is just ridiculed.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Israel-Colin-Shindler/dp/1107671779" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Is ... 1107671779</a>
same Colin Schindler?

To be honest, it was more with regard David, than Colin.

I'm taking a leap of faith here that Schindler is Jewish!!

City had/has a huge Jewish following, apart from the two mentioned, I just don't see or hear any gripes from any of our supporters about who our owners are or where they happen to be from?

 

[aguero93:20]

I sincerely apologise if this comes across as anything but a question, and feel free to remove it if it has crossed the line.

Are David Conn and Colin Schindler both Jewish?

Without wanting to smear either man, I have plenty of experiences of media in America where anything with an Arab backer is just ridiculed.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Israel-Colin-Shindler/dp/1107671779" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Is ... 1107671779</a>
same Colin Schindler?

To be honest, it was more with regard David, than Colin.

I'm taking a leap of faith here that Schindler is Jewish!!

City had/has a huge Jewish following, apart from the two mentioned, I just don't see or hear any gripes from any of our supporters about who our owners are or where they happen to be from?

From my own point of view and most of the blues I've met seem to be similar (with a few exceptions) I couldn't give a shit where somebody is from, I pay attention to their actions before I judge them. Conn just seems to have taken an ill-advised, ill-thought out line and he's now backed himself into a corner to defend it, I don't think there's a racist slant to it, or that it's anti-Islamic. The funny thing is that someone on here referred to him as Socialist but the "spend what you make" argument is straight out of Capitalism 101.