Did Rodney Marsh Cost City the League Championship in 1972?

[mancitymick]

As a lad, I was a huge fan of Rodney Marsh and it almost broke my heart when he signed for Manchester City in March 1972 instead of my beloved Spurs.

At the time, City were leading the First Division by four points but by the end of the 1971-72 season they had slipped to fourth place.

Much of the blame for this has been placed on City being unable to adapt to Marsh but is this really fair criticism?

What are City's fans view of this?

No but City, Nited, Chelsea and Arsenal/Liverpool will stop you getting back into the Champions League :)

 

[scorer]

Rod himself says yes & though he's probaly right mitigating circumstances do exist.
We lost Corrigan for 7 of the last 8 games, had that not happened we would have won the League.

Its fair to say that Corrigan in 1972 wasnt the same Corrigan that we came to know and love. I cant remember any City fans at the time suggesting that his loss cost us the league.

In fact Corrigan was a bit of a laughing stock before he won back his confidence and proved that he really was a great keeper.
I just remember Keith Macrae; now that was a bad time.

Horror of horrors god he was hopeless. Always remember him turning his back and ducking when a free kick (by Coventry I think) was hammered at him.

Unbelieveable, he was (only just) worse than James.

 

[WyongBlue]

Rodney Marsh was an incredible talented player, but who never should have been bought for City, talk about costing us big time!!!!....I'd remember how he would play up to the crowd at times during the matches of that particular season, one time all he wanted to do during a match was to nutmeg the players tackling him...Rodney scored some amazing goals and was only to happy to let his bag of tricks so to speak do the talking, but to me just his presence in the team hampered what was then a very fast flowing team, and no matter how they tried it was kind of impossible to fit him in.....

 

[Alan Oakes Shinpads]

As a lad, I was a huge fan of Rodney Marsh and it almost broke my heart when he signed for Manchester City in March 1972 instead of my beloved Spurs.

At the time, City were leading the First Division by four points but by the end of the 1971-72 season they had slipped to fourth place.

Much of the blame for this has been placed on City being unable to adapt to Marsh but is this really fair criticism?

What are City's fans view of this?

Yes in my opinion he was not a player we really needed.He came in at the expense of Tony Towers,a midfielder,who at that point of his carrer was at the top of his game.
We moved the ball about very quickly,but the format and quickness disappeared and it undoutably had a adverse affect on the team.
I remember Colin Bell would sooner have kicked it into touch than pass it to Marsh.
Don` get me wrong,Marsh was a very gifted player and scored some wonderful goals at City,but when the going got tough,he would hide.
That assessment is based on what I saw,in both home and away games and for what its worth,I firmly believe that City would have won the League,had Marsh not been signed.
No doubt my comments will be like feeding time at the zoo,from the other Blues fans and I expect to get slagged.Good job I`ve got broad shoulders !!

-- Tue Nov 01, 2011 4:46 pm --

No he didn't pick the side, but the biggest cock up was dropping Wynn, he was terrorising defences at that time a really underrated player.

Also Tony Towers was another player who waas dropped to accomodate Marsh and this weakened the midfield area.

+1

 

[cityboy0261]

I think he did but to be fair, I'm largely going on what my Dad told me. Whilst I was at his debut game, I was a little too young to analyse the effect.

For younger members of bluemoon, a reasonable and more recent analogy would be when Keegan introduced Faustino Asprilla to the Newcastle team in the 95-96 'I'd luv it' season.

Rags pipped them to the title that year when the Geordie's season collapsed.

Asprilla was very skillfull but a sort of slow, bendy, round the houses sort of player. Newcastle, like City in the early 70's played a fast paced pass and move game.

I believe Marsh had on City, the same effect that Asprilla had on Newcastle with a similar outcome.

I remember thinking the same thing at the time. Barcodes were set up nicely to win the league but Keegan brought Asprilla in and it completely upset the balance of the team. Similar to the Marsh effect in 1972.

The difference between the two was that Asprilla was brought in to given them extra firepower for champs league in the following season. With Marsh, the story I heard was that Allison got tired of rags tormenting City about Best. We were near the top for most of that season and Utd were crap, destined (eventually) for Div 2. However they still had Best, and it hit a sore point with our manager. Marsh was the other flair player at the time , but as others have said he was very unfit and his playing style didn't suit. Once you buy a marquee player like that they are hard to drop. I used to sing his name on the Kippax, but, truth be told, he had about one good game in four.

 

[christened at st marks]

Just loved watching the guy play we would get 3-0 up and him and buzzer would take the piss, always remember Shankley saying great, great player but we couldn't afford him in our team he was right but there is entertainment and winning they don't go hand in hand all the time.

 

[mancunial]

Its fair to say that Corrigan in 1972 wasnt the same Corrigan that we came to know and love. I cant remember any City fans at the time suggesting that his loss cost us the league.

In fact Corrigan was a bit of a laughing stock before he won back his confidence and proved that he really was a great keeper.
I just remember Keith Macrae; now that was a bad time.

Indeed. MacRae was signed in 73 to replace Corrigan. Big Joe got his place back at the end of the 74/75 season. But really it was the 75/76 season when he was finally accepted by the fans.

I can remember when we played QPR in a December 75 game. They were top of the league and after Corrigan made a blinding save a few fans started singing "Corrigan for England". It was actually sang in jest but then you could almost see the fans realising "actually he might be that good". It bacame a bit of a ritual, we'd sing "Corrigan for England", the opposition fans would piss themselves laughing and then watch in disbelief as Joe had a great game.

But nobody would have sung that in 1972.

It was all thanks to Harry gregg, he manufactured corrigan into a decent keeper, not the best keeper in the country but one of the best !

 

[denislawsbackheel]

without a shadow of a doubt Marsh cost us the league.
Our lightning fast break footballing style was destroyed by that self indulgent southern twat poncing about when he got the ball.

 

[mackenzie]

without a shadow of a doubt Marsh cost us the league.
Our lightning fast break footballing style was destroyed by that self indulgent southern twat poncing about when he got the ball.

You might be a miserable fooker but you do make me laugh!
;-)

 

[BillCarlisle]

Big Mal cost us the League due to his pursuit of Marsh (don't forget City had tried to sign him before). He was insistent on playing him, come what may.
As others have said, playing Marsh changed our style and speed of play and not for the better. Big Mal was the culprit, I'm sorry to say. I don't know what he'd been smoking the day he considered Marsh to be the final jigsaw but it must have played tricks with his mind.

I remember Marsh playing at the Swamp in our 3-1 win late that season. Although he laid on Colin Bell's goal (from a corner, as I recall) he was way off the pace of the game. I couldn't believe how out of shape he looked.

I later came to enjoy watching Rod Marsh, as he was not only a gifted footballer but also a character and an entertainer. This was why, in my opinion, the fans eventually took to him. Much like we have taken to Mario now, and for similar reasons.