I was on the verge of becoming City's owner (well majority shareholder) but the deal fell through at the last second.

[City Mike 1969]

I wrote all the lyrics and music to wonderwall, but left it on the 369 bus.

that's very believable, as my sauces indicate that noel used to work in the lost property office at Civic bus station!

 

[City Mike 1969]

I’ve still got my shares certificate

I left mine on the train on the way back from York...

 

[City Mike 1969]

Now that I’ve never heard before… That’s shocked me.

I’ve been to The Swamp twice. Putting everything aside, it’s a horrible ground. Far too many seats cramped in. Arsenal is far more pleasant.

for my money its a 62/63 thousand capacity stadium, with 75,000 seats in it.

 

[cheekybids]

“Prestwich Blue out!”

Fuck it, I turned on Franny so it was going to happen ;)

 

[petrusha]

This was before the stadium was built or plans finalised. The idea was to create a larger athletics stadium that would be converted. Even after Fergie said no the plans initially were to build a stadium that could hold 60,000 for City - that got scaled back as Lee’s City dropped. The eventual agreement to move came in 1999 after the play off final, so who knows what would’ve happened if we’d not won that game too!

Worth remembering that the tram lines were supposed to be running before the Games but ended up several years later.

The original plan was for Manchester's 1996 Olympic bid, and it involved a stadium at Barton Cross, near the Ship Canal, which I think is where the AJ Bell Stadium is located now. The bidding documentation makes clear that the venue was subsequently intended as "home to one of Manchester's First Division football clubs", as well as for cup and international football fixtures. I remember Swales announcing City's interest in a move; my mum came home from work most days with a copy of the Evening News and one day that was the front-page lead.

By the time Manchester bid for the 2000 Olympics, the proposed site for the main stadium had switched to the East Manchester site now occupied by the Etihad. However, when we lost out on the games but instead were awarded the 2002 Commonwealth Games, the opportunity presented itself to try to secure a future for the stadium that didn't rely on either City or United playing there as a tenant.

That was because bids were invited for a new national stadium, to replace the old Wembley. Manchester put forward the proposed 80,000 Eastlands venue with an athletics track and retractable seats for football mode. It reached the last two in the bidding and should have won, as the rival new Wembley bid didn't meet the technical qualification criteria that had been specified for bidders. Instead, there was a typical stitch-up, with the vote being deferred so that Wembley could rework their bid. They duly did so and were selected as the winner of the bidding process.

The impression I've always had from reading your writing about this episode is that some Manchester councillors preferred not to scale back the Commonwealth Stadium proposals and go with a smaller venue. They wanted the international prestige of an 80,000-capacity mega-stadium and set out for ways to make it work. As you suggested in a discussion of the issue on this board, the solution they hit on was to get United playing European fixtures there, which along with concerts, other football matches and other sporting events seemed in their eyes to make the idea commercially viable.

I always suspected after I read your version of events that United would have ended up in the new stadium on a permanent basis. Their capacity was 55K when the 80K version of this one was mooted, so why spend money increasing that venue by a further 20K when a bigger, more modern purpoe-built arena was available. Thankfully, Alex Ferguson killed off any chance of that happening, and it's not often that Blues have cause to be grateful to him!

 

[Bluearmy]

Ferguson being responsible for his beloved rags being in our shadow for 10 years and counting - oh yes

This decision and the issue around Rock of Gibraltar’s jizz were seismic in the great scheme of things!! Cheers Slur…

 

[stonerblue]

You could also say that if Fergie hadn't have been so successful, and by proxy, putting Manchester on the map as a sporting entity, investors wouldn't have been sniffing around at all. I think it is no co-incidence that City were bought 3 months after United won the Champions League with Ronaldo, Tevez, Rooney etc..

You'd have to say that the owners were bedazzled by the prospect of getting in on the action. Yes, they looked at Everton, but Liverpool FC were in the wilderness by then. It was less of a challenge becoming top dog in Merseyside.

Fair point

 

[Chippy_boy]

I almost bought Noel Gallaghers jag but decided it was a challenge. Shocking, I know.

I think you mean keyed.

 

[Bluesince1979]

Mackintosh and Tyrrell were once key players at our great club. A rag and a dipper who are absolutely loathsome.

Sends shivers down your spine.

Cant remember why but i ended up playing a friendly at carrington and mackintosh was playing in the other team.
I was marking him and he did not like to be tackled or even anyone going near him, the little mard arse. So i did it even more
Never liked him after that

 

[BTH]

I've just dug out the Technical Submission which reminds me that the idea of having a stadium that could alternate between an athletics stadium and a football stadium by way of retractable seating wasn't particularly well received by either party. I think both the athletics and football authorities wanted a stadium that exclusively suited their requirements.

 

[wahablue]

Thank fuck it was the end. Shows you his PR was strong if they were referring to him as 'Mack'. Best mates...

 

[dachoosen1]

Class

 

[Bluesince1979]

I've told this story before but with the various threads on managers who we courted nut didn't take up the offer, I thought I'd tell it again.

Back in 2005, many fans were asking where the money was going, as we'd moved to the Etihad but still seemed to be skint. We sold SWP and replaced him with Samaras, which we now know was to raise some cash, as Wardle & Makin wouldn't put any more money in. We had around £65m of debt in total and couldn't cover the interest, as we were making a small loss before interest. John Wardle has many good qualities and put quite a bit of his fortune in to prop us up but I do t think he was a good chairman, certainly not compared to David Bernstein. Probably far too nice to make the difficult decisions and face down the self-serving rag Mackintosh.

So a few of us got together with the intention of forming a Supporters Trust. We got the backing of David Bernstein, Franny Lee, who could probably speak for about 12% or so of the shares. Franny reckoned he could get Mark Boler on board, who owned 17%, meaning we could potentially match the Wardle & Makin shareholding. Then we talked about approaching Sky, who owned 10%. One of our group had fantastic contacts and a couple of those were amenable to funding the purchase of those (which could be done for less than £3m).

In late 2006, we approached Sky and offered them around £2.75m for their shareholding. They weren't even aware they had those shares, which they'd bought a few years earlier, along with a stake in a number of other clubs. They'd sold all the others and were happy to get rid of the City shares.

On the morning of the 2006 AGM, I was driving 2 of the other 3 who'd been the original group to the Etihad, when one of them got a phone call to say Sky had agreed the sale. I was both thrilled and shitting it at the same time as, with those shares, we'd control over 40% of the shares, and maybe, with the help of smaller shareholders, get to the 50% level.

Sly had obviously been in touch with Mackintosh, who then came up with his story that we were in talks that we hoped would lead to investment. It was a total falsehood and he didn't tell the Stock Exchange, as he should have done, but he was in a bit of a panic as he knew it'd be the end of the gravy train for him. The SE suspended the shares until he'd made a formal announcement but, of course, no investor materialised until Shinawatra about 6 months later.

In hindsight, it would have probably been a disaster as there were lots of scores people wanted to settle. We didn't want to run the club but we wanted competent people (and City fans) like Bernstein and Sir Howard Davies on the board. Fortunatel, although Shinawatra's year in charge was very nearly disastrous, it paved the way for Sheikh Mansour. So all's well that ends well.

Heres one for you … and it links in with all the other topical threads ..

Just say thaksin never bought the club, and eriksen didnt come as manager.. and YOU took over ..

Well who would your choice of manager have been?

 

[Axel Freed]

Arsenal fans > U****d fans

I did Arsenal away a number of times when I was living in London and not one had the bollocks to have a go without police in front of them.

I’ve never been so furious at football in my life at when Balotelli got sent off and Arsenal won 1-0. They were goading us inside but not one wanted to know afterwards. Thankfully we still won the title that season.

Each set of opposition fans are annoying in their own particular way but BY FAR the worst are the bin dipping scouse scum as has been proved on many occasions down the years

 

[East Level 2]

Brings back memories of a meeting (at UMIST?) when PB and the rest of the trust members unveiled their plans.

 

[petrusha]

I've just dug out the Technical Submission which reminds me that the idea of having a stadium that could alternate between an athletics stadium and a football stadium by way of retractable seating wasn't particularly well received by either party. I think both the athletics and football authorities wanted a stadium that exclusively suited their requirements.

My memory of it is that the athletics lobby was very keen to be a part of the Wembley project after it had been chosen for the national stadium. Football didn't want them and won that political battle, but figures from the world of athletics complained bitterly about it at the time.

After losing out on Wembley, athletics came up with a plan to construct their own purpose-built venue with a capacity of over 40,000 at Picketts Lock in the borough of Enfield in north London. But they were also offered a chance to make our stadium their permanent home, which would have entailed a change in the plans just before construction began to revert to the idea, previously rejected by the athletics authorities, of the stadium having a 65,000 capacity for football with retractable seating that could be removed to create a 50,000-capacity athletics arena.

I was told at the time by a contact within Manchester City Council that MCC was very keen on the idea as they foresaw the possibility of Manchester thus hosting big athletics events such as world and European championships together with a major international meet every summer. City were opposed, even though the newly opened Stade de France offered an example of retractable seating in practice. However, MCC reckoned they could twist our arm - but the snag was that the idea needed the agreement of UK Athletics.

The sticking point wasn't that athletics figures were bothered about retractable seating or by the venue being used for football when not being used for athletics meets. They simply insisted on having their national HQ in London, hence the pie-in-the-sky Picketts Lock scheme. This fact, of course, didn't prevent athletics luminaries such as Seb Coe and Jonathan Edwards from moaning like hell when the Commonwealth Games were over and the arena was being readied for City's occupation.

 

[MCFC Wirral]

Brings back memories of a meeting (at UMIST?) when PB and the rest of the trust members unveiled their plans.

They’re few in number but some established league clubs have significant trust investment.

Hereford United Supporters Trust own 50% of the shares at Edgar Street.

 

[East Level 2]

They’re few in number but some established league clubs have significant trust investment.

Hereford United Supporters Trust own 50% of the shares at Edgar Street.

Is that a result of the club going bust initially?

 

[Mad Eyed Screamer]

They’re few in number but some established league clubs have significant trust investment.

Hereford United Supporters Trust own 50% of the shares at Edgar Street.

A lot of clubs that went into ''non league'' and / or went bust came under fan ownership such as Chester, Halifax, Hereford, Darlington, Scarborough and of course then you have those tossers at the Moston Rag Sox

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

A lot of clubs that went into ''non league'' and / or went bust came under fan ownership such as Chester, Halifax, Hereford, Darlington, Scarborough and of course then you have those tossers at the Moston Rag Sox

Brentford were fan-owned until 2012.