Lowest league attendance at Maine Road

[JGL07]

Was that his last game for Swindon?

Hardly as he didn’t join City till the following season and the Swindon match was mid-January.

 

[xgorton]

Was that his last game for Swindon?

No,he signed for us in the Summer so another 5 month's with Swindon.

 

[levets]

No,he signed for us in the Summer so another 5 month's with Swindon.

Ah right. I’d only just started to follow us that season.

 

[Len Rum]

Was that his last game for Swindon?

Summerbee?
No, I think we signed him at the start of the following season '65/66.
Mind you I was more excited at the signing of Ralph Brand from Rangers at the time!

 

[levets]

Summerbee?
No, I think we signed him at the start of the following season '65/66.
Mind you I was more excited at the signing of Ralph Brand from Rangers at the time!

Cheers, just thought Id read somewhere that Joe signed him on the back of that game65/66 was my first real season as a City fan. My dad was a blue but I wasn’t really aware until then, aged 6

 

[xgorton]

Summerbee?
No, I think we signed him at the start of the following season '65/66.
Mind you I was more excited at the signing of Ralph Brand from Rangers at the time!

Joe's first signing was Ralph,I was at Maine rd the afternoon he arrived with my autograph book in th school holidays,I did get his autograph.

 

[Gary James]

What about the game on the 1st March 1972, WBA at 3pm on a Wednesday?

There was also a game at Liverpool in 71 where the local paper claimed it would be played in the afternoon instead of night.

 

[JGL07]

Cheers, just thought Id read somewhere that Joe signed him on the back of that game65/66 was my first real season as a City fan. My dad was a blue but I wasn’t really aware until then, aged 6

George Poyser was manager for the Swindon match. I think that George's fate was already sealed before the match. City lost an FA Cup replay at Shrewsbury by 1-3, the Wednesday before.

 

[Gary James]

For those interested in the power cut stuff mentioned in this thread have a read of this:

The 1970s: Power Cut City!

The series of features/articles covering Manchester City in the 1970s continues with a brief flashback to a time when industrial action and power cuts led to us all having to look in the local newspaper to see when our electricity would be available. It feels like an alien world today but in...

gjfootballarchive.com

 

[TedofChume]

Detailed research on lots of primary sources; comparisons with other clubs; discussions with club statisticians, archivists and historians around the country; newspapers and much more. It’s a long, hard slog getting City’s (and other clubs) history correct and there are still many myths out there. For me the important thing has always been to get to primary sources and do the physical research on contemporary stuff myself. It’s laborious, difficult, time consuming, costly and more but totally worth it when a gem is uncovered.

Some clubs still have primary material like specific turnstile counting ledgers like this one from the 1950s. Some clubs have this stuff going back to the beginning. This ledger, as an example, shows the attendance for a public practice match. That won’t appear anywhere else, so it’s vital to get to these type of sources.

Sadly, I don’t have images of every ledger, page or record I’ve researched.

I hope this helps explain. That ‘Footo Facts’ booklet that you originally posted wasn’t researched to this level unfortunately and was put together as part of a series on multiple clubs. Booklets like that are quite often a commercial enterprise where Material is lifted from other sources without rigorous checking.

Hi Gary,

Thank you for replying. It's always fascinsting to find out where such detailed information comes from. Very often the original references are lost, and you never know whether what you read is true and factual.

Thank you for the pointer!