MCFC v Rags money spent on transfers - last 20 years

[BoyBlue_1985]

Bollocks, just dry bum his mum, record it and show him next time he brings it up

 

[Gary James]

Thanks to everyone who has responded, he has gone very quite now. I reckon he just believed the diatribe that the ushited press put out, when faced with the 'truth' he had no where to go.

Thanks again Blues !!!!! :)

Buy him a copy of "Manchester A Football History" and he'll see for himself the comparisons between City & Utd. You'll be able to show him attendance comparisons (you could ask him to guess which Manchester side has had the lowest average attendance; which side is the only one of the 2 to have had the lowest attendance in their division during a season - around 3,000! etc.) and you can also show him the transfer details.

I included a detailed list of every transfer by the 2 clubs over £7m and listed every time the Manc clubs broke the British record either as a buyer or as a seller in the 2nd edition of "Manchester A Football History" (get it out of the library - it'll be worth it) as I was sick of these sort of comparisons being based on modern day websites that only have half the story.

I went back, season by season, and tried to determine what the record was and what transfers broke it. The conclusion I reached based on information available in City/Utd literature, websites, 'independent' material, newspapers and so on is that....

City broke the transfer record 4 times between 1900 and Dec 2010 and United broke it 5 times. The players - Thornley (1904), Barnes (1914), Daley (1979) & Robinho (2008) & Law (62), Robson (81), Cole (95), Veron (01) & Ferdinand (02).

These were records involving English clubs, but there were additional records such as Denis Law arriving at City in 1959-60 which was a domestic record (but in 1957 Charles had been sold by Leeds to Juventus for £65,000 so it wasn't viewed as the record involving a British club).

Having said all of this, the transfer record itself doesn't mean a team is high spending, it merely means it's spent a large amount on one player. So, I then looked at the £7m angle.

I produced a table of every purchase by City or United with a value of £7m or more. The figures came from reliable annuals like the NotW annual, Rothmans/Sky Sports and I started my search in the early 90s.

The first player bought by either Manchester club for a fee of £7m or more was Andy Cole in 1995.

From 1995 (including Cole) to Dec 2010 United signed 21 players for £7m or more and City signed 22. However, between 1995 and start of July 2007 City had only signed 1 player (Anelka) for £7m or more while Utd had signed 14 (3 of which had cost £27m or more by 2004!)

For me that final stat is the most significant. At a time when most football clubs could spend only a few million, United were able to buy 14 players to City's 1 valuable asset.

Get hold of the book, it really will help with Manchester one-upmanship. It obviously shows City's lows and negatives as well as Utd's, but most of us already understand our lows. Worth remembering that some of our highs remain 'higher' than Utd's. <a class="postlink" href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150108326957816.281355.289818652815&type=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 815&type=3</a>

(anyone overseas can buy the book post free from <a class="postlink" href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Manchester-Gary-James/9780955812736" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Manches ... 0955812736</a> )

 

[masterwig]

The most accurate way to measure would be to rank every transfer from 0-100 as a percentage of the British record fee at the time.

So say the record fee was £10 million. A transfer of £10 million would get 100 points. £5 million would get 50 points. Breaking the fee and spending £20 million would get 200 points but after that future transfers of £20 million would only get 100 points.

That way you factor in inflation of the market.

 

[jimbopm]

The problem with using traditional Bank of England inflation is that it is much lower than footballing inflation.

This article below is from last year, but makes a great case about football inflation

<a class="postlink" href="http://onfooty.com/2012/04/manchester-city-spending-perspectiv.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://onfooty.com/2012/04/manchester-c ... ectiv.html</a>

 

[George Hannah]

but we won the contest right?