Our biggest ever game?

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Spot on. People like the narrative that we'd have gone to the wall, but it wouldn't have happened.

We lost GBP 1 million on a turnover of GBP 12 million during the Division Two season. We'd have sold Weaver and/or Wiekens to keep the wolf from the door - probably Gerard, who we could have fetched a couple of million for at the time and replaced with Richard Jobson, who played 40-odd league games the next season in the higher division, ensuring performances wouldn't have suffered. Gates would have held up - we sold almost 14K season tickets before the play-off final, which was not far off the total for 1998/9. And we had a side that, if form from Boxing Day to the end of the season had been averaged over the entire campaign would have topped 100 points. I think we'd have cantered to promotion in front of gates as big as the previous campaign and been quite financially healthy.

However, Gary James has suggested that we might not have got the stadium or the permanent capacity would have been smaller if we'd stayed dow. Sport England weren't keen to put in the same level of funding for a facility with a tenant in the third tier. That might have had implications for takeovers in later years, but the 'we'd have gone bust if Gillingham had beaten us' story is overly romanticised.

Wardle and Makin were already involved at City in those days, btw, just not as the main shareholders. They ended up buying some shares off the Boler estate in October or November 1999, converted some of their loans to shares and Sky took 10% of the club. We were actually debt free as a result of those transactions (not for long, mind!).

Same reason York is somehow now touted as a watershed in that particular season. Was it fuck. We've lost at bloody Halifax and Stockport FFS!!

The narrative is a myth.

The same myth which has stayed with United ever since the Busby Babes. United have no bigger tradition that any other club in trying to bring through young players.

They get away with it because the Busby Babes were successful and, to the victor, the spoils.

 

[blueinsa]

Gillingham, no doubt about it.

Defeat that day and God knows what our future would have been like or where we would be now.

 

[OB1]

Nope, far from it. The natural order would have seen to it, with crowds at 33,000. The worse we got, the more loyal the fans became.

Wardle and Makin were always being asked to get involved at City, it was simply a question of when.

The Romanticism has been added down the years because we won the game, and where we are now.

Nothing to do with romanticism: it was a significant moment. We don't know what would have happened if we had lost but I am damn sure it was way better not to have had to find out.

 

[Dubai Blue]

Tomorrow night's game is by simple logic the biggest game City have ever been involved in. The European Cup is the biggest trophy City can compete in and this is the furthest they've ever got. If they get through to the semis then they'll be involved in even bigger games. All the other games mentioned like Gillingham, Newcastle, QPR etc are the games that got the club to this point

By that same simple logic, our first group game against Napoli in 2011 was the biggest game we'd ever been involved in at the time, and that is quite clearly nonsense.

You can't weight competitions like that because the final stages of one competition will always be "bigger" than the earlier stages of another. City have played in loads of bigger/more important games over the years.

 

[manimanc]

There's nothing shrewd about buying a football club - a complete money pit.

Dave Makin was actually more of a driving force, when it came to involvement with City. They would simply have got City for an absolute song, had we not beaten Gillingham.

Rangers have come back because of the natural order, their crowds, their ability to still generate more money than their rivals in the grander scheme of the division they were playing in.

Sheffied Wednesday, Wolves, Leeds, they have become victims of circumstance in the last few years, due to the huge parachute money from the Premier League, widening the gap, between traditionally big clubs and those who are able to come up and down like a yo-yo.

But we was hemorrhaging money left right and centre. Maybe we'd have got through just. I do remember bernstein saying later going down to division 3 was actually beneficial as it cleared the decks and they completely restructured the club. But as for the fans being loyal I doubt we'd have turned up in our droves for a sustained period in division 3, we was all on the edge as it was and I think another year in there would have tipped us all over.

 

[OB1]

Spot on. People like the narrative that we'd have gone to the wall, but it wouldn't have happened.

We lost GBP 1 million on a turnover of GBP 12 million during the Division Two season. We'd have sold Weaver and/or Wiekens to keep the wolf from the door - probably Gerard, who we could have fetched a couple of million for at the time and replaced with Richard Jobson, who played 40-odd league games the next season in the higher division, ensuring performances wouldn't have suffered. Gates would have held up - we sold almost 14K season tickets before the play-off final, which was not far off the total for 1998/9. And we had a side that, if form from Boxing Day to the end of the season had been averaged over the entire campaign would have topped 100 points. I think we'd have cantered to promotion in front of gates as big as the previous campaign and been quite financially healthy.

However, Gary James has suggested that we might not have got the stadium or the permanent capacity would have been smaller if we'd stayed dow. Sport England weren't keen to put in the same level of funding for a facility with a tenant in the third tier. That might have had implications for takeovers in later years, but the 'we'd have gone bust if Gillingham had beaten us' story is overly romanticised.

Wardle and Makin were already involved at City in those days, btw, just not as the main shareholders. They ended up buying some shares off the Boler estate in October or November 1999, converted some of their loans to shares and Sky took 10% of the club. We were actually debt free as a result of those transactions (not for long, mind!).

I was a shareholder in those days and consistently worried about our finances but it is true we may well have been nearer the wall just before Mansour saved us. However, it is hardly inconceivable that both Thaksin and Mansour would not have bought the club if we had not beaten Gillingham because we can only speculate on events that never happened. I'm quite sure we would have survived but I have no idea in what form.

 

[its a Barm]

PSG is not even close to being our biggest game ever; certainly not in terms of importance and I would think the world wide viewing figures are eclipsed by numerous other games we have played. If we eventually get to a Champions League final, that will likely count as our biggest ever game but still won't be the most important: that crown surely will rest on the head of the Gillingham game for a very long time; if not forever. It does not even bear thinking about the state City might be in if we had lost to Gillingham.

Still makes me shudder to think of the outcome had we lost.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

But we was hemorrhaging money left right and centre. Maybe we'd have got through just. I do remember bernstein saying later going down to division 3 was actually beneficial as it cleared the decks and they completely restructured the club. But as for the fans being loyal I doubt we'd have turned up in our droves for a sustained period in division 3, we was all on the edge as it was and I think another year in there would have tipped us all over.

See above, we had already sold 14,000 season tickets prior to the play-off.

The sold-out signs would have gone up again, the fans would have ensured that to a man.

Especially so, if there was any indication the club was close to going under.

It wasn't, far from it, certainly not at that time.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

I was a shareholder in those days and consistently worried about our finances but it is true we may well have been nearer the wall just before Mansour saved us. However, it is hardly inconceivable that both Thaksin and Mansour would not have bought the club if we had not beaten Gillingham because we can only speculate on events that never happened. I'm quite sure we would have survived but I have no idea in what form.

We were never closer than under Thaksin, His money had just been frozen and John Wardle does not get the credit he deserves.

He saved the club one week over Christmas.

People have to remember, after Gillingham, we were still relegated again, the stadium was only ever getting built if we agreed to our participation.

I would go as far as to say, that, along with our huge supporter base, is the only reason Sheikh Mansour came to the rescue.

 

[dasblues]

The first and only time I welled up watching City was when Yaya scored the second at Newcastle. I was 100% sure we were Champions (little did I know what awaited us)

When Sergio scored that goal I think the over-riding emotion was shock

Maybe the second time will be when we win the CL

The first time in the whole season that we sang 'we're gonna win the league'