danburge82 said:
"Who said City couldn't play, City couldn't play football?!"
I've seen some old black+white footage somewhere of the 1934 FA Cup winners parade and after the Sam Cowan speach with the Mayor the fans all sing this song. Makes me wonder what else used to be sung years back. Wonder if Gary James knows...
In the pre-Maine Road days they tended to sing local songs that weren't City specific (things like "Lassie From Lancashire" which still made an apprearance at the 56 Cup Final).
There were popular 'shouts' like "Keep Chasing the Pigeons Toseland" which I think tied in with birds on the pitch at one particular game but somehow stuck (like so many chants the reason often is not directly tied in with a significant football specific moment).
There are reports of songs being sung at City in the early 1900s for Billy Meredith. Apparently this was sung on the Hyde Road terraces in 1904:
Oh I wish I was you Billy Meredith
I wish I was you, I envy you, indeed I do!
It ain’t that you’re tricky with your feet,
But it’s those centres that you send in
Which Turnbull then heads in,
Oh I wish I was you,
Indeed I do,
Indeed I do….
I think there were other chant like songs sung though they didn't get recorded. We only know about that song from 34 because it's on that great bit of film.
I am intrigued by a cartoon strip I found from a Manchester derby game in 1906. I used it on page 68 of "Manchester The Greatest City" and comment about it on p69. It shows 3 drawings of City star Bill Eadie and the caption says: "Eadie was here... there... and everywhere." It's impossible to prove but I reckon that may have been a very early form of the more modern "He's here, he's there, he's every....." and that the artist who drew the cartoon was capturing the atmoshere.
