Total Football coming full circle back to City

  • Thread starter Deleted member 77198
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Psychedelic Casual said:
Ah right, such a shame that it’s not made more of. I’ve been buzzing all weekend that lineage from Pep-Cruyff-Michels-Reynolds or City-Barça-Ajax with City playing what we’re playing now links right back to a Mancunian who started at City.

Love it!

Reynolds’ achievements being ignored is similar to Hogan in that respect as well.

One quote from his book was; “When the war ended he returned to England and was told that men who had suffered financially as a result of the war could claim £200 from the FA. He was almost destitute but when he went to London the secretary, Francis Wall, opened a cupboard and offered him a pair of khaki socks. “We sent these to the boys at the front and they were grateful.” The unsubtle message was: “Traitor”.”

Maybe that’s the theme that stuck with English football with both of them. A bit/a lot of bitterness from the FA and teams here.

I wonder if they were so dismissive of Hogan deep down when the Mighty Magyars, playing Hogan’s way, came and spanked England in the “Game of the Century” 6-3 at Wembley?!
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Great post and OP, mate.

Just adding to this Barca, Ajax, City lineage, I’ve always thought it fascinating that City were famous for being tactical innovators in the 50s with The Revie Plan.

Essentially playing the centre forward much deeper than usual to draw out opposition centre backs to create space for runners to exploit.

Fast forward 50 years and Pep playing Messi as a “False 9” against Real Madrid and he is heralded a football genius.

I’ve always wondered if Pep knew about the history of The Revie Plan. And now I wonder of Hogan or Reynolds had any influence on City adopting it initially.

I assume City copied the idea from the Hungary national team, but I’m not too sure.
 
Looking at England in the World Cup and Arsenal at the weekend, it appears that people here, are latching on to Peps, 'play it out' style of football as being what they want to see.
If a few more clubs employ forward thinking managers, like Arsenal have with Emery, it can only boost the popularity of the Premier League
 
A great thread. One thing shines through: the insularity and arrogance of English foorball. City with the Revie plan seems to be the only example of an early take up of these ideas. Is it exaggeration to say that Pep's arrival is the real start of total football as 'normal' in England? Henry Winter forecast that Pep would revolutionize English football and he was right-- you can see attempts at the style all over the place now. I know there have been glimpses before, but, ultimately, so many of even our best teams were still very rigid in tactics and formation. (See the pisscan!) Not too long ago, I remember an Italian player (who?) saying: "The English are easy to beat, they just stand in lines." And which FA blazer said in the 60's "We have nothing to learn from the Brazilians"? For years, the FA official coaching line was "Direct Play". This was based on a total misuse of stats. 'Most goals come after no more than three passes', so the idiots believed that 'Direct Play' was the way to go. Not logical! And wasn't that great....Full Back to CD, return pass, hoof!
Thanks to the OP for starting a fascinating discussion.
Edit PS. Just Googled the quote about the Brazilians. My god, it was Alf Ramsey!
 
City Hobgoblin said:
Always good to revisit this piece of history, Reynolds also had some involvement in amateur football in Whitefield and was known to call in to discuss football matters with my grandfather .
Not sure if this has been posted before

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Cheers for that. Great thread this but of course the stories within it are totally ignored by the mainstream.
 
@Psychedelic Casual might be worth having a read of ‘Inverting the Pyramid (The history of football tactics) by Jonathan Wilson.

A good read about all the top coaches. Hogan actually managed the Dutch National side (for one match) as a player while at Dordrecht and predating the Magyars he set the philosophy (Carried on by Meisl) for the Austrian Wunderteam of the 30s. His principles of playing was based on the ‘Scottish style’ of football which was more about short passing, team play than the formative English style, apparently.
 
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