Eccles Blue said:
As long as no one from my beloved club, (Manchester City naturally!!) were involved I would carry on going but I would be canvassing very hard to get the corrupt ones out of the game.
Good job you weren't watching in 1904/5 eh? ;)
In the 1904-05 season Manchester City needed to beat Aston Villa on the final day of the season to win the First Division championship. Villa won the game 3-1 and City finished third, two points behind Newcastle United.
After the game Alec Leake, the captain of Aston Villa, claimed that Billy Meredith had offered him £10 to throw the game. Meredith was found guilty of this offence by the Football Association and was fined and suspended from playing football for a year.
Manchester City refused to provide financial help for Meredith and so he decided to go public about what really was going on at the club: "What was the secret of the success of the Manchester City team? In my opinion, the fact that the club put aside the rule that no player should receive more than four pounds a week... The team delivered the goods, the club paid for the goods delivered and both sides were satisfied." This statement created a sensation as the FA had imposed a £4 a week maximum wage on all clubs in 1901.
The Football Association now carried out an investigation into the financial activities of Manchester City. They discovered that City had been making additional payments to all their players. Tom Maley, the manager, was suspended from football for life and City was fined £250. Seventeen players were fined and suspended until January 1907. City was also forced to sell their players and at an auction at the Queen's Hotel in Manchester.
The Manchester United manager, Ernest Mangnal signed the outstandingly gifted, Billy Meredith for only £500. Mangnal also purchased three other talented members of the City side, Herbert Burgess, Sandy Turnbull and Jimmy Bannister.
This became the core of the side that won the Football League championship in the 1907-08 season.
