DOWN THE KIPPAX STEPS

In order to look the business for the Derby, you need to have the right gear. The right gear happens to come from Campo Retro and has just popped through the letterbox. And what an enormous letterbox I happen to have. This stuff could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, as the Blues prepare to face the Reds at Old Trafford. None of that modern polyester nonsense that removes your nipples and leaves you bathed in a weird orange glow, this is the kind of fabric that even Joe Royle's testing frame could have sat comfortably in and indeed did sit comfortably in, in the mid 70s. Here's the proof. Take it away Big Joe.

BOSH. Ball delivered. Shirt pristine. Goalkeeper destroyed.

Now, although I am working on my Big Joe Royle muscle to fat ratio on a daily basis, there is no way I could get into a pose like this without utterly ruining my new top, so you'll just have to make do with a picture or two of what the real life stuff looks like flat on the dining room table. Rest assured it's creamy, its potatoey, it's spongey, its sexy. It's everything you would want from a garment that makes you feel like, just for a moment, you are Joe Royle and you are about to smack that far post cross past Mike Mahoney (for it is he) and his Newcastle mates and into the already trembling wet gossamer of the opposition onion bag.

Follow the Campo Retro shirtmasters on Twitter here and take a look at the information below. If you happen to prefer shirts of another colour, what are you doing here? Then, you have to go along to this place and feast your eyes.

Memories of Tueart, Doyle & Hartford

Even the wrapping paper's distinguished


The devil's in the detail

As if being purveyors of the finest retro football shirts was not enough, Campo Retro are also organising a competition, which will see two lucky winners off on their hols to the magnificent city of Lisbon. As if that is not enough, they have hatched a cunning plan for the winners to arrive in Portugal's gleaming capital city just in time to attend the Champions League final between Manchester City and Borussia Dortmund. If you want to be there when City lift the trophy for the first time in history, follow the details below and get the quill pens out. It could be YOU. Make Joe Royle proud.

Two Matches from One Season:
Southampton 1980-1981

Saturday 18th August 1980 A long and tedious trip down to the South Coast for City fans wanting to see how Malcolm Allison's expensively assembled side would fare in the new season. The Opening Day, always one of the most eagerly anticipated, matched City against a home side featuring ex-City men Mike Channon and Dave Watson, future City men Graham Baker and Ivan Golac plus Kevin Keegan, here making his second football league debut after a spell abroad at Hamburger SV. City, ill prepared after a home thrashing by Legia Warsaw in the final pre-season game of the summer, continued where they had left off against Kaziu Deyna's old team mates (that match had been organised as part of Deyna's transfer the previous season from Legia to City). Listless and lifeless, the Blues were the bit part actors in the Grand Opening Show for Keegan and his men.

It was Mike Channon, of all people, who stole the limelight, however, scoring both goals in a blistering first half. Channon had endured a torrid two years at Maine Road, ending in acrimony as Allison picked on him and other big name stars as the underperformers who had to be shipped out to allow him to create his new City. Watson too had departed under a cloud and this ultimately easy win would have put a smile on both their faces. Allison was not smiling at all. Calling his side's performance a disgrace, he confided to the Mirror's Bob Russell "We were only fifty percent competent".

This was perhaps being kind to a City side containing the unlikely talents of Paul Sugrue, one of Big Mal's purchases on a whim from non-league Nuneaton Borough. A seemingly competent back four of Ranson, Caton, Reid and Power was given the complete runaround by Southampton and only two late chances for Dennis Tueart and Kevin Reeves, gave any glimpse of what City were capable of. This torrid opening game would lead to a 4-0 home reverse by Sunderland, immediately putting Big Mal under severe pressure as the season got underway.

By Saturday November 15th 1980, much had changed. Allison had been sacked after one lethargic performance too many by his expensive charges, replaced by the avuncular John Bond and his entourage from Norwich City. Southampton had lost that early season sparkle, with Channon and Charlie George slowing after a sprint start to the season had seen them in second place in September. On top of this, Kevin Keegan was beginning to pick up a succession of niggling injuries. City, on the back of three legendary early signings by Bond, in the unlikely shape of the slow moving Coventry full back Bobby McDonald, the mobile threshing machine that was Gerry Gow and the spindly legs belonging to 33 year old Coventry winger Tommy Hutchison, lovingly called Hutchinson by various organs of the press.

In this game the tables were turned conclusively with the visitors, despite a first half penalty looped into the North Stand by Nicky Holmes, overwhelmed by a City side full of the verve and confidence that often comes from a change of manager. Southampton's string of City connections were added to by the inclusion here of Phil Boyer, who a matter of weeks later would head north to sign for City.

In a performance full of the energy and optimism so patently lacking in the reverse fixture, City prevailed down the wings, with a goal set up from the left by McDonald and a header from Reeves which originated in the right wing trickery of Hutchison. Bond's third signing, Gerry Gow, weighed in with the other goal, his first for the club since joining from Bristol City. The season would end in sparks for City, reaching the League Cup semi finals and the centenary Cup Final, where Hutchison would score at both ends, City only succumbing to Spurs after a replay. Allison had said, after the rubble of the opening game at the dell, that his side would pick up and win something. In his absence, the Blues so nearly proved him right.

The two games with Southampton had offered a snapshot of the schizophrenic nature of Manchester City in the early eighties.A hapless, shapeless display under Allison juxtaposed alongside a roaring confident 3-0 win, both against the same opposition within the space of three months.

Those, as they say, were the days.

Front cover of Match Weekly, featuring Steve Daley, making his debut against Southampton 1979-80 season. Seen here pulling away from Graham Baker, later to sign for City from the Saints. This match also marked the debut of Stuart Lee


Joe Jordan goes up to challenge Alex Williams, as Kenny Clements and Mick McCarthy add their support during a 0-3 drubbing at The dell in season 85-86. Saturday 7th September 1985.

Hassan Kachloul shields the ball from Alf Inge Haaland in a stultifying 0-1 home defeat for the Blues in 1990-00

Terry Phelan scores City's goal in a rain soaked encounter in season 93-94. the match ended in a 1-1 draw on Tuesday 28th December 1993

Steve Moran scores one of his hat-trick in 1982-83, as Tommy Caton arrives too late. 1-4

Shaun Goater holds onto possession with a young Joey Barton in support in the last ever match at Maine Road

David Phillips and Paul Simpson celebrate the winner in the home game in 1985-86 (1-0)

Sunday Express cutting from 1978-79 and a two-one home defeat which included an own goal from City midfielder Colin Viljoen. Saturday 9th December 1978

Shaun Goater waves goodbye as the last game ever to be played at Maine Road comes to a typically unsatisfactory ending. Saturday 10th May 2003. Not a dry eye in the house.

Alan Ball waves a finger at Kevin Bond as Southampton defeat city 2-1 at the Dell to top the table and stop City doing the same thing. Saturday 6th February 1982. Bobby McDonald got City's goal.

Richard Jobson keeps one step ahead of James Beattie in the League Cup encounter (0-0) in 1999. Wednesday 15th September 1999. Southampton won a scintillating replay 4-3 at The Dell.

Daily Mail report on the 93-94 clash at Maine Road, with picture showing Terry Phelan wheeling away at the North Stand end after scoring City's goal in a 1-1 draw.

Kevin Reeves gets his shot away at a sunny Maine Road in the 1981-82 season, watched by future City midfielder Graham Baker and team mate Martin O'Neill.

Paul Dickov leaves future City left back Wayne Bridge for dead in the clash at The Dell in 2000-01

Mark Kennedy and Kevin Horlock initiate a left wing attack in September 1999 at Maine Road

Gerry Gow smacks home one of City's goals in the 3-0 home win in season 1980-81

Cort McMurray gets his teeth into a decent Villains Tale

***

Every good story needs a villain.

If there has been one disappointment in this thrilling season – an early exit from both the Champions League and the FA Cup don’t count as disappointments; consider them a cosmic tax on all the good things that have happened – it is the lack of a good counterpoint, someone malevolent and conspiring, someone skilled enough, someone determined enough to threaten all of our hopes and dreams. Harry Potter must have his Voldemort, Luke Skywalker his Darth Vader, Milton’s Adam and Eve must be hounded by Lucifer’s Rebel Angels.No bad guy to vanquish, and the narrative arc is ruined: you may have success, but you’ll never know Victory.

Which is why I love Luis Suarez.

All of our old nemeses have gone, at least for this season. Admit it: it’s not nearly as much fun taking pleasure in United settling into the soft brown ooze of mid-table ignominy with their current brain trust manning the ship, as it would have been had Sir Alex been at the helm. For years David Moyes roamed the sidelines for Everton, square jawed and steely eyed, and we assumed he was filled with Grit and Indomitable Spirit.Eight months in at Old Trafford, and that same expression fairly screams, “Did I leave the iron on at home?I think I left the iron on!”His guilty, stooped shouldered sulk into the stands during City’s most recent evisceration of the Red Devils, a lap dog who’d just done a Bad Thing on the living room carpet, brought no joy, no visceral sense of triumph, to City supporters.Afterward, he actually expressed admiration for City’s style on the pitch!There was no defiance, no rancor, no “noisy neighbors”dismissiveness to stir our outrage.Overawed and submissive, he might as well have been managing Torquay United.

It’s a far cry from May 2012, when Dzeko and Aguero and the boys were fashioning a miracle, and, split screen, we were watching Fergie, all manic gum chewing and burst capillaries, wanderingdisbelieving in Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, doing an impromptu one man version of “Downfall”.It was a glorious moment, a deeply satisfying moment, heroes accomplishing the improbable on one side of our television screens, the source of all of our misery and woe set to stew in humiliation on the other.Every good story needs a villain.

Fergie’s gone, replaced by a grocery clerk.José Mourinho for a moment looked like a worthy adversarial successor.He was dismissive and outrageous, and his team of plucky ponies seemed a serious threat. But like Chelsea itself, The Special One is a mere pretender, a caricature, not a real threat.With his Arafat beard and his open collar shirts under Armani suits and his penchant for talking crazy talk, Mourinho looks increasingly like the second runner-up in a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lookalike contest.His Mussolini pout doesn’t help.

That leaves Liverpool.(The other “top clubs” are nothing much: Wenger, like his club, just seems tired, and really was never the kind of manager to stir more than quiet respect in his opponents.Poor Spurs, twirling in Bedlam, have pinned their hopes and dreams to the back of one Emmanuel Adebayor, which from most City supporters can only elicit a mixture of commiseration and pity.Everton is soaring high on goofus dust and positive feelings; there’s nothing dark and villainous rising from Goodison Park).

Brendan Rodgers, Boy Wonder, is all Earnestness and Sincerity.Rooting against him is like loudly expressing your hatred of the color beige.Steven Gerrard is, literally, an altar boy: Sure, he may sneak the odd sip from the sacramental wine and get into the occasional scrap, but he’s a decent enough lad.Between them, they generate as much passion in their opponents’ supporters as a large bowl of mashed potatoes.

Every good story needs a villain.Finally, at the end of this long season, Fate’s tumblers have turned and everything is in place. The poseurs, the pretenders, the Unreadys, are a low background rumble. It is Liverpool and City, Sky Blue against Scarlet, our heroes massed against the last obstacle to Victory. It is Us versus Luis Suarez.

Ah, Luis Suarez! El Gran Mordedor. Lemur eyed Suarez, with his Peter Lorre shiftiness and his uncanny knack for scoring goals.Conniving Suarez, the man who shamelessly put forth “El Mano del Diablo” in the 2010 World Cup, effectively eliminating loveable underdogs Ghana from the competition, utterly graceless in victory, cackling in triumph as Asamoah Gyan’s penalty deflected off the crossbar.Bigot Suarez, whose benighted view of race relations (“I don’t speak to Black people”) makes one wonder if UKIP has opened an office in Montevideo.Suarez, talented, scheming, contemptible Suarez, a villain worthy of Milton, or at least Rowling.This is our new Fergie.This is the man we need to vanquish.

I just hope he doesn’t take a bite out of David Silva when we do.

You can follow Cort on Twitter here


1980-81 Selhurst Park. Shortly after John Bond's arrival as City manager. Things are taking off and City take all the points in a thriller at Palace. Here Ray Ranson beats Hinshelwood for pace down the right.


By the end of the season, Bond has taken City to Wembley to face Spurs in the Centenary Cup Final. The Palace game comes with days to go before the final. One of the big questions is who gets the starting place upfront alongside Kevin Reeves: Dave Bennett or Dennis Tueart?. Bennett's goal here gives him the edge for Tottenham.


the next time the clubs meet both are in the Second Division. The opening game of the season for 1983-84 sees them meet at Selhurst Park. Billy McNeill's cut-price side wins 2-0 in the sunshine. Here Asa Hartford, one of several to stay on and help the club battle back to the top flight, (Asa would manage 7 games that season before moving on to Norwich) flies in with an optimistic challenge.


By the winter City are getting bogged down in a four horse race with Newcastle, Chelsea and Sheffield Wednesday. This 3-1 win comes courtesy of the jet heels of Steve Kinsey (at back of photo) and goals from midfielders Paul Power, Graeme Baker and one from Kinsey himself


1984-85: Having failed to gain promotion, City start a second season down in the dumps. This early season game at Maine Road again features the speed on the counter of young Kinsey, who scores one and sets one up for Gordon Smith.


1991-2. Fast starting City are on their way to the top of the First Division table after three wins from their first three fixtures. In a topsy turvy game David White grabs the winner after two Mark Brennan penalties keep City in the running for full points. As White wheels away in typical fashion, the Kippax heaves into life behind him.


By 1996-7 both sides are back in the second tier. Little do City fans realise but Nicky Summerbee and his team mates are about to introduce us to the third level of English pro football.


In the same game, Georgi Kinkladze plays through the Palace defence in inimitable style. The game ends in an inglorious 1-1 draw, with even City's goal scored by Palace man David Tuttle.


Richard Jobson is mobbed by happy team mates after scoring a surprisingly refined goal at Maine Road in the September 1999 game. City win 2-1 with a second from Gareth Taylor on their way to back to back promotions to the Premier League.


Jamie Pollock battles with Clinton Morrison in the return game at Selhurst in 99-00, drawn 1-1 by City thanks to an eye watering flying header from Bob Taylor that sees City close in on their promotion target.

December 2001: After one season apart, the sides are once again facing each other in the second tier, Palace winning this December clash 2-1 despite little Ali Benarbia's midfield magic and an opportunistic goal from Shaun Goater.

This time out it is not two games from the same season, but two managers from the same team.
This article first appeared here as part of ESPNFC's coverage of the Palace v City match

“John Bond’s cup runneth over, but Malcolm Allison’s remains dry as a bone....” So went the opening line of Colin Malam’s report for the Sunday Telegraph in January 1981.

The match that had just been completed on the soaking wet Maine Road pitch, between unevenly matched Manchester City and Crystal Palace, had finished 4-0 to the home side, the beginnings of a cup run that would take in never-to-be-forgotten matches with Norwich, a six-nil pasting, Peterborough (with 28,000 packing the 4th division club’s old London Road ground), two mammoth quarter final ties with Everton, played out in front of an aggregate crowd of well over 100,000 people and a semi final with the then all-conquering Ipswich Town, who had been on route for a treble of trophies before being sent packing by City at Villa Park.

Big Mal sets out

The final with Tottenham, the centenary FA Cup Final would also be drenched in sweat and drama, but – at this stage -- that was still some four months away.

This 3rd round tie between City and Palace was not so much about the two clubs but about the two managers. City, under new management in the shape of ex-Norwich City boss John Bond, had taken off – pilfering 20 points from a possible 26 in the league since his arrival the previous October.

The reason for the autumnal change of management at Maine Road in 1980-81 was on this occasion sitting in the dugout not ten metres away from where Bond and his assistants John Benson and John Sainty were busy arranging their sheepskin coats and pre-match Havanas. The incumbent of that small plastic and steel arrangement in front of the Main Stand had in fact only just sat down, having spent those typically tense pre-match minutes striding out across the Maine Road mud towards the heaving Kippax terraces on the opposite side of the ground, to take the adulation of an expectant 39,000 crowd. Never in this correspondent’s lifetime watching the quixotic Blues of Manchester can I remember an opposition manager having the gaul to walk arms aloft towards the centre circle, clapping his hands ostentatiously above his head and receive exactly the same back from the mass of hands and faces staring back at him from the Kippax.

It was an unforgettable sight and an unforgettable moment, later captured in the ultra intrusive Granada TV documentary called simply CITY!. The exclamation mark after the club’s name has never really gone away. It would come as very little surprise to see City appear on the results boards as Manchester City!, so serpentine and entangled has the club’s recent history been.

The man in the middle of the pitch with two minutes to go to kick-off was of course Malcolm Allison, sacked by City’s genius chairman Peter Swales, the used television mogul from Altrincham, just two months earlier, mentor to John Bond from their days playing together at West Ham United in the 50s and early 60s and still the larger than life character that City fans had grown to love and respect for the drama-laden trophy years he had brought to Maine Road between 1967 and 1970.

Football is a game that seldom stands still, however, and – as Allison saw the thousands of hands returning to their pockets, he made his way back towards the Main Stand, where the teams were about to enter the fray and the various elements of the coaching staff were preparing themselves for the game to come. As he did so, the crowd rose again, an upswell of noise from the Kippax telling Allison in no uncertain terms that his moment had now come and gone, that he would forever have a place in the hearts of the faithful but that now he was here as Leader of the Opposition. Suddenly John Bond’s name rolled down off the great terrace

behind him, creating one of the most poignant moments in what was the beginning of the twilight of Allison’s career as a respected coach.

His face was stretched and his eyes carried a sad glaze as he made it back to the touchline. He would take that Palace side down to the second division at the end of the season, would later lead Middlesbrough in an ill-fated spell in the North East (reporter: “Mal Middlesbrough is not really a champagne and cigars sort of town is it?” – Allison: “When you’re winning, any town is a champagne and cigars sort of town”) before heading off abroad for spells of differing quality in Portugal and Kuwait. His Palace side on this occasion, beaten thoroughly by his old love Manchester City, managed by his old pupil John Bond, must have left Allison with one of the saddest memories of his later career.

As Malam had written, Bond’s cup ranneth over, whilst Allison’s remained dry as a bone. Few were the occasions that Big Mal’s cup was anything other than full to the brim.

Mind games. They’re all the rage these days. You can’t park a bus without people looking at you in a strange way and woe betide anybody who decides to attempt such a manoeuvre at Anfield. Do so and you will find yourself derided for playing anti-football as Chelsea were or, worse still, have a band of miniature scoundrels test the perspex of your windows, as a City minibus found out two weeks ago.

Liverpool supporters have been singing “We’re going to win the league” in their frantic, ever-so-slightly pre-ejaculatory giddiness for some weeks already. Head onto YouTube and you will find it horrendously heavy with clips of the Liverpool bus arriving at a dead slow stop pace through red smog and electrically charged chanting. You will see people in Liverpool Premier League Winners T-Shirts and others reeling around from the sheer enormity of it all. This has been going on for weeks. The place was absolutely heaving against City and it obviously helped the side tear into the Blues from the off. That the same thing did not happen against Chelsea can be put down to several factors. Firstly the away side was not interested in going toe to toe, as City had done two weeks earlier at Manuel Pellegrini's behest ("we go there to play our normal game").

For good reason, José Mourinho chose to be pragmatic. His side is midway through a Champions League semi final and the number crunching told him that it only required to appear from Fortress Anfield with a point to thrust his side right back into the swarming whirlpool of this dramatically enhanced title race.

Once again the Kop was a sea of banners and scarves, the feverish atmospshere lending itself to the big occasion. This of course can be a double edged sword, as Steve Peters, Liverpool’s mind games expert and champion of all our internal monkeys will testify. What he has been teaching the players and staff of Liverpool has obviously had a magnificent effect. Liverpool have been unrecognisable this season from the slumping also-rans they have turned into over the last quarter century.

But what happens when this premature euphoria has the opposite effect? Logic not emotion, you could almost hear Peters whispering under his breath, logic not emotion. Take the sting out of the occasion before it eats you. Peters’ famous Foundation Stones have brought athletes from many disciplines through to the very top of their professions, making them aware of who they are, how they best perform and where the demons lie. Here there were demons flying out of every crack of the old stadium's red brick walls. It was emotion not logic and there was a strong tide of it running too.

But after the initial spurt, the Kop fell silent, the atmosphere changed and all the impartial observer could hear was the gentle knocking together of Scouse knees. Steven Gerrard heard this ominous sound too and joined in the fun. The pressure, as it often does, was getting to the league leaders and Chelsea and their boisterous fans were feeding on it lustily. For Chelsea - and indeed to a lesser extent, City – have been here before. In beating Bayern on their own ground in the final of the Champions League, Chelsea have proved beyond any necessary doubt that they have the balls for the big occasion. In fishing their own first league title for 44 years out of the Manchester Ship Canal after the world and his dog thought that boat had already sailed, City too revealed a mettle that only big time athletes can grow from. Whilst onlookers were wilting with the pressure on that sunny May day v QPR, others were winding themselves up for the kill. It took the breath away but remains as a testament to what positive thinking can achieve.

Monkeys are funny creatures with long arms and cauliflower bottoms. Inner monkeys, it seems, can be even more ridiculous. look at video below. How would you feel if you were inside the bus? The date is 26th March.

March 26th before Liverpool - Sunderland. Yes, March.

Manchester City Monkeys have been doing a fine job, for and against the club, for a number of years. The mind drifts back to the last title winning season's blur of tear-stained action. Last gasp winners v Chelsea and Spurs as Nasri skipped home and Balotelli banged in yet another ice cool penalty; at Arsenal in the League Cup with that sumptuous counter by Dzeko, Johnson and Aguero; the late flurry of activity at Old Trafford; then there was that strange old day in May to cap it all off. By that tumultuous denouement, City had hoisted themselves not only into first place, but also to the top of the rankings covering late winners. More goals, in fact, scored after the 90th minute than any other side in the division. Who would have thought we would be saying that about City ten years ago?

Long-term masochists will well remember two games versus Birmingham City in the late nineties in particular, where the club had managed to cultivate the exact opposite to what we see today: a deadly ability to concede when we most needed not to. Dele Adebola. A name we will never forget. The mists of time clear to show us the unlikely bulk of Murtaz Shelia giving us the lead at St Andrews in some God-forsaken, mud-splattered second division game. It was the 88th minute when the lolloping Georgian netted. We lost that game, rather predictably, two-one. Birmingham's goals came in the 94th and 97th minutes. The rot set in so deep that the club's decline to the third tier of English football felt in many ways inevitable. There were monkeys, albatrosses and vampire bats everywhere you looked. The resurrection since then has been nothing short of breathtaking.

Liverpool – fresh from their very own Dele Adebola moment - now face a trip to Selhurst Park, seemingly a daunting task, but one which City sailed through at the weekend like a flotilla of white-slacked students punting about on the river. If a tray of Pimms had been served to celebrate Yaya Touré majestic second goal, nobody would have batted an eyelid. Palace, on a run of 5 consecutive wins, looked like the little boys who had lost the key to the door. Shut out for ninety minutes, whilst City went about their business with a quiet efficiency, which will have been well noted amongst the frothing denizons of the Annie Road. City have done this before, of course. Two years ago, a succession of unlikely victories (six consecutive wins, to remind you) brought a momentum to City that carried them to the title, but even then a twist in the narrative of the very last game aged every City supporter by half a lifetime in the space of ninety minutes. It is this mental strength in adversity that now kicks in for the team that believes it can be done.

Liverpool, flowing freely for half a season, have suddenly had the carpet removed from under their feet How does one react to that with two games to go? Do they fold or do they come out at Palace with all guns blazing? Or do they start taking corners a little bit like Iago Aspas takes them? Will the fans stop singing about winning the league and will this add or deflate the pressure? Will Chelsea, having dented Liverpool’s title hopes, now go back to coveting that Champions League trophy? Or will last weekend’s win fire them for two more league successes to keep the pressure on, despite Mourinho’s insistence that they can only finish 3rd? Can City overcome one of their bogey sides on one of our least successful grounds to set up a two home game run in towards an unlikely but successful champion's finish? Will the City fans' innate sense of foreboding have an affect on their side or can the likes of Serghio Aguero manage quite nicely without us all gnawing feverishly on the corner flag?

With two, and in City’s case, three games to go, having the initiative at this stage is golden. City’s players, who have admitted to watching bits of the Chelsea victory on the big screen at Selhurst Park as they were warming up, will have been given a colossal boost for that game and, with its smooth conclusion, for the

three that follow.

Everton away, Villa at home and West Ham at home. That is all that now separates City from their second league title in three seasons. Negotiate those three games and the pot will once again be paraded around the Etihad. In Manuel Pellegrini, City have the ideal man to keep players focussed and with their feet on the ground. Whilst Mourinho creates his wars and Rodgers scatters cliches far and wide, the Chilean says little or nothing. His weather-worn face and his gravel voice lend themselves to the general air of responsible level-headedness. It is to him, to the calm authority growing from the likes of Martin Demichelis and Javi Garcia, to the swirling limbs of our Elephant of Bondoukou, and to the unstoppable punch of City’s inimitable forward five that we must now put our trust.

Strong minds alone will not be enough, but they will surely now play their part.

Symons: cut out and keep UCL souvenir

UEFA have announced strict sanctions against Manchester City this morning. The artificially sustained Premier League outfit will from next season only be allowed to take part in the Champions League with a squad of nine players (see full list below) and will be fined the equivalent of the price of Sheikh Mansour's tractor lawnmower (the one for the front lawn, not the golf course).

Michel Platini opined: "Are they breaking accounting rules? Je ne suis pas tres certain. Are they arranging some cuisine around their books? Quite possibly. On verra. In the meantime this will give them time to think and time for manchester United to regenerate...."

Brannan: "...absolutely ready . (....)..for the challenge."

City have announced that they will not appeal, have already transferred the cash to Lausanne, have sent both letters of apology and gratitude to Platini and Gianni Infantino, UEFA's Head of Little Plastic Balls and have this morning announced that the squad is in place for the tilt on the European crown. It will be:

(GK) - B. Siddall

(D) - K. Symons

(D) - A. Nuttall (signed from Heaton Park Strollers)

(D) - V. Kompany (capt)

(D) - A. Kernaghan

(MF) - B. Gazprom (forced offloading from Zenith, who were also hit hard)

(MF) - G, Brannan

(S) - B. Taylor

(S) - G. Taylor

It is thought that it is in attack that City will feel the pinch most, although some are already saying the goalkeeping department looks decidedly average too, given that Joe Hart and Costel Pantilimon will only be able to start domestic games next season. Meanwhile a surprised and elated Ged Brannan stated that, "I will be ready by August and fans can expect the same level of concentration and finesse that they always saw from me." Kit Symons was unavailable for comment as he had smashed an attempted clearance into his own nose during a kickabout in his back garden and was heavily bandaged when we contacted him. Head Coach Manuel Pellegrini said, "We will play our usual game and we will have a chance like the others, no?"

Down the Kippax Steps and Campo Retrohave come together to offer all fans around the world a fantastic opportunity to win a unique and personalized Man City Campo Retro shirt with free delivery.

Campo Retro have a wide range of retro shirts available. With classic shirts and track jackets ranging back from the 1950s to the 2000s, not only that, but Campo Retro will also print any name and number that you want on the back of the shirt to make it extra special.

This competition is open to entrances from all over the world, so whether you live in Moss Side or Melbourne, you still have a great chance to win this fantastic prize. It couldn’t be simpler to enter this competition, all you have to do is answer the simple question below and email the answer to competitions@camposports.com

‘What is the Nationality of Man City’s Zabaleta, Aguero and Demichelis?’

It’s that Simple. The competition closes on 30th May 2014 and the winner will be announced soon after. The winner will receive an email from Campo Retro to request information on shirt size, personalization and delivery address. All entries will also receive an exclusive discount to use at www.camporetro.com

GOOD LUCK!

Displaying Competition Copy - Campo and Down the Kippax Steps.docx.

Following Manchester City, one is often struck by how odd football is, but truly in the last week or two, strange powers have been at work that our feeble minds know little of. As long as it works like this, I’m not at all sure I want to know either.

Thick smoke, mirrors and women with long beards were obvious by their absence at Goodison Park, as was the usual bear-pit atmosphere, replaced by a jolly end-of-term-sports-day sort of air. Gone too was David Moyes’s chased-by-the-yard-dogs-experience. Instead Roberto Martinez opted for a slightly odd three centre-back set-up and an afternoon of crisp passing triangles to full backs, handily placed to help the home side morph from a 5-man defensive block into a well-staffed attacking force. We had already seen at the Etihad this season that, whilst playing eminently better football, this Everton is right up City’s street. No roar, then, no slapdash midfield muddle. No Gareth Barry. No Darron Gibson even. The only recognisable element of a normal trip to Merseyside, in fact, was the almighty knot in the stomach. It may seem petty, but things like this can make something of a difference at a place like Goodison, with its steep stands and pop-eyed denizons. That partizan gale of noise can knock you off your feet, knock you out of your stride. Here, there was noise of sort: the knocking of knees and the gnashing of teeth in the Bullens Road, as City’s afflicted yet robust support set about calming its nerves with a song or two about Liverpool’s talismanic horizontal midfielder.

Pre-match had been a festival of conspiracies waiting to happen, Everton lying down and dying being the top one. Once the energetic Ross Barkley had swung one in from 25 yards, it was clearly apparent that at least one of Everton’s men had not read the proper script. Lukaku, however, lumbering aimlessly upfront and giggling at Kompany when he was dispossessed, seemed in a different frame of mind. Nevertheless, young Barkley would continue to play the game of a man whose mind was not thinking about anything but the three points on offer.

With concession of the opening goal as a starting point, City were obliged to do the rest in City style. From a goal down, a plucky equaliser from Aguero, who promptly pulled something, a towering header and close in stab from Big Match Player Edin Dzeko and a sleepy denouement that nearly landed the whole story back in the melting pot.

It was a true thing of dreams. Manchester City dreams, with crazy-eyed hobgoblins, trumpeting elephants and shimmering women in translucent dresses with pitch black eyes that say touch this and think of Mel Machin. There was nothing you could trust except the clock. Sit there, shake, fidget, holler and wait.

Having lost Aguero, we lost Yaya Touré. No more strikers for Manuel. Fernandinho's arrival raised an eyebrow but quickly also raised several question marks in the Everton side. As City's shape changed, Everton lost impetus. With Nasri bewitching young John Stones on the edge of the box to set up Dzeko's second, things were getting seriously weird. Kolarov was asked to replace Yaya in a swap of Machiavellian beauty.

There is, however, still no need for any City fan to be presumptuous about anything this club does. It holds a well-earned reputation built solidly on doing the wrong thing at the right time, of slapstick and tragedy, of inept timing and living with the inopportune. Balloons pop when they are supposed to float, they score goals against us when they are supposed to decorate the place. Modern times have disfigured our City into a far sleeker beast, but it still carries the heavy burden of being watched and exhorted to its best efforts by thousands of human beings so warped in their historical sense of fate and its flabby backhanders that anything can still go wrong.

In our minds.

Evidently, Pablo Zabaleta, Vincent Kompany, steeped in slightly different City traditions after many years of sky blue action, will have an idea of this club’s great and illustrious past, but even these most decorated long-servers cannot fully grasp what this club has put the rest of us through. They need only look into our eyes and they would get an idea.

So, when they put you through the wringer again, as they surely did here, when they creep up and overtake the Liverpool side who had won the league long ago and had it confirmed by beating us at Anfield, when they finish the season with home games against appallingly flaccid Villa and West Ham teams that were at least alive enough to crawl out of the relegation area before meeting us, when they tease us with all of this, we still don’t take the bait. We refuse to believe these miraculously God-sent moments are for us.

But somehow they are: Naismith arrows in a shot. Joe Hart employing elastic fingertips stretches it past the post. “The save of the season”, Martinez would later call it. Two minutes later it was 3-1 and not 2-2. Gods above, what are you doing to us. The crowd sings in praise of Steven Gerrard yet again. The world spins slightly too fast for a Saturday at six-forty-five in the evening.

You look for certainties. That crumpled Peter Barnes poster. The scrap of paper with Ian Bishop’s hurried autograph on it. The scarred page 14 of your fabled Edin Dzeko Book of Time Wasting (“..if in doubt about the referee’s attentions, bury your face in the turf and pretend you have dislocated your shoulder...”). The door knob you stole from the corridor at Notts County that time you decided to invade the pitch with 5,000 others, got carried away and ended up in the dressing room with Jimmy Sirrell and his loud hailer. We drape ourselves in those important ephemera that serve as stabilisers in this chaotic world of shouting and screaming. And we hold on for dear life. I hold onto a stolen doorknob from 1985.

But all of this nonsense is just us. The players, with pristine hair and straightened shirts, have done what they were paid to do. “Competitive courage”, Daniel Taylor would later call it in the Observer, “to see off opponents who deserve better than the debate about whether or not they were entirely committed”. Well that it most certainly was, added to ice cold nerve, raw commitment, and a will-to-win that seems to be deserting some of the more lauded title chasers at the very worst moment. This indeed was the epitome of a “brave performance”.

But, despite all of this, despite Norwich drawing at Stamford Bridge, impoverished, embarrassing Norwich with their fans in green and yellow wigs; despite Nigel de Jong heading the winner in the Milan derby; despite the moon going into its third phase and the equinox emptying itself almost entirely onto Sale Road, we know that this is nothing more nothing less than Pellegrini’s “huge step” in the right direction. We know, all of us, in our heart of hearts, there is till a bump and a twist to come, but we also know that City have players who appear to be reading from a different script to the rest of us. That they don't appear to know any of these things is just fine by me.

So sleep peacefully, gentle folk. You will almost certainly need the rest, for in the words of the great philosopher Brendan Rodgers, tomorrow we go again.

To all those who have shared the pain,

to all those who drank it in,
to all those who believed what they saw
to those who couldn't believe their eyes;

to those that toasted with champagne, flat beer, stale ale, Russian vodka, prize gin or a cup of tea

to those on the Hobec, the Delirium and the Alpha Super Dortmunder
to those who hugged, bumped, shuddered, cried and bruised their legs at Wembley 99,

to those who giggled at Oldham when Big Andy flexed his neck;
to those who saw the pie hit Peter Willis
to those in the snow and the rain and the howling gale

to those getting sun burnt and to those catching a cold
to those who got washed out at Boundary Park when Smith missed his pen,
to those who swore at Lincoln they'd never come again;

to the bloke who ripped up his season ticket book on the pitch v Bury,

to all those who have resorted to the sherry and the creme de menthe
to those that have run around dazed for days,

to those that have laughed, cajoled, persisted and wished us on from afar;

to all those that supported us, put up with us, slapped our backs, kept us sane, avoided eye contact, didn't say what they were thinking, left things unsaid;

to all those that sang their hearts out, wrote, sympathised, phoned,emailed, reflected and thought of us;

to all those in the Oscar Wilde in Berlin when City played Blackburn and the Lord smiled on us;

to all those in fancy dress at the Victoria Ground
to all those refs who we questioned
to all the linesmen we abused
to all those in Sale and Brooklands, in Cheadle and Prestwich, Collyhurst and Stalybridge
to those in Moston and Altrincham, Gorton and Ancoats

to all those left behind in Amsterdam, in Alkmaar, in Dusseldorf, in Luzern, in Ballasalla, in Valencia, in Barcelona, in Lisbon, in Gonçal Bocas, in Alicante, in The Hague, in Porto, in Clermont Ferrand, in Haarlem, in Ponsacco, in Baltimore and Denver;

to all those sharing a moment at 3 o'clock every Saturday;

to all those who doubted, poked fun, poured scorn, cried foul;

to all those who believed, believed some more, hoped, lost sleep, threw up, fell out, jumped in;

to all those who waxed lyrical, shouted from the rooftops, bellowed, cried and stood firm;

to all those that went home and away;

to all those in The Comfy Cushion, The Parkside, The Whitestone, The White Hart, The Broadfield, Terry Neil’s, Mary D's, The Blarney Stone, The Boardroom, Yate's, The Pumphouse; The Funzel, The Proeflokaal, The Glue Pot and The George Hotel

to all those that propped us up, put an arm around us, bought us a drink, put up with our moods, pretended to listen, spared us a thought; ruffled our hair; bought us a consolation pint of Terribly Bitter

to all those at Ewood Park, The Den, Saltergate, Bootham Crescent;

to all those who tackled, blocked, saved, scored, headed, came on, came off, jumped, challenged and played out of their skins;

to all those who sang long and hard deep into the night;

to all those who dared to dream;

to all those who still dream;

to Dickov and the Goat;

to all who cheered at Wrexham and Stoke;

to all who ran the gauntlet at Huddersfield and Wolverhampton;

to all those on the pop at Meadow Lane

to all those who sang louder the worse it got;
to all those who renewed for Division Three
to the 30,000 that turned out for Blackpool;

to all those on the InterCity to Newcastle;
to all those in the minibus to Swansea
to all those hitch-hiking to Plymouth

to all those in Gelsenkirchen and Copenhagen, Liege and Bilbao,
to all those on the fishing smack to the Faroes
to all those in the double decker at Lokeren;

to all those who empathise, sympathise, chastise;

to all those who tried to understand despite everything;

to all those who support United, Everton, Leeds, Chelsea but put up with us as mates on non-match days;
to Rodney Marsh and to Tony Towers

to all those who support MSV, Schalke, Sporting, Napoli, Milan, Benfica, Juve, AZ, Ajax, Belenenses, Valencia but now support City a little bit too;

to all those who have caught the bug;

to all those who send text messages when we lose

to all those who have it in your hearts to say "come on Blues" just to make us happy

to all those writing, thinking, posting, tweeting;

to all those who were there and will be there

to all those who have watched our boys at Wembley
to all those who knees went all trembly

to all those who wish they could be there

to all those new to the throng
to all those who can never go again

to all those wizened, cracked, broken and chastened

to all those for whom hope is the killer

to Paolo Wanchope and Kevin Horlock
to Micky Horswill and Geoff Hammond

to the unsung heroes and the bottle washers

to the kitmen and the carpert cleaners;

to all those driving Lamborghinis

to Nigel de Jong and Mario Balotelli
to guvnors and young guvnors

to all those who have played like we dream

to all those who have dreamed

to all those who have had a nightmare

to Jamie Pollock
to all those for whom a Blue Moon rising sends a little shivver down the spine;
to all those who climbed the fences at Villa Park;

to all those who saw next to nothing at London Road;

to all those who watched six go into the Norwich net;

to all those who clapped Big Mal across the turf

to all those who flew with Steve Mackenzie;

to all those who sank with Ricky Villa;
to Bobby Mac in goals
to David James upfront

to Neil Young and Arthur Mann, to Malcolm Allison and John Benson;

to Roy Paul and Don Revie, to Genial Joe and Tommy Caton;

to Whitey, Quinny and Lakey;

to all those who waved a banana and sang Blue Moon;

to all those who sang in the rain in the Prater;
to all those who took a punch on the nose at Barnsley

to all those asked the time at Millwall
to all those who played on through the pain;

to all those who watched four goals go in on Tyneside;

to Stan Gibson and his pitchfork;

to Bert Trautmann and the never-say-die spirit;

to Buzzer, Franny and Colin the King;
to the indomitable spirit of Pablo Zabaleta

to those who have walked Claremont Road;

to those who have raised a glass at the City Gates;

to Tommy Hutch and Kevin Reeves;

to Bill Taylor and Peter Swales;

to Bernard Halford and Tony Book;

to all those who have risked food poisoning, drank too much and never regretted a moment;

to all those hemmed in at Bradford, on the hill at Blackburn, behind the wire at Wednesday, in the sheeting rain at Huddersfield

to all those who entered enemy territory;

to the guy who jumped on Keith Curle at Old Trafford;

to quiet Mel and morose Ron; squeaky Alan and confused Phil;

to Uwe Rosler and Ian Bishop;

to all those who played bit parts;

to all those who scored off the far post;

to those that put 5 in the United net in 89;

to those that saw Dickov slide in the rain;
to those that stayed and those that left and those that turned back and came again
to Bondy, Jimmy Frizz and Big Seizure;

to Georgi Kinkladze;

to all those who watched van Blerk, Kernaghan, Beesley, McNaught, and still raised a cheer;

to the legendary 8,000;
to jinking Kaziu Deyna,

to all those that sank 12 pints with Bobby Mac and Gerry Gow

to those that swayed on the Kippax, bawled in the Platt Lane, chanted in the North Stand and ate pies in the Main Stand;
to those Chaos Coaches from Prestwich and Whitefield
to those that came on the pitch at Loftus Road
to Binman Bob
to all those who saw the glory of Wrexham and Real

to all those who craned their necks, asked who it was, smiled, tutted and shook their heads;

to all those who saw Dennis fly at Wembley;
to those who had a surreptitious leak;

to those who wet themselves;

to those who hung on and have hung on until now;

to those who never gave up;

to those who came back;
to those who can't take anymore;

to those who went away;

to those who are there in spirit;

to all those who will not see what happens next;

to all those who have seen enough already;

to those who will take what comes
to all those who packed the boozers at West Brom and Watford, Carlisle and Nottingham;

to those rubbing their hands and eyes at Gay Meadow and The Shay;

to all those for whom Górnik Zabrze means something;
to all those raising the roof in Apeldoorn
to Peter Barnes and to Dennis Tueart;

to Denis and his heel;
to Barney Daniels;
to Gerald Sinstadt, David Coleman, Barry Davies, John Motson, Brian Moore and those who have put silken words to our deeds;
to all those who like history
to all those on the quays in Porto and shivering in Red Square
to Captain Mike Doyle;
to Duncan Davidson and Gordon Dalziel
to all those with too many blue garments;
to all those who refuse to wear red
to all those already wearing their lucky underpants;
to those with their sleeves rolled up
to those with a clenched fist
to those with a welcoming hug
to all those in their match gear
to all those who don't really know how to cope,
to all those who don't understand why we do it;

to all those who have spent their last pound on a ticket;

to all those at the Full Members Cup and the Auto Windscreens;

to all those at Darlington and York;
to Edin Dzeko and the 6-1
to captain Vinny and Martin Demichelis
to those who love not knowing what comes next;
to The Elephant of Bondoukou
to all those who fret and worry
to those who take it in their stride
to little El Mago and his pirouettes

to all those who keep on coming
to all those drinking red wine on the Bakerloo Line
to all those on the quays at Porto
to Big Joe and to Helen and her bell
to the Kings of the Kippax
to those with memories of Maine Road
to all those in the 95th minute v QPR
to all those climbing the steps at the Nou Camp
to the quiet man Manuel Pellegrini
to all those who dared believe one day we would come out into the summer sunshine;

You could never say that you didn't play your part

Mr Ed Woodward has systematically announced, proclaimed and stated that Manchester United Football Club will be “right back into single digit league table action” next season. In a hot and highly inspirational press conference, the football accounts whizzkid laid bare some other facts for the hungry press pack, suggesting that “the football club will be doing its utmost to appropriately extend economically sound applications” wherever it sees fit, that is to say completely generate future-proof aggregates for our multi-digit masses of customers, users, clients and partners worldwide”.

At an early part of the proceedings a perceptibly flustered Sir Bobby Charlton was led away by a gaggle of security guards after blurting out “I GUARANTEE WE WILL FINISH ABOVE CITY NEXT YEAR!!!!”. Looking troubled and having to wipe away sweat from his astonishing dome, Woodward shuffled closer to the bank of microphones and, waiting for an unfortunate facial tick to die away, said, “That is to say, Sir Robert of Charlton expects the football club to be able to in one form or another administrate granular internal or even organic success over a sustainable period of up to triple digit years. At least that is how you should understand it and you can quote me on that, oh yes”.

At this point squeals could be heard from behind the giant white canvass at the back of the stage, where Charlton was being administered with a family bottle of Lucozade and some Manchester United sponsored wet wipes.

Quizzed on the whereabouts of new coaching supremo and overlord Louis van Gaal, Woodward explained that the Dutch coach with no visible signs of a chin fungibly welcomed pioneering aspects of what might well be a matrix interactive leadership pogron and that he would be signing "sometime after the Equinox game".

Woodward concluded the plenary session with a dramatic Churchillian sweep of his rather short arms, opining: “in order to appropriately develop multifunctional platforms and strategize innovative client-based applications, relationships and best practices, we are all firmly agreed that the first thing to do is take a really cold bath. Only by doing this, can I come back into contact with some of my internal organs. Thank you and see you in a double digit future sometime in August”.

The majesty and splendour of Plzen

Let me take you back a few years. Remember Aston Villa beating Bayern Munich in Rotterdam with a clumsy swipe from Peter Withe’s simple black Puma-clad foot? Or John Robertson bouncing Forest’s daisy cutter winner against Kevin Keegan’s Hamburger SV? How about Porto beating Monaco 3-0 in Gelsenkirchen in José Mourinho’s first final, ten years ago? Fine, memorable moments in the history of a spectacular club competition and not a single one of them likely to be repeated ever again at the rate we are going.

ESPN writer Miguel Delaney recently posted an interesting article, reflecting on the continental porridge that we are slowly but surely falling into, as far as carrying off the Champions League is concerned. It is without doubt a tournament that creates different emotions, depending largely whether your team is participating in it or not. Manchester City, for so long the ugly bridesmaids looking in through the steamed-up glass at a party that they had practically never been invited to (apart from one inglorious occasion when some noisy Turks destroyed our concentration), now include themselves in a tiny elite group of clubs that look set to dominate this competition for years to come. Who in their right mind can see anyone from outside Bayern, Real, Barcelona, the Manchesters City and (perhaps even) United, Paris St Germain and Chelsea winning it in the future? Delaney includes statistics that fair numb the senses, but probably only confirm what many of us have been thinking for a long time: we are fast heading for a closed shop:

The number of years since the following clubs had tasted glory in the European Cup/Champions League around the end of 1996-7 season is in the first column. The number of years since their last win as of today stands alongside in the right hand column. Just look at how the it has all changed...

CLUB 1996 2014

Real Madrid	32	0
Manchester United	31	6
Bayern Munich	25	3
Barcelona	40	1
Chelsea	-	2
Manchester City	-	-
Paris St Germain	-	-

City struggle with Fenerbahçe in '68

As Delaney points out, the figures at the end of the last century suggest it was – after all – quite a difficult trophy to win. The number of different winners was inspiring. The list below, from the time when English clubs dominated in the late 70s to the Italianate end of the 90s looks just how you would want a trophy hit list to look. Sadly, there is a proliferation of clubs that either do not exist as top flight contenders anymore or are becoming rare birds at these sorts of occasions in the modern football era. The entrants from Sweden, Romania, Belgium and Holland are these days more or less resigned to filling their pockets whilst making a quick exit stage left. they are merely making up the numbers. Even Italy’s finest, past heavyweights in this tournament down the years, look wistfully towards the latter stages and retreat to the warm embrace of the Europa League, where Benfica, Ajax and a host of other past glories often await them.

77–78	Liverpool	1–0	Club Brugge
78–79	Nottingham Forest	1–0	Malmö FF
79–80	Nottingham Forest	1–0	Hamburg
80–81	Liverpool	1–0	Real Madrid
81–82	Aston Villa	1–0	Bayern Munich
82–83	Hamburg	1–0	Juventus
83–84	Liverpool	1–1	Roma
84–85	Juventus	1–0	Liverpool
85–86	Steaua Bucurest	0–0	Barcelona
86–87	Porto	2–1	Bayern Munich
87–88	PSV Eindhoven	0–0	Benfica
88–89	Milan	4–0	Steaua Bucarest
89–90	Milan	1–0	Benfica
90–91	Red Star Belgrade	0–0	Marseille
91–92	Barcelona	1–0	Sampdoria
92–93	Marseille	1–0	Milan
93–94	Milan	4–0	Barcelona
94–95	Ajax	1–0	Milan
95–96	Juventus	1–1	Ajax
96–97	Borussia Dortmund	3–1	Juventus

As well as the afore-mentioned Villa, Forest and Porto, it is difficult to imagine the likes of Marseille, Red Star Belgrade, Hamburg, Roma, Steaua, PSV or Sampdoria ever coming anywhere near again. Even clubs, who are still relatively big noises in their own leagues (Roma, Juventus, PSV, Liverpool) are unlikely to make a splash again on the big stage like they once did.

UEFA have constantly tinkered with the European game in an attempt to, in their words, increase competition, and in the eyes of many, ensure a revenue stream that dissuades the giants from breaking away and forming their own tournament. When the Champions League began in 1992-93 (what a year thatwas), with Glasgow Rangers and IFK Goteborg coming close to the final as losing semi-finalists and Marseille and Milan actually making it, there were two series of groups. The second phase was later discarded for the

Just another night at the Nou Camp

format we have today, whilst qualifying arrangements have been tinkered with to allow more representatives from smaller UEFA nations to get as far as the groups.. This has had a twofold negative effect: firstly, the gap between Bate Borisov and Barcelona means their like are thrashed and turfed out every year. Secondly, the loser’s winnings keep them way above their own domestic competition, so they may return each year to be humiliated by Bayern and Real all over again. They have become simultaneously untouchable kings in their own territories and cannon fodder internationally. Witness the hoo-ha these days if there is a debutante in the group stage or if an unheralded team like Malaga (although propped up with dubious finances) make a bit of a splash. By the time we reach the quarter finals each year, the draw throws teams together, who now play each other four or five times a decade. Unless you are one of these teams, the interest level is surely unsustainable and, even if you are, the attention must begin to drift a little as Barcelona hove into view yet again

City, new to this sumptuous banquet of noblemen, have already had to visit Prince Ludwig's lair twice and they have only participated three times. City’s opponents in the Champions League so far have been:

2011-12	BAYERN	NAPOLI	VILLAREAL
2012-13	REAL MADRID	BORUSSIA DORTMUND	AJAX
2013-14	BAYERN	CSKA MOSCOW	VIKTORIA PLZEN

City’s chances of drawing Real, Barcelona or Bayern yet again next season are high, given they are likely to emerge from Pot Two. Already a familiarity is seeping into the experience and we have only seen the side escape the group phase once in three attempts. It is likely that City will, FFP attempts to derail them notwithstanding, become one of the staples in this diet of stellar teams, megastars and wide-eyed camera-holding spectator-tourists. How are we going to feel about that? Until City win the thing – and this will surely happen one day, given the momentum the club now has and despite its historical bent towards avoiding such glamorous outcomes– it will no doubt hold a sufficiently high level of interest for most onlookers. The chance to see City step out in the cathedrals of Europe (and Plzen) is still a novelty of high enough value to attract many of us brought up on the away end at Huddersfield and trips to the Baseball Ground, but how much time do we still have in this world of unhappy millionaire footballers before even this becomes a little too stale for our liking?

I have been dying to use that headline for some time now. Anyone, who has had the pleasure of being given a handshake by an octopus will know exactly what it's like to play football opposite Fernando Francisco Reges, Manchester City's new all-action midfielder.

It was around the time Fernando, born in Alto Paraíso, Brazil, earned praise from all quarters for his tireless tracking of Manchester United’s star men in a 2009 Champions League quarter final ultimately lost by his club FC Porto, that his star really began to rise and in particular, his unfeasibly telescopic legs began to take on a life of their own. Industrious, energetic and originally highly effective in a restricting no holds barred midfield role, he became known amongst the Porto faithful as o polvo, or the octopus, his gangly legs seen as gadgets for getting in the way of even the trickiest opponent bearing down on the home goal. The ability to extend a long limb to remove the ball from an opponent or fly in with a trademark double footed lunge whilst keeping the feet low and facing sufficiently downwards to avoid sanction have made him famous in Portugal. He possesses an uncanny ability to slide in and wrap those legs around flying limbs and ball and steal it like a midnight thief.

As time has gone on and his role at the then Portuguese champions began to evolve, football watchers in Portugal became aware of other facets to his game. Far from a useful and reliable nicker of balls from the feet of advancing strikers, the then Brazilian was full of energy and could gallop up the pitch in no time at all. The initial safe short passes out of deep lying midfield began to take on more dimension too and he has developed into one of the best all-purpose midfielders of his type in the Portuguese league and beyond.

Fernando enjoys a moment of notoriety v Sporting

Fernando’s record at the Dragão is impressive: in seven years with the club he has won the Europa League, four Portuguese League titles, four Portuguese cups and five Supercups (the local equivalent of the Community Shield, which always counts as a trophy at City), whilst at the same time also gaining another valuable asset for City, Champions League mileage, in total 34 games’ worth. As time has gone by, Porto’s well-defined methods of finding young South American talent and moving them on to the bigger European leagues at a huge profit, has meant that Fernando, along with goalkeeper Helton, have become the club’s most experienced players. Not only that, in the midfielder's case, but also one of the playing staff’s most discreet members off the pitch and one of their number's most consistent on it.

As the call to play for Brazil never came, Fernando took the step on 15th December 2013, of taking out Portuguese nationality, not an uncommon move for Brazilians plying their trade in this part of the football world. Indeed Deco had done the same thing at Porto whilst wiry attacker Liedson also made the move at Sporting and current international Pepe is also a naturalised Brazilian. This decision not only supposedly made him available for Paulo Bento’s Portugal but meant that any move to another European country would not be tied up in administrative red tape. Having grown up as a footballer in Portugal, he has remained a staunch admirer of the skills of Dunga and Gilberto Silva, other master craftsmen in his position on the pitch. Ironically the Brazilian national team has gone from one that placed little emphasis on the need for a holding midfielder to the current situation where Luis Gustavo, Paulinho and City’s Fernandinho are all high profile parts of the Selecção's game plan.

Like many of his kind, Fernando left Brazil at a relatively early age, having played for Serie C (third tier) Vila Nova in Brazil, but was bought by Porto ostensibly on the back of a string of eye-catching displays for Brazil in the 2007 South America Youth Championship. After a year on loan with the now defunct Estrela de Amadora in Lisbon, Fernando began to forge himself a reputation in the north, picking up admirers at Juventus, Inter, Roma, Liverpool and Manchester United as his match time at Porto increased.

Under the stewardship of wily old Portuguese coach Jesualdo Ferreira, Fernando gained an increasing amount of playing time, inheriting the octopus moniker for his ability to stick out his so-called tentacles and wrap them around the ball. A reputation as an arch tackler and tidy-up merchant did not do him justice, however, as his present day incarnation is much more mult-faceted than that. Once Jesualdo gave way to younger coaches in the shape of André Villas Boas, Vitor Pereira and Paulo Fonseca, it became evident that Fernando had become an undroppable fixture in the side. As the official FC Porto website still claims today,

“Fernando reads the game as few do, recovers the ball with incredible ease and rarely commits fouls, making him one of the least booked players in the League. He is also capable of keeping it simple and is an efficient passer. The number 25 is omnipresent and has evolved into a player who can also create in the attacking part of the pitch”.

But there is another side to the player’s career that needs addressing too: while he has an innate ability to clear up muddles on the pitch, off it is another story altogether. He has never played for Portugal because of a wrangle about documentation and dates between the FPF (the Portuguese Football Federation) and FIFA. After three months of FIFA pondering an announcement was made: Fernando was not officially Portuguese at the time of being involved in the afore-mentioned Brazilian Under 20s tournament and thus could not play for Portugal.

When negotiating to move to City last December, the transfer also became bogged down in an unholy mess of paperwork, resulting in the player eventually re-signing for FC Porto, to enable them to continue to demand a transfer fee come the summer (his contract was set to run out in June). In some ways the renewal of the contract told City that they would get their man, albeit at a price. That price, just €15 million euros, is still something of a snip. Porto hold 80% of the player’s registration and it is understood that City have bought him outright, as no other scenario would be possible thanks to premier league registration rulings. If his recent career has been blighted by red tape, and the occasional red card, it is clear that Porto’s omnipresent number 25, will be a good fit in the Manchester City number 6 shirt, vacated this summer by stalwart defender Joleon Lescott.

So, is Fernando purely cover for Fernadinho and Yaya Touré? The latter’s announcements via his ever-comical personal representative Dimitri Seluk are becoming hard to decipher. After cake gate, a small storm is now brewing over complaints about City restricting the time he could spend with his dying brother. Whether these are odd moments of preamble to yet another contract negotiation, or the big Ivorian really wants out, only time will tell, but, interestingly, as Portuguese football expert Vasco Mota Pereira says, “The one aspect where Fernando may suffer is City's tactical formation: He has always proved to play exponentially better when acting on his own (usually in a 4x3x3). In the words of the great Fernando Redondo, playing him alongside another midfielder "is like playing with one eye closed".

O JOGO, Porto's daily football paper, carries the news today

City’s liking for a roaming supposedly defensive midfielder (Touré) and one with more fixed responsibilities (Fernandinho) does not immediately tally with this. However, Manuel Pellegrini’s liking for fast raiding players coming from deep to support the front four, will certainly click with the new improved attacking aspects of the ex-Porto man. Mota Pereira continues “Fernando is probably one of the best (and most underrated) holding midfielders in European football at the moment. His evolution at FC Porto over the past few years was nothing short of astonishing, as he progressed from an exclusively defensive midfielder to a ball-playing one. Under Jesualdo Ferreira, he learned to master defensive actions and positions to perfection; under André Villas-Boas and Vítor Pereira, he was asked to be the primary hub of these possession-oriented sides and given the possibility to roam forward. Despite his improvements as far as technical skills are concerned, he cannot be considered a master of the art, particularly in a team like City. Not unlike Javi García, Fernando excels when his team are compact but the Brazilian-born midfielder is able to sweep and press higher up due to his more adventurous positioning and physical skills. On the other hand, while the Spanish midfielder is not exactly comfortable on the ball, Fernando is always willing to provide an out-ball to his team-mates.”

Whether he is seen as a stand-in for one or the other part of the traditional two man City central midfield or a starter in his own right, City fans are set to see yet another impressive performer striding the Etihad pitch come August.

David Mooney is not only a prolific writer and talker on all things Manchester City, but also a purveyor of excellently written, eminently readable tales about this grand old club of ours. He has already been responsible for four books on City and one piece of fiction named Granny Killer, reputedly about Jimmy Frizzell and a misunderstanding over a small tub of creosote.

For those, who have not yet managed to get a copy of his latest work, "Looks Like Scunny Next Season", featuring fascinating interviews with each team member from the history-changing play-off final in 1999 with Gillingham, here's an extract to whet the appetite.

6: Kevin Horlock

“I know this sounds terrible, but I still didn’t think that was enough. I didn’t envisage what was going to happen after that. I thought the time was up. On a personal point – and I know it sounds dreadfully selfish – I thought ‘we’ve had a terrible day, but I’ve scored at Wembley and I can tell the grandkids that’.”

We were sitting in a downstairs room of Needham Market FC’s clubhouse and, naturally, there was only one place where the discussion could start. Just like Kevin Horlock on the pitch, when his goal at Wembley in 1999 hit the back of the net, there were few in the stands that celebrated it. With the board for stoppage time being raised and it pulling the score back to 2-1, thousands of fans thought it was too little, too late.

“Obviously it’s an even better story to tell the grandkids, now!” He adds, after a moment’s pause.

“All I remember was that, as a player, you really want to try and get back into the match. I remember trying to cover as much ground as I could. When we were defending, I tried to get back – because, obviously we couldn’t concede another one.

“Then I just remember the ball breaking forward and thinking I needed to get to the edge of the area as quickly as I could. Obviously, I’m not the quickest player in the world. Luckily enough, maybe being a bit slower helped me run onto the ball, rather than have to back-peddle for it.

“I remember arriving and the ball just seemed to come across for me. All I was thinking was just ‘hit the target – head down, get a good connection and hit the target’.

“It was a good strike. You can look at it as quite a good goal, I suppose, because I stayed quite composed – but maybe that was due to the fact I thought the game was over anyway! Maybe if it was to equalise like Dicky’s was, I’d have probably skied it!”

Even through chatting to him for a brief few moments, I can tell that Horlock is the joker in the pack. There’s a cheeky charm about the way he talks and he’s very humble about his own contributions to the City team that won promotion in 1999. When we first met – in the bar area of Needham Market’s clubhouse – he was clearly well liked by the staff and players that were there. As he walked in, three players, who’d been on the pool table, immediately started a game of ‘one-upmanship’ with him, ribbing him about his pool-playing ability. And Horlock gave as good as he got, too.

He’s capable of serious, too, though. After talking about his goal, we started talking about the bigger picture with regards to that match.

“We realised what a big game it was,” he says. “Not only in that season but in the history of the club. If we’d have languished in that division for much longer, then who knows what would have happened? We knew we had to get out at all costs – and it did go down to the last game.

“I sensed there was a little bit of tension, knowing that we were massive favourites. We had everything to lose and nothing to win, really. I sensed that amongst the lads and certainly felt that way myself.

“We tried to keep preparations as low key as possible,” he says. “Joe [Royle] was good at that. He kept the pressure off the boys and maybe that’s where I came into his plans a little bit.

“Joe didn’t sign me at Ipswich just because of the player I was,” he explains. “I think he saw me as a person who could take the pressure off. I used to have a laugh in the dressing room; I used to have a bit of fun. And speaking to people in Ipswich now, he actually signed me for that reason. Not just my footballing ability.

“So, Joe kept it low-key and I tried to keep it that way, too. It was a game we had to win and that adds pressure in itself, without having to deal with the opposition and Gillingham were a big, strong team.”

What Horlock doesn’t realise at this point is that I had already spoken to Joe Royle. I have to ask him about an incident that I’d been told about by the then City manager.

“We’d been out for a walk,” the former midfielder says. “We’d got down to the hotel and we’d all gone out for a walk and a cup of coffee down the road. On the way back, there was a monsoon. It was torrential rain. A few of the boys rushed in, but – and this will sound pretty immature now! – me and Jeff [Whitley] were stood there.

“There were a few tourists taking pictures of the rain. Then eventually they were taking pictures of me and Jeff because we looked bloody idiots, to be fair!

“I just said to Jeff, ‘I’m not going in, I’m going to stay out here for a long as possible.’ And Jeff being Jeff said he was staying out as well and it turned into a bit of a stand-off of who was going to stay in the rain the longest. And when I say rain, it was unbelievable. It was torrential.

“We were stood there getting drenched and I looked over Jeff’s shoulder and the manager was the other side of the glass window of the hotel saying, ‘get yourself in here now!’. So then it became survival of the bravest.”

A wry smile appears on his face as he adds: “Jeff went in first.

“It was funny,” he continues. “I think Joe probably laughs about it now, but he wasn’t best pleased at the time because we had a big game the next day. But they were the sort of things that took the tension off the boys, they found it quite funny. Joe pretended he was angry, but I’m sure he was laughing inside.”

In the February of that season, City travelled to Dean Court to face Bournemouth. In the end, the Blues would draw 0-0, but it would turn out to be a very welcome point after a truly bizarre refereeing decision – one Horlock would never forget.

When I ask about it, he laughs. “Where do I start?” he says.

“It was a big crowd and the majority were City fans,” he explains. “I don’t know whether it got to the ref. Jamie Pollock had just been sent off and there’d been a few dodgy tackles flying around – like I said, we were big fish in a small pond and everyone wanted to kick us and beat us.

“There was a break-up in play,” he continues. “I don’t know what had happened, I think someone had gone down injured. But there’d been a tackle about a minute before on the halfway line and I was just walking towards the ref to question it. I didn’t even speak and that’s the craziest thing. In his report, it said I didn’t say anything to him.

“I was walking towards him and he just flashed the [red] card at me.”

He says he didn’t think the card was for him at first: “I’ve not seen footage of it since, but I’ve looked over my shoulder thinking he’s thrown it at someone who’s behind me. And he said, ‘no, you, off you go!’

“And I said, ‘what for?’ and he replied, ‘off you go’.

“So I’ve wondered what was going on. I’ve walked off into the dressing room and Jamie Pollock was getting out of the shower having been sent off previously and he said to me, ‘what’ve you been sent off for?’ and my answer was ‘I actually don’t know.’

“Joe [Royle] has come in after the game and said to me ‘what did you say?’ and I said to him, ‘I didn’t actually say anything!’ He said, ‘you must have sworn at him,’ and I replied, ‘I didn’t say anything to him.’

“Then the referee’s report came through and his words were that he’d sent me off for walking towards him in an aggressive manner. Which is bizarre, isn’t it? I walked fairly quickly towards him, maybe. I’ve got one leg shorter than the other, so maybe it looked like I was being a little bit aggressive.

“But I was just going to ask him about a foul previously. It’s something that everyone remembers and it’s funny now. But it wasn’t at the time when I ended up missing a few games because of it.”

* For details on how to get a copy of this or any other of David's works, click here

Until relatively recently Liverpool represented a mighty thorn in the side for City. Blues fans had come to expect very little from games with the Merseyside Reds. Things have changed somewhat, however, and a brief period of level playing field has moved on to a tilt towards the Blues these days. Liverpool's recent resurrection to title challenger status means games with them have once more become high profile nerve tinglers. Here's a brief stumble down Memory Lane.

Argentinian football journalist Martin Mazur recently wrote in The Blizzard about the now defunct football magazine Sólo Fútbol (occasional tagline "por un fútbol mejor") and its habit of publishing a weekly moral league table, where the local journalists would make adjustments to the points actually awarded for each match's result.
Like this, certain elements in a game other than the simple number of times the ball ended up in the net could come into the equation. For example, if a team drew 1-1, but missed a penalty and had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside, plus had many many more shots on goal than their opponents, they might be awarded a 2-1 win instead.

If a team had been beaten but had had some impossible to describe act of refereeing stupidity delivered to them, a draw might have been the result awarded in that week's Tabla Moral. Often the adjustments were small and made only a slight change, say, to the goal difference, a side losing 1-2 instead of 1-3 if a goal had

clearly been given when it should not have been.

As can be seen from the table printed below, however, league positions could be affected, although for teams such as Douglas Haig and Deportivo Morón, it may also have been something to with carrying offensive team names.

As it is extremely easy to be dispassionate and objective in modern football, King of the Kippax has taken it upon itself to resurrect this fine Argentinian tradition in our modern and -some might say- troublingly immoral football times. Where handshakes and honesty are thin on the ground, where every outstretched leg is an invitation to throw yourself into the air, where every decisive blow on the referee's whistle is a call to arms for pedants and naysayers all over the pitch, we seek to define those that are doing it the right way.

Sólo Fútbol with its tabla moral (bottom left corner).

Now, fans returning from a game to cry about being robbed and double dealt portions of skullduggery that the Borgias might have blanched at, need not drop acid tears of regret into their post match Vimto.

Instead they will be able to see any wrongs put right. The moral table will readdress the imbalance between the cheats and the triers, the men who got lucky and the men who deserve more than they got.

Naturally, there will be no arguments and no fights will break out. This is a dignified and cultured forum, where voices are seldom raised and laughter at yet another miscued pass from Tom Cleverley/Steven Gerrard/Theo Walcott/Ross Barkley/Rio Ferdinand (delete as appropriate) will not be heard.

Nobody will write to the author threatening to dangle his limp morals from the nearest church steeple and a new dawn of balance and integrity for professional football will be pursued and celebrated.

Dignity, hard work, fair play and striving to win in the old, uncluttered way will once again get its rewards. It may be that often the moral table reflects only a small and insignificant change such as in the graphic below, but it may also become an instrument that - over the course of an entire season - reflects a slightly different picture. We shall see.

Chaco For Ever gain a point from Esudiantes thanks to their fervent name and an incorrectly awarded penalty

To ensure fair play at all times, experts from different backgrounds will be asked to adjudicate on the weekend's action and activities and produce their results for the King of the Kippax Tabla Moral. Woe betide anybody, therefore, who writes in with a stinging rebuke that the table reflects badly on one team and well on another, because it is produced by someone with only one eye and that fixed on one club. This will not and cannot be the case. All totally above board here, as you would expect.

But were they moral campeon too?

The spying glass is out for those that intend to serve their purpose with rolling around, with cheap swipes and shirt pulls, those who feign injury or get away with a snide trip when a player is through on goal. There will be no place to hide. Those that park buses and steal points. Those that fool the referee and trick his assistants. Injustice will be a thing of the past.

And at the end of it all, we will have our Moral Champions.

FC Porto line up for their game with City

Malcolm Allison was not to know it at the time, but stepping out onto the playing fields of Portugal in charge of his Manchester City team in the pre-season of 1980-81, the larger than life head coach was getting a first taste of a country where he would a few short months later enjoy his swansong as a (successful) professional football coach.

The subtle irony would have been lost on him at the time, as his second full season in charge of City for the second time commenced with a trip through a country where, the very next season, the larger than life coach would achieve his last great success, leading Sporting Clube de Portugal to their most recent league and Cup double in front of an adoring Lisbon public. As with those City supporters whose memories go back this far, Sporting fans remember Allison fondly for the glamour and success he brought to their club.

City's pre-season on this occasion was to take in the following hotspots:

Wed 30th July 1980 FC Porto

Tues 5th Aug 1980 Sporting Braga

Thurs 7th Aug Sporting Lisbon

Thereafter the club would head north to round preparations off in the Netherlands with a game against NAC Breda and back home to face Bath, Nuneaton Borough and, as part of the deal that had taken Polish World Cup skipper Kaziu Deyna to Maine Road, Legia Warsaw.

Having been part of a record breaking management partnership that had brought City untold of successes in the late 60s and early 70s with Joe Mercer (an arrangement that the brash and self-confident Allison always maintained reflected poorly on the amount of influence he had had on the team's shape and tactics), Allison was now in sole charge, put there by the megalomaniac chairman Peter Swales.

Swales had embraked on a death or glory chase to catch and bypass Manchester United as quickly as possible and, although City had finished 2nd and 4th as the decade wound to a close, his impatience was beginning to get the better of him, having removed Tony Book from the front line (the manager had overseen City's League Cup success in '76 and the afore-mentioned league campaigns) and replaced him with Allison.

The Havana cigars, the champagne flutes, the sheepskin coats, the brazenly unbuttoned round-collared shirts and the entourage of glitzy women, all ideologically wide at the hips, were once again to be seen at Maine Road, as Allison set about puffing blue smoke in the faces of anyone, who didn't do things with a bit of a swagger.

The team itself was also at this stage in the middle of quite a transformation, with Allison insisting on change for change's sake. Out had gone seasoned internationals Mike Channon, Asa Hartford, Dave Watson and, much to the chagrin of the supporters club favourites Gary Owen and Peter Barnes. In their stead we were still to get used to Gary Wiffill, Staurt Lee, Michael Robinson, the massively expensive Steve Daley and the utterly unknown Paul Sugrue. Strange times were brewing and - as with all stroies involving Big Mal - it would either be glorious success or horrible, char-grilled failure.

Click on images to get larger version

Paul Power offers Rodolfo of FC Porto a small memento. Caption out of pic wrongly names Daley as City player

The tour was to start in the north, veer east to the Minho for a game with Braga and end up in the south for a visit to Lisbon. The three Portuguese clubs were taking things very seriously, as they also embarked on the last days of preparation for their domestic season. The first game featured a tight 0-0 draw with FC Porto, with a picture of Paula Power (incorrectly identified as "Daley") and "problematic" Porto captain Rodolfo exchanging pennants making the morning edition of A Bola under the headline, "Positive start without being brilliant in the first appearance of the Allies".

Under fire Porto coach Stessl is quoted as saying "miracles do not appear out of the blue", the usual clarion call for patience even before the season had started. This was Porto's first game of pre-season and captain Rodolfo reported that the players were "reasonably pleased with the amount of movement", whilst others praised the excellent planning of coach Stessl.

Moving on to what was thought to be a slightly easier challenge than that posed by Porto in their cavernous Das Antas stadium, City played Braga six days later and this time the goals flowed in a 3-1 win for the Blues, goals coming courtesy of Paul Sugrue and a brace from Kevin Reeves. Braga had held on well until after the break, when their lack of fitness compared to Big Mal's City began to tell and they conceded "justifiably" according to the copy of A Bola from two days later (the sports paper that is now the country's biggest selling daily was only printed once every two days in the 80s). Pictures in the paper show TommyCaton clearing up one Braga attack under the caption "with the swiftness of movement that is typical of British football, an English player intercepts a pass meant for Pinto...". Another picture shows Kevin Reeves moving away with the ball whilst a team shot at the start of the game reveals City lining up as follows:

Tommy Caton is "the English defender intercepting a pass"

Henry, Tommy Caton, Joe Corrigan, Tommy Booth, Kaziu Deyna, Ray Ranson, Kevin Reeves; Steve Mackenzie, Paul Power, Paul Sugrue with Steve Daley clinging on grimly to the match mascot. (see photo below)

The paper also provides a brief preview of the third game of the tour featuring a visit to Sporting Lisbon.

With their tales up, City headed down to the capital, where Sporting were eagerly waiting to pit their wits against the Blues.

This was to be the home side's presentation to the supporters, a tradition still maintained to this day in Portugal and a big crowd appeared early at the old Estádio José Alvalade to welcome their heroes (a 26 man squad was to be presented according to the paper). In an ill-tempered game won 2-1 by City, Sporting's relative lack of match fitness again told, as it had done in Braga two days earlier. According to the morning papers, Sporting's appearance had been at once excitingbut also conflicting as they battled to hold on to the coat tails of a well oiled City side, whose goals came from Tommy Booth and Kevin Reeves.

"City show how football is being played in Europe right now" exclaimed a headline in A Bola, paying the Blues the somewhat overstated compliment that playing Paul Sugrue in a "do what you can, son"roleup front was somehow placing Malcolm Allison at the cutting edge of contemporary European tactics. As the reporter's name appears to have been Victor Hugo, he may be forgiven for his slightly overworked, flowery and dramatic prose.

City line up in Braga. The hard to categorise Paul Sugrue sits happily centre stage

City are "stronger and more adapted to pre-season" versus Sporting

The ill tempered end to City's tour came in the 73rd minute of what had been a placid match, played at the pace City dictated. Leading 2-0 at the interval, City were coasting to their second victory of the tour, when they received the double whammy of a Sporting goal (scored by star striker Jordão) and a red card. Paul Sugrue had been unceremoniously upended by Ademar. The City player's reaction was to retaliate far too strongly and he was shown the red card, with Caton joining him in the book, shown a yellow in the same incident. Sugrue, until recently to be found ploughing a simple and unspectacular furrow upfront for Nuneaton Borough, was evidently not used to the close marking of burly Brazilian defenders. City's subs included Dragoslav Stepanovic and the floating mirage that was Dave Wiffill.

Allison, preparing to take his troops back to England to fine tune their start to the season proper, said: "All three games have been a useful work-out for us and each one has provided us with a tough challenge..."

What he thought of Kaziu Deyna's penchant for making a fast buck is not recorded. The local paper reported after the game that they had attempted to get Deyna, perhaps City's most high profile player after Allison's fire sale, to give an interview, but the Pole had only relented when the then hefty sum of 5,000 escudos had been aired. The interview, occupying an entire page of the paper and decorated with floating heads of the Polish World Cup captain, was eventually carried out "grátis", however.

City, with a 3-2 win in Breda to round their continental exploits off, then put three past both Bath and Nuneaton Borough before their own last preparatory game with Deyna's old team mates from Legia. This featured an infamous 5-1 thrutching from the Polish champions and City limped into the season with their nerves shot. An opening day defeat at Southampton, where Channon and Keegan ran riot, was followed by a humiliating 4-0 reverse at home to newly promoted Sunderland, the less than elegant John Hawley bagging a scarcely believable hat-trick.

City's good work in Portugal had been undone in a matter of days and a dark first three months would lead to Allison's dismissal after a desperate defeat at Leeds left City bottom of the table. John Bond - Allison's pupil at West Ham - would come in and haul City to two semi finals and the centenary cup final with Spurs by the end of the season and Allison would resurface at Sporting to help them carry off the double. Football still works in funny ways, but the irony of City's pre-season jaunt to Portugal in 1980 is hard to beat.

The "Flying Pole" asks for a medium-sized back-hander

"My hair used to be that colour, you know"

The smoke rising from the fat cigar came accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk. Peter Swales scratched the side of his face languidly where his improbable haircut began its journey over the top of his head and addressed his fellow directors, Chris Muir and Ian Niven, "I think we've got a good'un here, gents. I just know we're going to be ok with this fella..."

Swales, a man blinded by the glamour of big time football after a career spent bigging up his Altrincham-based household appliances kingdom, had just completed a busy 24 hours of typical City negotiations, swapping the larger than life Malcolm Allison for the larger than Norwich John Bond. It was a like for like downgrade, with Bond's faux-football-theorocracy slotting in nicely to the gaping wound left by Allison's second coming. Big Mal had at first created a transfer war chest by selling the household silver, then blown it all on a set of plastic beakers. Out went the class and international experience of Kidd, Channon, Hartford, Barnes, Owen and Watson. In came the curly hair and beaded Balkan slippers of Shinton, Robinson, Stepanovic, Daley, Wiffill, Sugrue and dear old Stuart Lee. The only one who couldn't speak Englsih, the moustachioed Stepanovic, immediately became captain. It was how Mal liked to organise things.

That Bond failed in a cloud of stolid rhetoric and false promises was what City were all about under Swales. All fur coat and no knickers, cuban heels with half mast socks badly in need of some imergency darning.

If the glitzy sheen of all this ersatz glamour attracted the simple attention of the likes of Peter J Swales, it has to be said that the Timperley Toupé also tried the quiet route at City. When Bond left abruptly after an FA Cup tanking at Brighton, where the ex-City plodder Michael Robinson (one of Allison's unlikely purchases) suddenly turned in a wholly unannounced Rob Rensenbrink performance, Swales turned unashamedly (it was of course the cheap option) to John Benson to see out the season. Benson, Bond's assistant, was a naturally retiscent man with very few words to offer, none of them of the hyperbolic variety that Maine Road press conferences had been stuffed with for the previous years of "Big Mal" and "Johnny Bond". As the loquacious Bond's assistant, it was not his place to actually say anything. Many will remember being surprised by his voice when he finally did arrive before the cameras, so rare had his press appearances been. Benson continued to say little, his team contimued to move little and City went down to the second division with very little fight. It had been a quiet revolution, in a contrary sort of way.

Bond: so confident, he bought his son

But for all the association with the champagne and dancing girls of Allison's ilk, it can be argued that City have fared best when driven forward by men of few words, the hapless Benson excepted. The epic four years under Allison's first reign brought every trophy available and became synonymous with the flowing drinks and happy smiling crowd of gaily painted well wishers that occupied Manchester's hotspots in the late sixties and early 70s. Let us not forget that, even then, as Allison slugged Dom Perignon from the bottle and charged around Manchester with a medallion hanging from his open necked shirt the size of a penny farthing wheel, the steadying hand on the good ship Maine Road's tiller belonged to Joe Mercer.

Mercer, hardly retiscent when a microphone was available to talk into, was nevertheless the polar opposite of Allison: quiet, measured, polite and unassuming. "Genial Joe" was the good cop, but he was also the template for several important stepping stones to where City now stand, as one of the English game's foremost exponents of successful, watchable top level football.

Before Allison's disastrous second coming, Swales had conjured more prescient thoughts in offering Mal's old right back Tony Book the manager's hat. Book, a man who had played top flight football only at the tail end of his career, had still managed to be present at all of City's crucial moments, making him a surprisingly well decorated footballer, despite his late, short spell as a first division footballer. None of this glory had rubbed off on the quietly spoken Devonian in the slightest. A more self-effacing gentleman you could not have wished to meet. Book, capable of all sorts of hard nosed decisions in the quiet of the Maine Road corridors, interviewed like a man appearing from a mine after rescuing a Jack Russell. There was not a hint of the "me" City fans had come to live with - and love - from Allison's stint in charge.

In fact, put in front of the tv cameras, Book would sometimes become gauche and tongue-tied, only saving himself when offered the outlet of tactical analysis in place of media friendly tittle tattle. In the safe cocoon of football talk, he could praise his players' work and talk about how the game had been won, drawn or, occasionally, lost, but given the opportunity to ridicule the next opponent or laugh at a freshly trounced adversary, Book usually turned to chalk.

Here was a man who preferred to let his team do the talking for him and, by the mid-to-late seventies, they were not just talking but shouting from the Manchester rooftops. Book had constructed a side that Allison would later dismantle in rude haste, which came close to overhauling the incredible Liverpool side led by Bob Paisley, finishing a solitary point off the top in 1977 and 4th just a year

It was funny at the time

later. These were days of yore, when City fans could shout from the highest pillar about their club's exploits, whilst the manager kept his profil very much at ground level.

If Book was a slightly reserved character, Mel Machin was a pillar of salt. Another Swales punt after all else had failed, the ex-Norwich schemer, assistant manager and manager joined City in another temporary dip, the late 80s sojourn in the second tier. After the loud Scots cackle of Billy McNeill and Jimmy Frizzell, here was a man, who could make a door close by itself from fifty yards. Machin was a football man through and through, with a voice so low that only bats could detect it. Many a television interview with him on Granada TV's Kick Off programme would be turned off as his low tone whisper just could not be followed by the naked human ear. Still he manufactured a side that came storming out of the traps and scored almost at will. It was under his watch that a young efforvescent City side knocked ten past Hudderfield Town and five past a young Alex Ferguson's Manchester United. Swales, never a man to be happy with the obvious, infamously sacked Machin for "a lack of repartee" with the fans. A man who had nurtured the likes of Ian Brightwell, David White, Paul Moulden, Paul Simpson, Andy Hinchcliffe, Paul Lake and Steve Redmond from Youth Cup winning days to the first team, and successfully added the likes of Paul Stewart and Tony Adcock to the brew, was deemed surplus to requirements and City once more looked to fill the most notorious mangerial vacancy in English football.

In one of his more cogent moments, Swales filled the void with ex-Everton supremo Howard Kendall, a man who had been responsible for the thrilling upsurge in the Toffees' fortunes from 1984 to 1988, winning the FA Cup, two league titles and the Cup Winners' Cup in Rotterdam. Kendall brought a steely, professional attitude to City's wobbling team and hauled them away from the verge of another relegation disaster with a string of unspectacular but well earned late season victories. Football supporters generally sniff the difference between a chancer and the real deal and Kendall's tenure featured a real upsurge in terrace support for the club, as a team built on solid ex-Evertonians like Adrian Heath, Peter Reid and Alan Harper got City out of trouble. With Swales now bedazzled by his England connections after somehow levering himself on to the board of the FA, he took his eye off the ball, allowing Kendall's advisers to insist on get-out clauses if certain jobs became available to him. Sure enough, Everton, suddenly suffering badly in his absence, were soon managerless and tempted him away before he could build on a promising start.

QUIET ONES AND NOISY ONES: CITY'S MANAGERS
Manuel Pellegrini - the current charming man

Roberto Mancini - thees ees a football

Mark Hughes - quiet but in a different way

Sven Goran Eriksson - big noise when the tea lady backed her urn up the corridor

Stuart Pearce - loud, proud and stupid

Kevin Keegan - avuncular to the point of ridicule

Joe Royle - hot on the soundbites

Frank Clark - Guitar strumming disaster fiend

Phil Neal - Mouth before brain

Steve Coppell - erudite, well spoken and absent

Alan Ball - voice that could put sheep in a pen from thirty five yards

Brian Horton - chatty, starey, stripy jacketed

Peter Reid - shouty and spitty

Howard Kendall - quietly searching for his wife

Mel Machin - no repartee, never mind rapport

Jimmy Frizzell - growly, shouty and gruff

Billy McNeill - Big Seizure

John Benson - glove puppet

John Bond - too big for Norwich

Malcolm Allison - this charming tan

Tony Book - silent witness

If we are judging City's historical liking for the quiet professional manager ahead of the cabaret act, it

Kendall: contractual clause for premature baldness

should also be stated that "quiet" alone does not quite get you membership of this club. Steve Coppell was quiet, for example, mainly because he had already left the building; Mel Machin because you just couldn't hear him. There is a distinct difference between Mercer, Kendall, Book and Pellegrini and the others. The quiet manager, be he Pep Guardiola or Mel Machin, has to let his teams do the talking for him, a challenge down the years for incumbents in City's dugout that has been too hot to handle for many. In Pellegrini, City's owners have taken a swerve away from the bright lights and soundbites of Mourinho, Van Gaal and Klopp, and decided to concentrate finally delightfully on just the football. This will have at last come to the surface during City's ill tempered game at Newcastle last season. With Alan Pardew ranting and raving along the touchline and eventually manouevring himself up to the Chilean and shouting a top grade obscenity at him, Manuel Pellegrini refused to react. Perhaps he had seen worse in the Chilean league, although I doubt it, for Pardew is quite a case. Whatever the reason, there is no tabloid story waiting to get out of Pellegrini. He is a quiet man of football, nothing more, nothing less.

For the travelling circus that has been Manchester City down the decades, that fact alone is blissfully good news.

Here's a strange thing. When I am in a happy mood, or am enjoying a stupid moment with the

Hit or miss?

kids, or start making those strange noises of the half-deranged whilst peeling a potato, I often sing one particular song. It features a football player, who left Manchester City a year and a half ago, but it is still to this day the daft ditty that sticks in my simple brain. You probably know the song yourself. It is difficult to rid yourself of it once it is inside and playing havoc with the brain cells.

Mario Balotelli, beloved of most if not all Manchester City supporters for the role he played in the Great Adventure, has long been a one man breaking news story. And now that story appears to be breaking all over Liverpool, a place dangerously close to Manchester, featuring a team dangerously close to Manchester City in the current pecking order.

So just what are we meant to make of this?
Balotelli is the logical development of where our adventure with modern football has deposited us all, indeed where this modern world in general has landed us all. This is the dizzying point the globe has arrived at, with its rapidly disappearing ice shelves and its radio controlled pandas. The conspicuous consumerism, the preening and the showing off, the flouting of rules, the lack of respect, the lack of identity, this floating, drifting island of avarice.

Sadly footballers are often not very far from some of the more distasteful moments around us. Mario Balotelli, we have often been told, is one of those man-boys, who needs an arm around his shoulder, a word or three of calm advice, a quiet corner to sit and take aboard some well-meant, well-aimed bons mots; but he seems to need this every day of his life – as many of his ilk do – and he does not get it every day. Football folk, hardened and selfish, do not easily empathise with this kind of a predicament. They have rigorous training to come through unscathed, they have interviews with tricky journalists to negotiate and they have Call of Duty to twiddle with into the small hours.

Traditionally this is where the likes of Mario Balotelli have been cast off to do their own thing. Boredom, a heightened sense of the ridiculous and a lot of money can produce some rare old hijinks. In Balotelli's case this has involved some of Manchester City's most memorable moments over recent years.

Liverpool will be well aware that Balotelli sells newspapers, fills webspace and turns heads in equally vast numbers. It is fashionable to either "love his idiosyncratic ways" or "lambast his idiotic selfishness". A massive bubbling vortex of dirty water swirls around his every move. He is the catalyst of a thousand heated debates on airwaves and in pubs. He is a loon, a loner and a loose cannon. He cannot be allowed to go on like this. He cannot get away with that. He should be locked up for the other. He is a prince, a magician and a conjurer, an untouchable master of the round ball.

"I told him, if you played with me 10 years ago I would give you every day maybe one punch in your head. There are different ways to help a guy like Mario. I don't speak with him every day, otherwise I would need a psychologist" - Roberto Mancini,

The Balotelli Way is to shrug those muscular shoulders and lope back into position in the centre circle, in the club's closed car park, or in the late night lap-dancing bar (on one memorable occasion this third option was located in Merseyside of all places).

If Mario wears the "I don’t care what you think" face, he wears it as a mask. Balotelli cares, just like everybody else cares, he just cares intermittently and in vastly varying amounts. Clearly, there have been moments that even a young man of 24 shouldn’t be completely proud of. Many will remember the obvious moments like going to a television appearance wearing an AC Milan shirt whilst being paid to play for Internazionale. José Mourinho’s Internazionale. Or discovering a wholly improbable grass allergy at half time in Kiev and being sent off in the return game, single-handedly scuppering City’s chances of completing a comeback that was already in full, fifth gear swing. Or claiming not to know who Jack Wilshire was when pitted against the Arsenal youngster for a young player of the year award.

Creating a series of bathroom hijinks with his friends that eventually produced a house blaze of such impressive magnitude that he ruined the top floor of his home. Failing with a back-heeled goal attempt v.LA Galaxy in a pre-season game, when a simple right foot connection would have sufficed. Getting sent off versus Liverpool -of all teams - after only entering the fray after 65 minutes.

"If you work with players like Zanetti, Ivan Cordoba and Marco Materazzi and you don’t learn anything, it's because you have only one brain cell"– José Mourinho

　
The list, you see, is almost endless, as are the possibilities of what might happen when Balotelli descends upon Merseyside. As the owner of a Why Always Me t-shirt, as Greater Manchester Police's Ambassador for Firework Safety, Balotelli clearly has a sharp sense of the ironic. He is one of football's lost mavericks, a young lad with the physique of a giant and the brain of a teenager about to empty out some window boxes on his way back from the pub.

Many felt that the Premier League would be no place, just as the harsh world of Serie A was no place, for this kind of individual. As Martin Samuel stated in The Mail, "Balotelli wants to operate beyond the strictures of the team ethic...the cost of this is beginning to outweigh the benefit." Sandro Mazzola, that great old man of Italian football talks of "making a leap of quality" in a footballer’s maturity. In that case, a slight wait might be on the cards for Balotelli-watchers as they train their binoculars on the banks of the River Mersey.

Whatever happens next, the followers of Liverpool will not forget the time Mario Balotelli pulled on the red shirt. Indeed, they might even find themselves singing daft songs about it.

THE DERBY KIT

SOUTHAMPTON TIMES TWO

CITY V SOUTHAMPTON: GALLERY

BAD TO THE BONE

CITY v PALACE: GALLERY

CRYSTAL PALACE TIMES TWO

OF MONKEYS, MICE AND MEN

UEFA LATEST

COMPETITION

SCHOOL OF SCIENCE V. ACADEMY OF HARD KNOCKS

LEST WE FORGET

WOODWARD WOULD, BUT WOULD ANYBODY ELSE?

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: IS VARIETY THE SPICE OF LIFE?

CEPHALAPOD MOLLUSC AHOY

"I'VE GOT ONE LEG SHORTER THAN THE OTHER..."

LIVERPOOL

LA TABLA MORAL

CITY'S TRAVELS IN PORTUGAL 1980-81 PRE-SEASON TOUR

THE CULT OF THE QUIET MAN

DARTS