MAN CITY INFO VIA THE ALPS #15

If anybody wants to get the result of a City match before MCIVTA then try the WWW home page as Svenn usually gets it updated by the next morning. Staying with The Page, if you want to contribute to the WWW e.g. a missing player profile, book review, statistics, 'Why Blue' or GIFs, just get in touch. Svenn can easily convert Word files or Email to the correct format so simple documents are all that are needed. We don't want to release the address until it's relatively complete and more hands are always welcome.

We have approached Maine Rd about MCIVTA and we hope to get it into the matchday program fairly soon.

We should have a QPR 'live' report for Friday's issue.

MATCH REPORT

QPR vs MANCHESTER CITY 25th October 1994

CITY RALLIED BY WALSH

Manchester City, who sated themselves against Spurs on Saturday, had further joy at London's expense last night when they reached the 4th round of the Coca-Cola cup after a startling tie.

Despite falling behind to one of the fastest goals of the season, and giving away the lead again within a minute of equalising, they finished exuberantly as Rangers' evening degenerated. Gary Penrice's headed goal 3 minutes from time provoked a desperate, but fruitless rally.

City had made life difficult for themselves in their previous visit to Loftus Road, when they had two men sent off but held on for the last 20 minutes to win. This time, as a variation, they handicapped themselves by going a goal down without touching the ball.

From the kick-off, QPR moved the ball out to Trevor Sinclair on the left wing and his cross was turned in at the near post by Kevin Gallen as he lunged ahead of his marker, Ian Brightwell. The goal was timed unofficially at 13 seconds.

But City, buoyant after Saturday's trouncing of Tottenham, responded effectively. Curle missed an opportunity to equalise after 19 minutes, mis-kicking wildly in a poor position. But they drew level after 38 minutes when Nicky Sumerbee's right-footed volley from outside the box found the top corner.

Seconds later, Daniele Dichio - a look-a-like of the young Mark Hateley - created chaos in the City defence with a cross from the right. Sinclair, unmarked at the far post, had only to turn the ball in and QPR had regained their lead.

The second half began as dramatically as the first. Within 20 seconds City were awarded a penalty after Paul Walsh, challenging for Summerbee's cross with two defenders in close attendance, hit the ground. At the same moment, a QPR hand made contact with the ball. Walsh recovered after a minute's treatment and Curle buried the penalty.

In the 54th minute Walsh, City's leading scorer this season, was again the centre of attention, turning in a shot which was deflected out to the lurking Beagrie, who returned it with interest to give City the lead for the first time.

Six minutes later, QPR's demoralisation appeared complete as Steve Lomas, unmarked after Beagrie had headed back Summerbee's cross, drove home a fourth goal.

[[ City's side was unchanged. Subs were Hill, Mike, Margetson but weren't used. ]]

Taken from the Independent.

MATCH REPORT

THE QPR VIEW

QPR 3           Man City 4
Gallen 1        Summerbee 37
Sinclair 38     Curle pen 47
Penrice 87      Beagrie 54
                Lomas 59

Att : 11,701

Another sad performance from Rangers. We had the youth team up front (Gallen and Dichio) and although we took the lead twice always looked like losing. Managed to make it to half time 2-1 up but everything went wrong early in the second half. A dodgey penalty decision followed by 2 quick goals did for us in good style and although Penrice made the last 10 mins interesting it was another of those WE WANT THOMPSON OUT nights. We are looking like a cert to go down now unless someone is brought in. The side has a no confidence look and is awfully brittle. Gerry Francis is quoted in the paper as saying "I do hope to make one or two signings in the next week or so". Bloody hope so!

As an aside what about Penrice in midfield? In the short time he had last night he managed a few decent passes out wide and through the middle. Its not as if we would loose something in stature by replacing Holloway or Barker as they are all short arses. Well ??

ho hum 8-((

MATCH NOTE

Don't know if anybody else spotted it but I'm sure their first goal was an o.g. by Ian Brightwell rather than by Gallen.

NEWS

Small piece of news: ex City and England goalie Joe Corrigan has got a job in the Liverpool 'boot room' as one of their goalkeeping coaches. He is said to be "delighted". This is spooky as I was just discussing JC with a workmate the other day, saying "whatever happened to...?". Best of luck to him; one day he could follow in the steps of Roy Evans and become the manager!

The question of what ex-City goalkeepers are doing now came up a while ago. I heard last night that Joe Corrigan has been newly appointed as the goalkeeping coach at Liverpool, of all places.

NEWS

There seems to have been a riot after the Cup-match last night. Newspapers and BBC refer to angry QPR-supporters trying to force their way into the VIP-boxes, to demonstrate against the owner Richard Thompson. Fights between supporters and guards ended up with the guards winning the battle.

This sort of reminds me of the four (?) losses we had against Tottenham a couple of years ago...

TRANSFER SPECULATION

Speculation linking Jason McAteer (young Eire international midfielder) with City and Blackburn was fuelled by his omission from the Bolton side in last night's Coca-Cola Cup victory at Sheffield United. He fits the description given by Brian Horton for a player he is looking to sign (young, but already world-class midfielder) and is in the right price range. Bruce Rioch, the Bolton manager denied the rumours, saying that he promised him he would be rested when an opportunity arose since he had played 61 games last season, including 10 international caps and playing in the World Cup finals.

COMMENT

1. After 3 wins in a row, and 18 goals in 5 games, is this it? Does anyone out there have an opinion on whether this form is going to last?
2. Four more goals, but Walsh and Quinn didn't score any. Does anyone have the statistics of City's season so far? Who has scored what?
   [[WWW page has one at the end of the fixture list, Ashley]]
3. Thanks to those who got the WWW page going. I've now got a lovely picture of the City squad staring at me from my screen's background.

COMMENTS

Re: Martin's match report.

> Just an interesting note, I was under the impression that
> the rules state, the last person to touch the ball prior to the ball
> being kicked has to be the penalty taker, am I right? If so then the
> pk should really have been re-taken as the last person to touch the
> ball was Ellery, he re-spotted the ball after Dumitrescu put it on
> the front edge of the spot!!! Just an interesting thought.

I've never heard this one before. I was under the impression that players always liked to spot the ball themselves so they could make sure it wasn't in a divot or something.

> So after several seasons of defeat, City once
> again were able to taste victory over Spurs.

I think it just seems like several seasons because it was six straight defeats. We did the double on them in 91-92.

> Hope City will be back on the fuzzy screen in the near future. How come the
> Derby is on a Wednesday?, I will have no chance to see it, I sense another
> great City victory

My ticket's for a match on a Thursday... Hope I don't miss it! We mustn't get carried away - knocking in piles of goals against defences like those of Everton, QPR, Barnet and Spurs does not make us a great side. The defence is still a shambles and definitely needs sorting out before the derby, or we'll lose yet again.

>From the Spurs' WWW report:
> I invested nine pounds and a whole Saturday in following my team. We followed
> them 200 miles to a very rainy, very appaling hole called Moss Side, an area
> that Manchester City's ground resides in. Think of the worse place you've
> been to, and double it. The City's University is like a fortress. All the
> female students get free rape alarms when they enrol. To this part of Earth
> we ventured to follow Klin, Dumi, Ted, etc.

Maybe we now have an "intimidating" home, courtesy of the location of Maine Road? I've been going to Maine Road regularly now for over ten years (mostly on my own, too) and have never had the slightest problem with the locals, although admittedly I've seen a number of cars with windows smashed in and the radios nicked. Guess they mustn't have paid the kids their "protection" money. Moss Side is regularly in the news here in the UK with stories about drug barons, gangs and the occasional murder but I consider Maine Road to be more in Rusholme than Moss Side. Since the majority of visiting supporters don't know this, I suppose they feel intimidated. Anybody have bad experiences of a trip to Maine Road? (Other than a typical City performance)

> Once again the Sunday papers reported a couple of points about City.
>
> One was the impending departure of McMahon to Sunderland for 250K.
> Not exactly a scoop as this has been on the cards for several weeks
> now, following his bust up with Horton.

The way City play depends a lot on the two central midfielders getting about a lot. Flitcroft and Lomas do the job admirably but McMahon just doesn't have the energy for this any more. I don't see that there's any place for him at City the way things stand. Of course, if things were to start going badly and we needed to change things around, he could be invaluable...

> The other potential transfer, was in regard to Carl Griffiths. It
> appears as though Burnley would like to sign him for 250K as well.

I really hope we keep hold of Griffiths. He has that happy knack of being a natural goalscorer and I think we could very well end up kicking ourselves if he goes, as we did with Warhurst, Barrett etc

REPLY TO QUERY

Regarding the question about the widening of the pitch: The pitch was narrowed considerably in 1989 when Howard Kendall bought Peter Reid. The big pitch made Reid exhausted. I think Maine Road is still the ground in England with the biggest playing surface.

Regards,

REPLY TO QUERY

Thanks for the continuing good reporting of City games. You asked about the reduction in width of the pitch at Maine Rd. I think that it was Allison during the second go round for him. Bond may have kept it narrow but I think it was Malcolm who initially decided it was too wide for his new look team!! You remember that team-- to play for Malcolm in 1979-81 you had to either be under 18 or cost over a million quid--and if possible both.

REPLY TO QUERY

Don't know about John Bond but I remember that Howard Kendall had the width reduced by 4 or 5 yards when he bought Peter Reid, to save his legs!

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