THE BATTLE FOR MANCHESTER CITY

TITLE           The Battle for Manchester City
AUTHOR          Alec Johnson
PUBLISHER       Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Ltd.
                7 Albany St.,
                Edinburgh EH1 3UG,
                Scotland.
ISBN No         1 85158 6547
PRICE           £12.99

The battle for Manchester City, you would think is an account of Francis Lee's successful fight for MCFC and with that in mind I purchased the 187 page book. Unfortunately, only 5 pages at the end relate to the bid, the rest of the book being more of a history of Manchester City.

The story begins in 1922, just before the move to Maine Road. Misfortune was to plague the new ground immediately. A group of gypsies were passing through and camped on the site. An official was sent to ask them to leave and was told politely they would move in a couple of hours. Not happy with this the official told them to move immediately. A curse was put on the men. "Hear this. No good will come to anyone who will dwell here." -- I wish someone had told me this story when I was 8; I could have been a Stalybridge Celtic fan.

The book goes on to describe the rift between Mercer & Allison, which started on 11th December 1971 in a bar in Malta. Years before, Joe had told Allison that one day he would be manager. Malcolm was now claiming the crown. The board was split, with Eric Alexander backing Joe but wanting Allison as Team Manager. When Joe was told to choose his own title as long as it did not use the word manager, he moved to Coventry City. "All my life I had been known as Mercer the footballer or Mercer the Manager, now suddenly they can't find a title for me." The rift spread to the rest of the players and morale in the dressing room was at a low. Players like Summerbee, Lee & Book all recognised City were making a great mistake.

Personally, I don't remember the pre-Mercer days, but they seem to have been even worse than the Swales era! George Poyser resigned at Easter 1965 (anyone know what happened to him?). What is interesting is the men who applied for the vacant post: Bill Shankly and ex-City favourite Don Revie. In spite of Mercer's problems with hypertension, he was given the job against the better judgement of Nora "Without soccer my life is not worth living" (I can't believe Joe would say soccer).

I include quotes from the book because I feel it gives some insight into the character of Mercer & also the few anecdotes are the book's only redeaming factor. For example, the time Allison wanted to sign Tony Book. "He's 32, past it" said Joe."How old were you when you signed for Arsenal from Everton?", said Malcolm. Joe was 39. "OK, sign him."

The book talks about the team and the games of the late 60's through to early 90's. I had just finished the biography of Joe Mercer, 'Football with a Smile', and so a lot of what is written on the 60's was just a repetition of chapters in that far superior book. I don't intend to cover this area, although if anyone wants an appraisal of the different managerial eras, I could do that.

During the Allison/Mercer conflict, Peter Swales was to be invited onto the City board as a white knight and arbitrator between warring factions. Whilst he was chairman, Allison went, followed by Johnny Hart after an illness. Swales then turned to Saunders. After clashes with many players, Swales held court inviting all the staff, including juniors, to give their views on Saunders (in the absence of Ron). When Lee heard about this he told Swales what he thought of the whole affair. This was probably one of the causes of future bad relations between the 2 men. Another quote when Saunders signed: "If he goes down, I go with him" (PJS).

The book continues with player & game profiles whilst intermittently sparing a couple of paragraphs on behind the scenes events. The last 5 pages on the takeover tells us nothing we don't already know, and unless you are looking for a bit of history of City, I would pass this book by.

This book (originally published 1994) was mentioned on BlueView a few weeks back, and thanks to Kelvin (Blue in Blue) Stephens, I have at last read it, and following on from Peter Brophy's review of Cups for Cock Ups, thought I would volunteer my opinion. The book has become topical again because of takeover rumours, the 'Battle' in the title refers to Francis Lee's 1993 boardroom coup.

As the author (Daily Mirror journalist Alec Johnson) is a longtime friend of Franny, I was looking forward to some inside 'gen' on that exciting and turbulent period, but I am afraid that whatever this books good points are, deep insight into the boardroom shenanigans is not one of them.

It is a typical footy book produced by a tabloid sportswriter, its 187 very easy pages will not delay you long, and I always feel good reading about those matches in the 60's and 70's. A Prologue based in a Gypsy camp is followed by a summary of the great Mercer/Allison years, before strolling through all the subsequent managers. The boardroom battle takes a couple of chapters before Alec realized he hadn't written enough words, and so fills up with a few extra chapters interviewing Ken Barnes.

The disappointment comes from him not wishing, or being able to dish any dirt. Obviously not a Swales fan, he leaves it to the managers he interviews to say anything wounding. We get no details of the mechanics and relationships that lead to Swales taking over and running the club, and it's a similar story in 1993. I learnt nothing that I hadn't read in the papers at the time. No facts, figures or insights, just plenty of blush making hagiography of Lee and Barlow.

The interesting bits were the interviews with all the managers from Allison to Kendall (stopping before Reid who he did not like). They were all almost without exception scathing of the way the board (Swales by implication) handled the financial side of affairs. There appeared to be two plans throughout those dire years.

Plan A - play a few matches and if it was looking good, throw some money on new players. If nothing was won at the end of the season, sell them again (frequently jettisoning the manager at the same time). And Plan B - play a few matches and if we lose them, sack the manager and give the new manager some money to stave of relegation.

For example, Bond's recollection of the Francis affair was that a meeting was set up in Derby, a fee agreed (Steve Mackenzie had been sold already to part finance the deal), and Francis went down to Harley St. for a medical. On the way back PJ said to Bond (who hadn't been in on the negotiations) 'The deal won't be going through'. Bond threatened to resign if it didn't, so we will never know why PJ said that. We do know that at the end of the season we sold him at a massive loss.

There were numerous bits of information that did come as news to me (like the two applicants for Joe Mercer's job who we turned down), and that in itself is a good reason to read the book. But don't expect to get anything from the inside story of the 1993 battle that you didn't read in Alec's Daily Mirror columns at the time.

As Peter Brophy said, there is a really good book to be written about what has happened to City in the last twenty-five years, but this certainly wasn't it. There must be an informed journalist/author out there prepared to rise to the challenge, it is a unique story of intrigue and incompetence that will, if well written have a readership across the football world. However, time is running out, Swales and Boler are dead (good as far as libel goes), but once all the parties involved are gone, so is much of the story.

The Battle for Manchester City, Alec Johnson, Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1 85158 654 7 (was £12.99). Available through Amazon if you can't find it locally.