MANCHESTER CITY ARE BACK!
MANCHESTER CITY'S 1998/99 SEASON

TITLE:        Manchester City are Back!
              Manchester City's 1998/99 Season
PUBLISHER:    Paul Doherty Television
RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes approx.
PRICE:        £13.99

Judging by the clamour for videos of the play-off final in recent editions of MCIVTA, this video will be a top-seller. At 120 minutes, it's the longest end-of-season video the club has yet produced, and the final 45 minutes are dedicated to the dramatic finale to the season at Wembley. There's action from every first-team game this season, including the dismal defeat at home to Mansfield in the Auto Windscreens Shield, so we get to remember the mediocrity of the first half of the season as well as the consistency of the run-in.

Every goal scored and conceded this season is included, though Gary Mason's opener in the 7-1 Worthington Cup thrashing of Notts County is nearly missed due to the TV director concentrating on a replay of a previous incident.

The video opens with the Nicky Weaver save that finally clinched promotion, and continues with brief scenes of the celebrations that followed, both on and off the field. The format then switches to that used for the largest part of the production, showing brief highlights and the goals from a group of matches in chronological order, followed by comments from Joe Royle or one of the players involved in the action.

The video is narrated by Rob McCaffrey, who will be well-known to most footy fans in north-west England as he does a lot of commentaries for ITV Sport, and does them quite well I reckon, conveying the excitement of games to the armchair viewer. However, McCaffrey doesn't do most of the commentaries on this video; various different commentators are used, reflecting the wide range of TV companies providing the coverage. One of these is Piccadilly Radio's Brian Clarke, who never seems to get excited about anything; I wonder what his reaction to Paul Dickov's equaliser in the play-off final was? I don't know who commentator for that game is (the Sky commentary isn't used) but he's accompanied in the commentary box by former City manager Brian Horton who clearly still has a fondness for the Blues.

With the main part of the video concentrating on the goals, it's easy to forget some of the things that aren't shown. Shaun Goater scores some cracking goals (volleys against Notts County, Wigan Athletic and Colchester spring to mind) but we don't get to see some of the sitters he's missed. Nicky Weaver could have done better with some of the goals we conceded but we don't get to see very many of the saves he made that kept us in matches. On the other hand, three of the season's crucial off-field events are highlighted as they should be as being critical to the way the club's fortunes turned around in the second half of the season, namely the signings of Andy Morrison and Terry Cooke, and the roasting given to the players by Joe Royle at half time in the game against Stoke at Maine Road, which for me was the turning point of the season.

There are one or two mistakes in the video, such as Brian Horton's assertion that at 2-0 in the play-off final the game was over (ho ho) and Jeff Whitley's goal against York is described as his first for the club when in fact it's his third (the previous two both being against Bradford City, not in the same game though). Some of the more controversial incidents are missing (e.g. a number of sendings-off are omitted) but on the whole the video is a good representation of the season as a whole, and the feel-good factor from watching the final will ensure that it's played over and over again, at least at my house!

By the way, the video can be ordered online at City's official website: http://www.mcfc.co.uk/