BLUE MOON RISING - THE FALL AND RISE OF MANCHESTER CITY

Title:     Blue Moon Rising - The fall and rise of Manchester City
Author:    Andy Buckley and Richard Burgess
Publisher: MILO Books
           PO Box 153
           Bury
           Lancs BL0 9FX
ISBN:      0-9530847-4-4
Price:     £7.99

OK - So there's another "Blue Moon" book in the store, and this one is a bit different from the "Blue Moon" by Mark Hodkinson - mostly because it has an even better ending ;-) But while the "Down among the dead men" covers one hectic season (1998/99), this book spans the whole nineties from 1990 to 2000 chapter by chapter. It starts with the Swales empire and the Reid story. It goes on to describe the Lee take-over and the introduction of the "footBall genius". It ends with the downfall and rise with Royle. It's a great read and has some really tasty information for all of us that has been wondering what really happened behind the scenes.

For instance the first words spoken to the team by former manager Alan Ball is a real treat, reproduced by one of the players (Tony Coton?). Quite a few of the players have contributed to this book. Coton was one of them. He describes his last days with Manchester City from his perspective and it's not the same story that was put forward by the management at the time.

Other players talking about their fortunes with City are Garry Flitcroft, Lee Bradbury and Michael Brown. But most interesting is perhaps the story told to the authors by the widow of Chairman Peter J. Swales. Swales' biggest mistake was that he didn't understand when to quit. But when football, and Manchester City is all your life you can't help it - can you? Swales died of a weakened heart. Brenda is not the one to blame the take-over process for his condition, but you can't help feeling that they must have seen it coming. Lots of the fans blamed Swales for 25 years in the dark alley, as his only trophy was the League Cup in 1976. But the years with his successor proved to be worse, and still both of them can only be blamed for playing their game more with their heart than with their head.

You could argue that the book does its best to portray everyone as good guys. Swales, Lee, Coton and Bradbury are all doing what they think is in the best interest of the club. Even Lee's handling of Brian Horton and Swales sacking of Reid and Ellis are described with a careful, almost "reluctant" pencil.

Also the authors put their finger on the fans' rôle in the happenings at the club. Both during the "Forward with Franny" campaign and the bashing of players like Bradbury and Edghill you get the feeling that the fans should have stood by the players during the hard times and that things could have turned out better if this and that had happened. Well it did in the end, and we are all grateful for that!

I would recommend this book to any City fan that would like to understand what happened during the fall - and rise - in the nineties. It gives a short glimpse of events and contributes to the stories from a different perspective. And in the end I understood the quote we often hear by Bill Shankley. "Football is not a matter of life and death - it's much more important than that". It most certainly was to Peter J. Swales.