Manchester City F.C.
Manchester City F.C. is a professional British football club, plays in the top tier of English football, the English premier league. Based in the beautiful northwestern city of Manchester, England, its current home ground is the ‘Etihad stadium’. It is nicknamed as ‘the citizen’.
It is one of the most successful English football clubs, but highly inconsistent. As Manchester City remains the only English football club in the history to be relegated in the very next season from being champions. Once they were tossed out of the Premier League, even being one of its co-founders. Like fate was playing dice with them. Their highs were evenly matched by setbacks. Despite being seen such frequent ups and downs, Manchester city accomplished much. They have won 5 FA Cups, 5 Premier League titles, 3 League Cups and one European Cup Winners’ Cup.
Present Lineup or Team Squad
Manchester City FC’s present manager is Spanish Pep Guardiola, a gifted defensive midfielder, played for Spain from 1992-2001, in 47 appearances he scored 5 goals for his country. Clubs present chairman is Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Goal Keepers: Claudio Bravo (No.1), Ederson (No.31), Daniel Grimshaw (No.32), Arijanet Muric (No.49)
Defenders: Kyle Walker (No 2.), Danilo (No.3), Vincent Kompany (Captain) ( No 4.), John Stones (No 5.), Aymeric Laporte (No.14), Eliaquim Mangala (No.15), Benjamin Mendy (No.22), Nicolás Otamendi (No.30), Philippe Sandler (No.34),
Midfielders: Raheem Sterling (No.7), lkay Gündoğan (No.8), Kevin De Bruyne (No.17), Fabian Delph (No.18), Leroy Sané (No.19), Bernardo Silva (No.20), David Silva (Vice-captain)(No.21), Fernandinho (No.25), Riyad Mahrez (No.26), Oleksandr Zinchenko (No.35), Phil Foden(No.47).
Forwards: Sergio Agüero (No.10), Gabriel Jesus (No.33)
Summary of History
Founded as St. Mark’s club after St. Mark’s church in 1880 by its members. After renaming it as Gorton FC and then Ardwick AFC the club settled finally as Manchester city in 1894. In 1904 the club won its first ever major title, the FA Cup, beating Bolton Wanderers 1–0 and became runners-up in the football league. During this era, in 1934, the club broke the record for the highest home attendance as 84,569 fans gathered in Maine Road for a sixth round FA Cup match against Stoke City–which stands to this day. As being inconsistent, they from being league champion in 1937 relegated on the following season.
Following that they experienced an extended period of decline of over almost thirty years, in exception of a FA Cup victory in 1956 and losing in the final 0f 1955. They were again relegated to second division in 1963. Their popularity plummeted, fan attendance dried up, as only 8,015 attended against Swindon Town in January 1965 was a record low home attendance. From this low point of the club’s state, their luck seems to improve over the following years, as Manchester city appointed a new managerial duo Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison in the summer of 1965.
In their very first season, the club won the second division title and signed some key players like Mike Summerbee and Colin Bell. Joe Mercer’s six years (1965 to 1971) was the best spell ever for the club, they reclaimed League Championship in 1967–68 by beating Newcastle United by 4–3 on the final day of the season, won the FA Cup in 1969 and a double titles in 1970, European Cup Winners’ Cup beating Górnik Zabrze 2–1 and league Cup beating West Bromwich Albion by 2-1.
Succeeded by Malcolm Allison (1971-1973, 1979-1980), City won a Charity Shield. Malcolm plundered club’s resources, among them was the signing of Steve Daley in 1979 for a British record of fee of £1,437,500. In the FA Cup final of 1981 Manchester City Lost in replay to Tottenham Hotspur. They were relegated twice in 1983 and 1987, from Premier League in 1996 and humiliated further by reaching the third tier in 1998.
Dropping to the 3rd tier caused a shake-out within the club. Under the leadership of the new chairman David Bernstein and new manager Joe Royle they began to return to top football. ManCity got promoted successively from second division to First Division, then to Premier League. But in 2001, City was relegated again. But this time City reclaimed its place in the Premier League by winning 2001–02 division one championship. After 2002-03 season, Manchester city moved to City of Manchester Stadium (Etihad Stadium,2011).
In 2007, former Thai Prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra bought Manchester City for £81.6m (source: ESPN.COM), but due to his political and financial turmoil back in his native Thailand, he was unable to provide the funds required by the club. So, the following year, Thaksin Shinawatra sold City to Sheikh Mansour. The new take over brought huge influx of funds.
As of today, Mansour had put up to £1.3bn into the club. Following the takeover by Mansour, they signed some key high profile players with some record-breaking transfer fees. They acquired Brazilian striker Robinho from Real Madrid and many others, like Gareth Barry, Vincent Kompany, Roque Santa Cruz, Kolo Toure, Joleon Lescott, Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez, and others. In this shopping spree to acquire big names with big transfer fees, the club spent about over £500 million.
The signings of top player proved to be fruitful. ManCity won FA Cup in 2011 by beating Stoke City 1–0 in the final. They won a flurry of titles in the following years in various football tournaments, Premier league titles in 2011–12, 2013–14, and 2017–18 and League cup in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The crowning achievement of City was, as it won the Premier League title by being the first team ever to collect 100 points in one season.
Honours
Tournament | Year/Season |
---|---|
European Cup Winners Cup (1) | 1970 |
Premier League / First division (5) | 1936–37, 1967–68, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2017–18 |
FA Cup (5) | 1903-04, 1933-34, 1955–56, 1968–69, 2010–11 |
Football League Cup (5) | 1969-70, 1975–76, 2013–14, 2015–16, 2017–18 |
FA Community Shield (5) | 1937, 1968, 1972, 2012, 2018 |
Most Notable Players
In its long history, many outstanding players performed with Manchester city. With their in captivating performance they enchanted us, they brought glory and fame to themselves and their clubs, brought the game of football to a new height, gave new meaning to football. Watching them seems to us, that the game of football purposefully invented for them only. Some the most notable players of City’s history (ranked accordingly to” the Times” 2009 edition):
- Billy Meredith (1894-1906, 1921-1924, 393 appearances, 152 goals)
- Colin Bell (1966-1979, 500 appearances, 155 goals)
- Bert Trautmann (1949-1964, 545 appearances)
- Peter Doherty (1936-1939, 134 appearances, 82 goals)
- Frank Swift (1933-1949, 378 appearances)
- Alan Oakes (1959-1976, 682 appearances, 34 goals)
- Franny Lee (1967-1974, 340 appearances, 144 goals)
- Eric Brook (1928-1939, 496 appearances, 178 goals)
- Tommy Johnson (1920-1930, 354 appearances, 166 goals)
- Neil Young (1961-1972, 416 appearances, 111 goals)
- Mike Summerbee (1965-1975, 452 appearances, 66 goals)
Sources:
https://www.footballhistory.org/club/manchester-city.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_City_F.C.
https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Manchester-City-FC/631219