Manchester United. History Pishtory!

I am sick and tired of United fans talking it up about our latest acquisition. 'He only came to City for the money'. If it wasn't about money he would have gone to United where they have the history, right?

Well let us analyse their history and where it came from. Where did the mighty Manchester United’s first ’glory’ come from?

Answer City.

That is correct. Back in the 1904-05 season City had already enjoyed an FA Cup win and a second place league finish when in the last game of the season City played Villa. We lost 3-2 but that was minor compared with what happened next. The Villa game was full of incident and gave the FA enough reason to investigate City.

They had already expressed concern as to how City managed to win an FA cup so soon after promotion from the second tier. To City's bemusement the FA chose to ignore other aspects of the game, Turnbull of City was allegedly dragged into the Villa dressing room after the game and reappeared later with cuts and bruises (this was verified later by neutral journalists). City, and other clubs, felt that the investigations were biased went in favour of a group of players considered part of footballs more aristocratic sides.

The Football League (who actually ran the league as the FA's role at that time was to merely select the England side) supported City’s attempts for fairness and keeping in mind that this all happened in a league game and not an FA one it seemed strange the League was not in charge of the investigation.

Unfortunately for City the accounts were gone over with a fine tooth comb and once they were done the Manchester City Football Club was barely alive. Their manager was banned for life and fined, as was the chairman. Meanwhile two other directors were banned for seven months and the FA Cup winning squad decimated. Billy Meredith, Turnbull and all the other City stars were encouraged to leave and with the players having roots where they lived would join struggling neighbours Manchester United. 

It was those players, forced to leave City, which lifted United’s first FA Cup in 1909 and won the league the season before and after that triumph. It is true that Manchester Citys books were irregular but the consensus of opinion is that any club would have fallen foul had they been investigated.

It is fair to say that had the FA not forced the players to leave City then United, financially struggling at the time, would probably have fallen into oblivion. Meanwhile City’s rebuilding was interrupted twice by the Germans in a little thing called WW1 and WW2. It was during the first war that the lives of City players Jimmy Conlin and Sandy Turnbull were both taken in 1917, a month apart, at Flanders and Arras respectively. 

The 1946-47 season saw City regain their rightful position in the top flight.

City spent only three seasons out of the top flight before Joe Mercer came in 1966. In that time they won the FA Cup twice, which was the same amount as cross town rivals United. 

In 1957 United became the first English team to compete in the European Cup. Chelsea would have held that honor but were persuaded to withdraw from the competition by the Football League and the FA before it started. 

It is only within the last 20 years or so that United have actually pulled away from City on the trophy count, winning 12 of their League titles, all of their league cups and four of their FA Cups since 1991! Up until 1991 they had just the lone European trophy also, winning the European Cup in 1968. 

Before that run, back in the 1989/90 and 1990/91 seasons United finished next to City and who can forget the 5-1 hammering handed out to you boys in 1989, in the Maine Road massacre.

My point is simple, Ferguson was on the brink of the sack before going on the silverware rampage of the past twenty years. City have always been better, City have always been there.

City have overcome more adversity than United will ever know.

We are still here, we are still proud, we were sleeping giants. It’s time for us to be loud.

Talk about history Mr Beckham and Co in another twenty years. Maybe then we will be talking about United getting promotion from the third tier of English football. Maybe we will be amazed and in awe of United supporters filling away day trips to lowly clubs.

Maybe, but I doubt the followers will follow. City have been there. City have that loyalty. It has been tested over and over again and Blue Moon still rang out across the terraces. However prawn sandwiches do not taste as good on a rainy evening away at Colchester. Food for thought.

Written By:PA Cityboy(www.facebook.com/pacityboy)

Welcome To Manchester, Sergio Aguero!

Born June 2nd 1988 Argentine super striker Sergio Aguero today signed for Manchester City for a reported 38 million dollar deal. This concludes a long draw out deal that seems to have been going on for a very long time.
Sergio started his career in the Argentine first division with Club Atletico Independiente and became the youngest player to debut in the division at only 15 years and 35 days old. Ironically he broke the record held by Diego Maradona which had stood since 1976. Later after taking Maradonas record he would take his daughter too. To be fair though he did give him a grandson.
In 2006 Aguero moved to Atletico Madrid for an undisclosed fee, thought to be around 23 million Euros. he stayed in Spain until recently notching up 74 goals in 175 appearances for the Madrid side.
Now he is at City it is thought that International team mate, Carlos Tevez will be on his way out having already initiated a move away.
Internationally he has represented Argentina in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, scoring six goals in seven games and picking up the golden boot. Argentina won the competition after coming from behind against the Czech Rep, with Aguero captaining and scoring the equalizing goal.
In the 2008 summer Olympics he scored twice in five minutes against Brazil and then led his team on to win the gold.
He made his senior World Cup debut last year against the Korea Republic, replacing (as with City) Carlos Tevez in the 75th minute. Sixty seconds later he was on the score sheet.
Lets hope he gets off to a flyer with his club team who play in Blue and White!

Dublin Super Cup

Roberto Mancini has today announced his squad of 28 players to travel to Ireland ahead of the Dublin Super Cup Competition in four days time. The squad is a mixture of senior players and Next Generation players as Mancinis men aim to continue their pre season.
All three visiting clubs will be brining along their trophies for their fans to droll over. Celtic will bring the Scottish Cup, Inter will bring the World Club Cup and the Italian Cup and City will bring their FA Cup (and if only the competition was later could also bring the Community Shield, oh well).
Citys’ squad, subject to transfers is as followed:

Goalkeepers: Hart, Taylor Johansen

Defenders: Richards, Kompany, Lescott, KO Clichy, Boyata, Kolarov, Savic, Veseli and McGivern

Midfielders: Johnson(A), DeJong, Toure(Y), Silva, Milner, Barry, SWP, Weiss, Suarez, Roman and Razak.

Strikers: Balotelli, Dzeko, Guidetti, Mancini.

Yes that is only 27.….anyone think Aguero will be making his debut in Ireland? Hopefully so.

It is good to see that Yaya Toure makes the squad after his injury Stateside. Also good to see is that Balotelli is not excluded because of his reaction in the last game. I think this shows that Mancini deals with Balotelli and then moves on. Hopefully he can reward Mancini with a solid performance in the compeition especially as his and Mancinis old club will be there.

Ooooo Balotelli!! He's a striker!

In order to understand the player you must first learn to understand the man and what life events have conspired to make him act the ways he does. Mario Balotelli has undoubted talent on the football pitch. When he turns it on he is a treasure to behold, then there is the other side, the side that frustrates and infuriates fans, team mates and American announcers.
Mario was born in Palermo, Italy to Ghanaian immigrant parents. He was very ill as an infant and went through several surgeries due to problems with his intestines. His health improved but his living conditions didn't, the government intervened and Mario was fostered out to the Balotelli family.
As Balotelli started to make his way in football his parents became more interested in reclaiming their son. This led to Mario accusing them of being motivated by greed and the relationship was unrepairable.
Mario made his league debut at the age of 15 before then having an unsuccessful trial with Barcelona and then being taken in by Inter Milan. Roberto Mancini took him on loan with the option to purchase, which he did. Aged 17 he made his Serie A debut against Cagliari and he would score his first and second goal three days later against Reggina.
In April 2009, aged only 18, he scored in Inters 1-1 draw with Juventus and was racially abused throughout the game with fans chanting ‘Black Italians do not exist’. Juve were given a one game home fan ban as a result of the behavior. The abuse was also condemned by the Juve chairman.
After Mancini left Inter, Balotelli's days were also numbered. The crowd turned on him and then eventually so did the rest of the squad. This wasn't all without cause though, Balotelli has never been one to avoid controversy and appeared on TV wearing an AC Milan shirt!
Then he secured a move back to Mancini and Manchester City. Once in Manchester he instantly repaid Mancini with a goal on his debut in the Europa League before getting injured and subbed off. On his second full league debut though he showed us exactly what he could do, scoring both goals in the 2-0 win against West Brom before being unfairly sent off.
More controversy was to follow with him being awarded with the Golden Boy Award. When accepting he stated that of the previous winners only Messi was 'slightly better' than he was and that he had never heard of runner up, Jack Wilshire. Ok lets analyze that, of the winners maybe new City signing Aguero might have something to say about that along with previous years winner, Pato. But Van Der Vaart has hardly set the world alight since he won it in 2003. Same could be said for 2006 winner Fabregas, with Arsenal winning trophy after trophy…not! That leaves two other winners, Anderson and Rooney? Any City fans think those two are better than Super Mario? as for the Wilshire statement, I can believe that Balotelli hadn’t heard of him more than I can the reasons for Wilshires nomination in the first place. Balotelli, winner of Serie A three times, and the Coppa Italia, Super Coppa Italiana and the Champions League once a piece. Mr Wilshire? FA youth cup winner and Premier Academy League.
Now to the latest controversy and a now famous bodged up back heel against the mighty LA Galaxy. For all of those up in arms and ready to throw him to the lions, relax, it was an exhibition game, and he is an exhibitionist! Maybe he even thought he was offside but whatever his thinking I highly doubt he would have done it in an important League game. I don’t remember him trying anything like that against United in the semis or Stoke in the final of the FA Cup. The comment has always been that he is moody and doesn’t seem to enjoy playing, the one time he does and he gets berated and hauled off! His reaction was a bit over the top but to me that just shows that he really wanted to continue playing. Mancini I am sure will be pleased to see that and I don’t think any more action will be taken. I say this because Balotelli has been named in the 28 man squad traveling to Ireland this weekend.

Manchester In North America

Manchester City travel back to the Manchester weather after a very hot and heated tour of North America. The squad had a few days rest and relaxation before getting down to the semi serious work of playing matches.
The trio of fixtures kicked off in San Francisco with the City team taking on Club America. City started with new signings Clichy and Savic, youth prospects Mancini, Guidetti, Veseli as well as members from the FA Cup winning squad, Hart, Toure, Richards and Dzeko.
However it was old boy SWP and Ryan McGivern who netted both City goals as they ran out victors, 2-0.
Next up the City team traveled to Canada to face the Vancouver Whitecaps. It was not the start that City had hoped for with the Canadians going a goal up through a deflected shot from Sanvezzo before losing Yaya Toure through injury.
Mancini again elected to play a different team each half and it was the second half City that struck back. Guidetti latched on to Mancini Jr’s corner to power the Blues back on level terms before Sweepie secured the win five minutes from time with a cracking effort.
Lastly it was off to LA where the ever intelligent David Beckham, who signed for LA Galaxy for a reported $250million and paid $6.5million a year, stated that City are buying success but will never be as big as United. LA Galaxy meanwhile have won???? To the game though and it would be fair to ask LA if they knew it was a friendly as first Clichy was clattered into la la land before Richards was felled in the area. Balotelli dispatched the penalty to put City 1-0 up and despite the protests from the LA keeper it was a good penalty. A few minutes later, however Balotelli was again put through on goal but instead of putting City 2-0 up he decided to spin and back heel the ball past the post. This initiated a barrage of anger toward the quiet City forward from fans, announcers, his team mates and more importantly, City boss Roberto Mancini, who hauled him off at the next available chance to his disgust.
This was the turning point for City as before we were slicing through their backline at will we know seemed to lose our spark and it as feared a terrific goal from Magee on 53 minutes tied up the contest. It could have gone from bad to worse for City if not for Harts double save. The game ended a draw a 1-1 but as with all American sports a winner needs to emerge and so to spot kicks. Milner, Weiss, Suarez and Kolarov all scored before Guidetti failed to end it. Then we went into sudden death with Hart stopping LA’s first and Lescott failing from the spot. At this point even my American girlfriend stated ‘This is ridiculous!’ I had to agree, but it is her country! Sweepie put the next away and Hart stopped another. Joe, obviously tired of the whole circus stepped up and launched a shot into the top corner to seal the win for City. My mind went back to Nicky Weaver going crazy after the playoff win on penalties and running around the pitch like a fool. However this wasn’t that important and Hart just did a Ninja pose and walked off.