This year we are halfway through our International break. For now, if managers haven’t been sacked, then they won’t be. Well, at least until the games next weekend. For Manchester City, this day has not one, but two negative stories regarding management.
Joe Mercer:
Back in 1971 it was the stepping down of Joe Mercer. Currently still the only manager to have won a European trophy for Manchester City, Joe was moved ‘upstairs’. Malcolm Allison was given the managers chair, as the success of the previous few years started to fade.
It turned out that the League Cup defeat, away to Bolton, two days before seemed to be the reason. Behind the scenes though it seems it was probably a little more sinister and underhanded than that.
I am not going to focus on that here today though. Instead I’d like to focus on the positive. Looking at where we were when he arrived at our club, to where we were when he left.
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Joining us in the second tier on 13th July 1965 he got us promoted at the first time of asking. Finishing top of the league, and a good two wins and a draw, above second place Southampton.
The next five years saw the Blues lift the FA Cup, the League Cup, the European Cup Winners Cup as well as the League title.
His side dazzled and inspired a generation. Who knows where we could have gone had he been allowed to stay on?
Steve Coppell:
I can hear the moans and groans already. This wasn’t the day he left though, it was the day he was hired! After Alan Ball, and the disaster fans had endured, this appointment wasn’t bad. Yes, he was an ex-United player, but his Managerial record up until that time wasn’t bad. It was certainly better than we’d seen under Alan Ball.
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It seemed either the job, the behind the scenes, or both, was more messed up than he originally thought. Resigning on medical grounds after only six games (W2, D1, L3). He goes down as the shortest serving permanent manager in our history. He might even have been in the chair less time than some of our caretaker managers, that’s how short his time was.