Dreaming of a Blue WembleyUpdated: May 8th, 2007
Sunday’s quarter-final has reminded me of my favourite ever City photo, taken during the 4-1 win at Blackburn in 2000.
There’s also some great accounts of that day in the McVittee archive (also here and here). I love the one from a guy called John Roughton, who describes telling his 6-year-old daughter about the result:
‘Have City won the world cup?’ she asked, still struggling to cope with the nuances of automatic promotion vs. the play offs. I decided to tell her the truth. ‘Yes, we’ve won the world cup’.
It’s four days later now, and I still think it’s the truth.
I know we’ve lost both games to them this season and conceded seven goals in the process, but as soon as Blackburn knocked out Arsenal I felt we’d win this tie. And with either Watford or Plymouth in the semi-final draw anything is then possible.
According to the BBC, builders Multiplex could hand over the keys to the new Wembley Stadium as early as Friday and “the FA Cup final is almost certain” to be held there on May 19.
And dreams of a Blue Wembley are still very much alive.
~ Football photographer Stuart Clarke has other great City pics here and the rest of his site is well worth a look through.
~ Delving back much further in time, the South Manchester Reporter has an interesting account of Blackburn Olympic’s 1882 Cup-winning team. The semi-final was played at Norton Street, Whalley Range, on a pitch measuring 200 x 80 yards. Sadly, it’s thought that no pictures of the ground remain today.
The next City manager
Thanks for all the people who emailed with suggestions for possible replacements for Pearce. I’ve been pondering whether to run this story for a few hours now, but in the end the timing of it just made me feel a bit uncomfortable. We’re one game away from our first semi-final in 26 years and that’s the only thing on my mind right now.
After looking through the managerial records in the lower divisons though, the two managers who really stand out for me are Billy Davies at Derby and West Brom’s Tony Mowbray. I will be replying to everyone’s emails, but the feature will be for another time.