In full: City's foreign signings since 1949Updated: August 28th, 2007

I’ve just finished compiling a list of City’s transfers since 1890 for the upcoming Purelymancity book and thought it would be interesting to work out how many foreign signings we’ve made.

In all I’ve found 68, with French players topping the list with ten. The tables also show how the German influence has waned over the years. By January 1996, six out of the total 14 foreign signings had been Germans, though we’ve only signed two more since.

The tables also show how July has been a month of notable firsts for our club. As well as getting our first foreign owner and manager, Geovanni is our first Brazilian signing ever and Petrov our first Bulgarian.

Below are the foreign players City have signed since 1949. There could well be a few I’ve missed, so please contact me if you think anyone needs to be added to the list. Players from Eire have been excluded as there has never been restrictions on residency between the two countries.

Keegan’s foreign signings

Pearce’s signings

Eriksson’s signings

Here’s how the totals break down:

There’s an interesting history of foreign players in England, written by The Independent’s Nick Harris in 2005 (timeline here).

In June 1931, the FA banned all foreigners from playing professionally in England, except those who had been living here for two years. Bert Trautmann - the first foreigner to win the Footballer of the Year award in 1956 - qualified under those residency rules.

Surprisingly, the FA’s no-foreigner rule stayed in place until 1978, when the EC declared that it contravened the principles of free movement enshrined in the 1957 Treaty of Rome.

~ According to Tony Book’s autobiography, Maine Man, City had the chance to sign Osvaldo Ardiles after the 1978 World Cup. City were told he was available for £100,000 but when the negotiations began with his agent the fee had risen to £200,000, prompting chairman Peter Swales to veto the deal.

Update

I’ve already been given a few more names to add to the list so keep ‘em coming. Danny Tiatto is the most glaring omission to date, Malc at Bluesology gave me Terry Dunfield (Canada) while an emailer called Rich has added Chris Killen (New Zealand).

Also to be included are Aage Hareide (Norway), Tyrone Loran (Holland) and Arni Arason (Iceland), which brings the new total to 74 players from 32 countries.