This page chronicles the history of Manchester City in further detail from its early years in 1880 to 1928. See Manchester City F.C. for an overview of the football club.
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Members of St. Mark's Church of England, West Gorton, Manchester, founded the football club that would become known as Manchester City, for largely humanitarian purposes. Two church wardens, and Anna Connell, the rector's daughter, sought to curb local gang violence and alcoholism by instituting new activities for local men, whilst high unemployment plagued East Manchester, specifically Gorton.[1]
All men were welcome to join, regardless of religion, which was more prominent in the 19th century. Connell personally visited every home in the parish to drum up involvement, inviting both Protestants and Catholics to take part in recreational activities.[3]
A church cricket club had been formed in 1875, with its first match on the 13th November 1880 against the Baptist Church from Macclesfield,[1] but no equivalent for the winter months existed. Making a suggestion to the Church Warden, William Beastow, she surmised that the men’s daily routine would be better served via the church organising games in the manner of a new and increasingly popular sport in the late 19th century called ‘football’, which could be played in the winter.[4] To rectify this, and as part of Connell's general push to intervene in social ills, church wardens William Beastow and Thomas Goodbehere started a church football team called St Mark's (West Gorton) (sometimes written as West Gorton (St Mark's)) in the winter of 1880.[5] Anna Connell remains the only woman to have catalysed the formation of a major British football club.
The team's first recorded match occurred on 13 November 1880, against a church team from Macclesfield. Ardwick wore a black shirt with white shorts, rather than the sky blue colours we have to come to recognise from the modern day Manchester City. St. Marks lost the match 2-1, and only won one match during their in inaugural 1880-81 season, with a victory over Stalybridge Clarence in March 1881.[6]
In 1884, the club merged with another, Gorton Athletic, but the merger lasted only a few months before the clubs split again, the St Mark's representatives naming themselves Gorton A.F.C. and Gorton Athletic reforming as West Gorton Athletic.[7] With this name change, the team were gradually losing touch with their religious beginnings, and the St. Marks title slowly faded, with the club often placing St. Marks in parentheses.[8]
In 1887, Gorton A.F.C. turned professional and moved to a new ground at Hyde Road, renaming to Ardwick A.F.C. to reflect the new location in the east of the city. Their first match at Hyde Road was meant to be against Salford A.F.C. on the 10 September 1887, but the "grand opening" of the new ground was a non-event as Salford failed to turn up.[9]
In 1889 an explosion at the nearby Hyde Road coal mine results in the death of 23 miners with Ardwick and Newton Heath, who both later became City and United, playing a friendly match under floodlights in aid of the disaster fund.[2]
Ardwick gained wider fame in 1891 by winning the Manchester Cup for the first time, defeating Newton Heath 1–0 in the final.[10] This success proved influential to the decision by the Football Alliance to accept Ardwick as a member for the 1891-92 season. The Alliance merged with the Football League in 1892, and Ardwick became founder members of Division Two. Financial troubles in the 1893-94 season led to a reorganisation within the club, and Ardwick turned into Manchester City, with Manchester City Football Club Limited formally becoming a registered company on April 16, 1894.
In 1894 the club was reformed and manager Joshua Parlby acquired nineteen year-old Billy Meredith from Northwich Victoria.[11] The future "Welsh Wizard" was extremely talented and won his first international cap for Wales in 1895. However, he continued to work underground as a miner during the week until 1896, when Manchester City finally insisted that he give up his colliery job.[11]
The club was growing at a rapid pace and in 1895, within of the club's inception, the club started to attract crowds of over 20,000 with the biggest attendance of 30,000 for a Good Friday fixture in 1895.[12] The Manchester City supporters of this time were known to be exuberant fans of their club, often transferring their enthusiasm for the club into creating a loud atmosphere at Hyde Road, often with their bugles and drums whilst some would occasionally wear fancy dress.[12]
On the pitch, the team went from strength to strength but the support given to the club vitalised industrial east Manchester, something the club's originally Anna Connell strived to do.
Winning the Second Division in 1899 gave the club its first honours and promotion to highest level in English football, the First Division.
The club went on to claim its first major honour on April 23, 1904, beating Bolton Wanderers 1-0 at Crystal Palace to win the most prestigious knockout tournament in English football, the FA Cup, and narrowly missing out on a League and Cup double by finishing runners-up in the League.
In the 1904-05 season Manchester City were level on points with Newcastle United in the league and needed to beat Aston Villa on the final day of the season to seal the First Division championship. Villa won the game 3-2 at Villa Park and City finished third overall in the league, two points behind eventual champions Newcastle United. After the game Alec Leake, the captain of Aston Villa, claimed that Billy Meredith had offered him £10 to throw the game.[13][14]
Meredith was found guilty of this offence by the Football Association and was fined and suspended from playing football for a year. Whilst Manchester City refused to provide financial help for Meredith and so he decided to go public about claimed that City were breaking the rules: "What was the secret of the success of the Manchester City team? In my opinion, the fact that the club put aside the rule that no player should receive more than four pounds a week... The team delivered the goods, the club paid for the goods delivered and both sides were satisfied."[15] This statement roused suspicion as the FA had imposed a £4 a week cap on wages on all clubs in 1901, whereas Meredith alleged publicly that City broke this rule.[13]
The Football Association now carried out a thorough investigation into the financial activities of Manchester City and they came to the conclusion that City had been making additional payments to all their players. Tom Maley, the manager, was suspended from football for life and City was fined £250. Seventeen players were fined and suspended until January 1907 whilst City were forced to sell their players and at an auction at the Queen's Hotel in Manchester.[13] The Manchester United manager, Ernest Mangnall signed the outstandingly gifted, Billy Meredith for only £500. Mangnall also purchased three other talented members of the City side, Herbert Burgess, Sandy Turnbull and Jimmy Bannister. These former City players became the core of the side that won the Football League championship in the 1907-08 season.
Journalists were aware that most clubs in the Football League was making illegitimate payments to its players. Football writers based in Manchester argued that the club, being a northern side, were being made an example of, and thousands of people complained to the Football Association, who refused to reduce the bans and fines.[13] Never-the-less the unfair ban in some eyes brought a young and very potentially a successful team to an abrupt halt, although the whistle-blower Meredith did return to City later on in his career.[13]
In 1920, the ground became the first football venue outside London to be visited by a reigning monarch; King George V attended the ground to watch a match between Manchester City and Liverpool.[16] In November a fire caused by a cigarette end destroyed the Main Stand, and Manchester City began to seek a new home. Initial discussions raised the possibility of sharing Old Trafford with neighbours Manchester United, but United's proposed rent was prohibitive, so repair work was undertaken and Manchester City continued to play at Hyde Road.[17]
Plans for the club to move to a new ground—Maine Road—in Moss Side were announced in 1922. The final Manchester City match at Hyde Road was a league fixture against Newcastle United on 28 April 1923,[18] and in August 1923 a public practice game was the last football match played at Hyde Road.[17] Manchester City began the 1923–24 season at Maine Road, which had an 80,000 capacity.
The plans to move away from east Manchester to south Manchester in Moss Side upset some, and John Ayrton, a Manchester City director split from the club and founded Manchester Central F.C. feeling the city needed a team from east Manchester.
Parts of Hyde Road were used elsewhere; the roof of the Main Stand was sold to Halifax Town, and erected at The Shay, where even in the 21st century, part of the Hyde Road roof is still in place.[19] Within a decade of its demolition, all traces of the football ground had disappeared from Hyde Road. As of 2008, the site of the pitch is a bus depot, where training exercises for drivers take place.[20]
The club reached the 1926 FA Cup Final, scoring 31 goals in 5 matches en route to the final. However the form to the final counted for nothing as City were beaten 1–0 by Bolton Wanderers. Further disappointment followed in the league, when after a campaign characterised by erratic form, City were relegated on the final day of the season.
The following season featured a close fought battle for promotion as the club sought an immediate return to the top division. The race for promotion went to the final match, with Manchester City and Portsmouth both in contention for the second of two promotion places. Manchester City's final match was a resounding 8–0 win against Bradford City. The watching crowd believed the result to be sufficient for promotion, but Portsmouth's match had been delayed by 15 minutes and was still in progress.
A late Portsmouth goal meant the final scoreline in their match was a 5–1 win, enough to give Portsmouth second place on goal average by a margin of one two-hundredth of a goal.[21] The club won the Second Division championship the following season, gaining promotion to the top flight.
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