No time to blog, currently

I started this blog because, among the various sites devoted to Manchester City, I thought I could occupy a distinctive and useful niche. I still hope that maybe I will, at some point. That point is unlikely to be the inmmediate future, however. I haven't had time to blog for the last four weeks or so, and owing to a very busy period in a new job plus personal and family commitments, I'm unliely to start again any time soon. Thanks to those who have expressed support and offered encouragement. I'll Tweet and post on FB when (or if) the position changes.

Kind regards,

Peter

Oh Rodney, Rodney!

One of my regular ways of catching up from afar is to listen, on Wednesday or Thursday, to the BBC podcast of the Radio Manchester evening show Blue Tuesday. This week, the station's City magazine programme featured former City star Rodney Marsh, who has a new book out. I thought I'd focus on one of the original seventies mavericks, a flamboyant and controversial figure whose talents lit up Maine Road between March 1972 and October 1975.

Accounts and financial fair play: more already!

Little did I know when I highlighted this issue last week and promised to return to it quickly that it would be quite this quickly! I commended the piece by the football finance blogger Swiss Ramble on City's finances, and did him the courtesy of letting him know I'd quoted his conclusion. He responded with a gracious note letting me know that he was putting the finishing touches to something I'd probably be very interested in. It duly appeared, and I was. So will you be if you're interested in this kind of subject.

Past Newcastle games - and two famous City sons of the NE

So, City scraped a win against Newcastle this afternoon, a below par display overcoming the spirited Geordies in large part due to the generosity of referee Martin Atkinson. On a day on which the decisive strike came from Sunderland-born Adam Johnson, I look back 30 years or more to two matches against today's opponents each also memorable for the contribution of a Blue from the north east. We actually have a history of big games against the fine old opponents that are the Magpies going back to the 1924 FA Cup semi final, and taking in the 1955 FA Cup final and the 1968 championship clincher. Those all pre-date me, though, and as ever I've chosen to remember the mid and late seventies.

Moscow support dilemma

Away from the world of Manchester City, I face, in five weeks or so, the prospect of moving to a new job. Or at least, having taken up the new job in the St Petersburg office of the law firm in which I'm now employed, I'll move to the head office Moscow. I've led a fairly itinerant life, in fact, but wherever I've been I've always tried to get into the local football. Moscow offers plenty of choice in this regard, so I'm currently reflecting on which team to adopt.

Report - terms agreed for revised CoMS lease

In a previous posting, I mentioned that an official council document had referred to renegotiation of City's lease for the City of Manchester Stadium. More quickly than anyone supposed, a Manchester Evening News exclusive on Saturday claimed that the deal has now been done. Has it? And if the MEN is right, what's the reasoning behind City dicthing the current revenue-based approach, agreeing to pay an index-linked flat rate set at a higher level than the Council would now receive from sell out crowds?

City losses and the Financial Fair Play Regulations - the issues to be answered

Manchester City this week unveiled financial figures showing a £121 million loss for the financial year 2009/10. This is, or at least should be, no surprise to anyone given the investment we know Sheikh Mansour to have made in the club in the two years since his takeover became official. The question facing the club is how this squares with the need to comply with UEFA's so called fair play rules. I haven't had time properly to absorb those rules yet, and so this is something I'll return to in due course to try to analyse it properly. For the time being, though, let's simply look at what the issues are.

Recognition for this blog!

I've taken few, if any, steps to publicise this blog. I post links on my Twitter feed, and mentioned it on the Bluemoon message board in a thread that had disappeared from the main page within a very short space of time, but that's about it. So I was suprised, but pleased, to see it referred to in positive terms by Manchester Confidential.

Potential Disney tie-up: if true, what does it mean?

So the start of October has arrived. This was the point at which I originally suggested we may see an announcement concerning Sportcity, but there's no sign yet of this coming to pass. There are now whispers (and from sources whose word has been proved reliable on other things in the past) that we may now hear something substantive in November. As we've now been waiting a year from the date when it was originally thought an announcement would be made, it will be frustrating if the timetable slips further, but, desperate as I am to know what's going on, I can see why the Abu Dhabi policy is to announce something when it's ready and not before. So for the time being, we continue to be reduced to looking at current events to see if there are any signs of what may be to come. One recent item of interest came in a recent national newspaper report, which trailed a likely deal between City and what we can legitimately refer to as a world media giant.

Juve's last visit to Manchester City

On Thursday, 30 September, Eastlands will host what I reckon is probably its second biggest European night ever when Italians Juventus come to town for a Europa League group stage clash against City. Probably in our recent history, only the UEFA Cup quarter final second leg was a more prestigious home competitive fixture in Europe. This isn't, however, the first time Juventus have travelled to Manchester for a European fixture that wasn't at Old Trafford.

Clues to City development in Abu Dhabi projects?

Let's face it, trying to predict what may happen at Sportcity is a guessing game. Some guesses, of course, and more informed than others. However, it's struck me that one potentially useful source that could shed some light on what may happen in East Manchester is information concerning developments in Aub Dhabi. Of course the two areas are very different - but the likely approach and possible aspects of the style of the development could be revealed by what's happening in our owner's own backyard.

Sportcity update: what can we expect, and when?

Little by little, more is becoming clear about the proposed redevelopment of land around the City of Manchester Stadium. As previously established, there are effectively three separate potential areas of development: the stadium itself; a potential new training facility on the other side of Ashton New Road from the stadium and opposite the Asda superstore (the former Clayton Aniline site); and the lesiure attraction that will replace the defunct Super Casino proposal. This week saw the publication of a Report to the Council's Resources and Governance Overview and Scrutiny Committee, which suggests that the Council will be renegotiating the financial terms of the lease with the club for the City of Manchester Stadium. It's hard to imagine there being a reason for doing so other than the Blues' having decided to expand the facility.

This fellow was quite majestic: Dave Watson remembered

Another in my nostalgia series, this time looking at my favourite player from the mis-to-late seventies era when I first watched City as an impressionable schoolkid. It was a great team full of international players and I hold many of them in affection still: Corrigan, Hartford, Donachie, Royle, Kidd, Tueart, Barnes, Owen and others all gave me plenty of happy memories. But it was centre half Dave Watson who was my personal favourite, there was a (highly tenuous) personal connection which made him feel closer to me, and so he remains my all-time City favourite to this day.

Why the Stratford OIympic Stadium will be a missed opportunity

It seems a very long time ago now, but when Manchester City moved to the City of Manchester Stadium, there was great controversy in some quarters. In the wake of the successful Commonwealth Games of 2002, the athletics lobby was furious that the track was ripped up and the venue became a dedicated football stadium. I'd argue that they only had themselves to blame, and that a 60,000 venue with retractable seating could have been considered. But the same athletics lobby's determination not to lose out after 2012 has seen an ill-considered plan adopted for the Olympic Stadium - and it's already too late to put that right, even the most logical outcome ensues and West Ham end up moving in.

Super injunctions and their use by footballers in 2010

In Britian's increasingly celebrity-driven popular culture, the exploits of sports stars continue to hold a great fascination for the public, hence the obsession with their lives in the popular press. This month in the News of the World alone, we've seen the Ricky Hatton cocaine expose as well as details of Wayne Rooney's relationship with escort girl Jenny Thompson. In legal terms, this has been accompanied by the rise of the 'super injunction', a legal device by which celebrities attempt to keep details of their private lives out of the papers. I thought I'd take a look at what a super injunction is and how it works.

1977 and all that ...

Last season, City finished fifth in the Premier League. You have to go back 32 years, to 1978, to find a higher top division finish for the club. Tony Book's side finished fourth that year, but the Blues' last meaningful tilt at the title came a year prior to that, with a gap of only one point separating City and perennial champions Liverpool. That tiniest of margins means that there are any number of occasions which can be viewed as critical turning points by those who want to play 'if only'. Here, I look at a few of them.

More bits and pieces on the Sportcity development

The time of an announcement concerning the proposed leisure destination at Sportcity is nearing. It must surely come ahead of the search for a partner to take the leisure destination idea forward, scheduled to begin in October, as discussed in an earlier addition to this blog.

And the stadium development is now in the news, too: this morning's News of the World had a story on the stadium development. Neil Ashton claims, as Subterranean Homesick Blue (under the guise of Dyed Petya) has already suggested on the Bluemoon message board, that the club is looking to a capacity of 75,000 or so with a view to being the venue for a 2018 World Cup semi final if the event takes place in England. Meanwhile, James Ducker of The Times suggested last week that the land earmarked for a new training facility in West Openshaw now comprises 80 acres: the figure previously confirmed by the club publicly was 59 acres (no link as the article is behind a pay wall). Assuming Ducker is right, this is extremely interesting.

I may well return to these matters in the future, but meanwhile the continuing progress of events has led me to muse a little further on the development generally.

Thank God it isn't like this any more!

I got a new job recently. I'm currently living in St Petersburg, but will have to move to Moscow. Ideally I'd stay where I am, because I like it here in what has more or less become an adopted home city for me, but, basically, needs must. Anyway, it's not anything I haven't done before: in the summer of 1998, I also left St Petersburg for Moscow. Things back in 1998 were very different in the world of Manchester City, with the club at the lowest point in its history, and Russia was in the midst of a catastrophic banking and financial crisis. I couldn't help but see parallels, and was moved to write about them for the email newsletter MCIVTA. I thought I may as well reproduce that piece here.

AN UNCANNY RESEMBLANCE

In the last couple of weeks, as you may have seen on your news bulletins, life has become fairly interesting in Moscow, the city where I now live. Despite the economic crisis and political uncertainty, so far, at least, there's no sign of any public disorder. However, I've been instructed rather disturbingly by the firm I work for to book a ticket home so that if things turn nasty, I can leave. I have a friend who's due to arrive on Thursday to stay with me for a week, and normally I'd be rather worried about welcoming a visitor from England in these circumstances. However, this lad's been watching City for twenty years, so I have no qualms whatsoever about his arrival. You see, if the Russian Federation weren't a country at all but an English football club, it would be Manchester City.

Europa League draw revives memories of campaigns past

On Friday, Manchester City were drawn in Group A of what this blog still thinks of as the UEFA Cup despite the fancy new title (I'm becoming ever more a stick-in-the-mud as I get older!). Age has its advantages, though. One is that I can remember City playing in Europe in the seventies - only hazily, as I was still a kid then, but I recall it nonetheless. The club effectively relinquished its membership of English football's elite around 30 years ago, and only now does its knocking on the door for readmission seem to be becoming convincingly insistent; as a result, our heritage in European competitions lags way behind that of other clubs, comprising fewer than 60 games as opposed to the hundreds played by some of the continent's superpowers. But there's enough there for draws against Italian, Polish and Austrian opposition to evoke memories of some epic battles past. I'll look at them in more detail in coming weeks, but for now, here's a little overview of our past European involvement with each of those three countries.

City billionaires plan to turn Eastlands into Las Vegas!

Or so screamed a tabloid newspaper headline in November 2009. It sparked an ongoing thread on the Blue Moon forum under the same title, but it's actually been known for much longer that something very interesting is going to be happening around the Sportcity site. Indeed, Subterranean Homesick Blue believes that the possibilities for development around the City of Manchester Stadium explain in large part why Sheikh Mansour alighted on this club in the summer of 2008. I'm intrigued by the potential developments and will return to various relevant issues in more detail soon, as well as offering reports and analysis on future developments.

It's known that a visitor attraction, intended to draw annual visitor numbers in seven figures, is one component. Rumours that I'm convinced are reliable hold that a new elite training facility near CoMS and an expanded stadium also form part of the plans. The club has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the local Council and regeneration body New East Manchester, with Council sources speaking effusively on the stellar prospects for the developments. This post merely scratches the surface, looking at when we can expect definite news and offering thoughts as to what may happen to the stadium if it's to live up to billing.

City's ten greatest ever players

Polls over City's greatest ever player usually put Colin Bell as number one. Subterranean Homesick Blue in no way wishes to downplay the tremendous role played by Bell in this club's history - but the England midfield great only makes number three in this blog's list, which is as follows:

10. Denis Law
9. Alan Oakes
8. Dave Watson
7. Francis Lee
6. Eric Brook
5. Peter Doherty
4. Frank Swift
3. Colin Bell
2. Billy Meredith
1. Bert Trautmann

Follow the link below for detailed reasoning and argument.

The old badge and copyright

Occasionally, people talk about legal issues connected with football, and they make mistakes. I'm sad enough, given my job, to be bothered by this and to feel an impulse to correct them. Fans often reminisce about the old City crest, the round one with a ship and red rose in the middle. It was discarded because we didn't own the copyright, so the received wisdom goes. NOT TRUE!!

City's youth policy over the 20 years from the late 1970s

A while back, a friend told me about a book he'd read by a former City scout, Len Davies. We ended up having a lengthy discussion about the productivity of City's youth system since the mid-1970s, and Stevie Ireland's comments on his departure from the club this week prompted me to think about the issue once more. I decided to track the MCFC youth development programme down the years.

How Manchester City Hope To Fund Their 'Stratospheric' Pay Offers

This is an article originally written in summer of 2009, indulging my interest in sports law. It was originally written against a backdrop of vast sums being mentioned in the media in connection with a potential salary offer to rumoured transfer target John Terry, but I suspect that the point still remains relevant.

So far this summer, Real Madrid’s astonishing spending has been the major news story emerging from the global transfer market. The Spanish giants have signed a string of superstars, and, if reports are to be believed, seem set to make further spectacular additions to their squad. In English football, meanwhile, Manchester City are leading the way in spending terms as the club tries to make the most of the first summer transfer window throughout which it has the backing of its Arab owners’ amazing wealth.

Why Roberto Mancini should be judged from now only

Maybe I'm overly sensitive to the criticism, but it seems to be the fashion among many pundits at present to deride Roberto Mancini. You'd never guess from the coverage in the British media that this is a man with a trophy winning pedigree at three major Italian clubs. Maybe it will prove in time that Mancini is more suited to coaching in Serie A than his homeland, but some of the comments about him so far from British pundits and journalists have been disgracefully disrespectful. This piece hopefully doesn't fall into that category.