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.
I attended my first City game as a six-year-old on Boxing Day 1975. My support's high point came two months and two days later: I'm in my 40s now, and the only trophy the Blues have won during my time following them came within a couple of years of my starting primary school. (For many years, I was starting to think that was all there'd ever be, although Sheikh Mansour allows me to hope once more).
By the 1975/6 season, Tony Book had more or less built the team he put together to replace the Mercer/Allison squad, which had enjoyed more or less its last hurrah reaching Wembley for the League Cup final in 1974 only to lose to Wolves. Joe Mercer had left in 1972, and Malcolm Allison followed a year later. Former skipper Book was eventually entrusted with the rebuilding job after brief stints for Johnny Hart and Ron Saunders were unsuccessful for differing reasons, and new chairman Peter Swales made, by the standards of the era, big money available to strengthen the team.
The City side that took to the field for the League Cup final against Newcastle, almost two years to the day since the failed effort against Wolves, comprised several costly new acquisitions. Only Mike Doyle had played in the title winning team of 1967/8, though Joe Corrigan and Tommy Booth had won medals in the subsequent Mercer/Allison successes, and Willie Donachie was a regular by the time of the championship near miss of 1971/2.
Colin Bell had a long term injury, while Rodney Marsh, the intended standard bearer of Allison's new City that never materialised, had been and, by this stage, gone. Instead, it was Book's new City taking shape. In the space of a calendar year from the summer of 1974, he'd added Asa Hartford, Joe Royle and Dave Watson to give the team a new spine at a cost of well over £600,000 at a time when the transfer record stood around £350,000. Exciting winger Peter Barnes was the most eye-catching of a group of promising youngsters breaking through.
However, arguably the attacking standard-bearer of the side was a man Book inherited, Saunders having splashed big money on Dennis Tueart after the Wembley defeat against Wolves. Tueart had arrived from Sunderland and had played in that club's improbably FA Cup final triumph against Leeds in 1973. However, he was from Newcastle and had grown up supporting his home town club. No passing fad or youthful fancy, this, either: I recall many years later, when he was commentating on City for local radio, he was anxiously asking how the Geordies were faring in a crucial fixture.
But when he played for City, facing the Magpies always seemed to bring the best out of Tueart. He'd notched a hat-trick against them at Maine Road in his first year with the Blues and managed another one later. His most famous goal, however, was the one he scored in the 1976 League Cup final.
City had started the game slowly, as the footage of the opening ten minutes shows. However, the overall highlights suggest that City were more threatening for most of the game. But the decisive moment came early in the second half. Tueart scored a spectacular overhead kick to put City back in the lead after ex-Manchester United player Alan Gowling had levelled Peter Barnes's opener. Looking at the goals again, it's clear that this wasn't just the goal of this particular final, but of more or less any final.
And it remains special to this day because it was the winner when City last landed a major prize. It was scored by a man who should have had many more than just six England caps, and who thrilled the Maine Road crowd, adorning a very, very good side. I can still hear the Kippax chant now: "Dennis Tueart, King of all Geordies."
Tueart's second hat trick for City against Newcastle came on Boxing Day 1977, just a couple of months before he ended his first spell with the club to go to New York and play in the old NASL for Cosmos. That day, though, even though Tueart notched three of the goals in a 4-0 win, belonged to someone else: Colin Bell, who hailed from the County Durham village of Hesleden, near Peterlee.
Having suffered a knee injury in a 4-0 League Cup victory over Manchester United in November 1975 (a game in which, incidentally, Tueart scored twice), Colin Bell missed the final so didn't add to the haul of medals he'd picked up earlier in his career. He made a return late in the season, playing in four of the last six games and scoring a piledriver in a defeat at Elland Road (TV footage of the 4-3 home win over Derby in April 1976 shows him in his comeback game). But things weren't right, and it became obvious that, not only would he be out of the side for an extended spell, but his career was seriously under threat.
City's most capped player fought a brave and relentless battle for fitness. The popular teatime TV news show Nationwide in this period featured City on a regular basis, showing behind-the-scenes footage of life at the club. One segment was devoted to Bell as he fought to regain fitness. This brought to national attention the vast effort he was putting into his bid to play again. He eventually featured in the Central League (reserve) side at the start of 1977/8 - and subsequently won a championship medal with them for that campaign. Finally, on Boxing Day, Tony Book named him as substitute for a home clash with bottom-of-the-table Newcastle.
The first half was a truly dire affair. City were on a poor run of form and showed just how bad things were getting, while Newcastle's display typified their abject season. Needless to say, when the break came the match was goalless. As the City team came out for the second half, the ground erupted - first the fans the Kippax, opposite the players' tunnel and thus able to notice before the rest of the ground that Bell was emerging in place of Paul Power, then the whole stadium. Grown men - and not just a few of them - were in tears as City's greatest post-War outfield player made a return that nearly all of them had started to believe was impossible.
The ovation seemed to last forever, though more sober estimates put it at between ten and fifteen minutes. To be fair to the Newcastle fans, they were fantastically sporting and played a full part in the rapturous welcome: it's impossible to think of a better set of away supporters we could have had for such an occasion. I've attended hundreds of football matches since then, but that atmosphere, for the noise and emotion, still stands out.
The turgid opening period was forgotten as, in all the emotion, City swept forward and looked like scoring with every attack. In fact, we only scored from four of them without reply, Tueart bagging three and Brian Kidd notching the other, but there was no doubt who was the star of the show. At one point, Bell had a decent shooting chance. Had he scored, the roof would have come off the place, but, rather ring rusty, he blasted over the bar. Nonetheless, the presence of the great man had inspired City to a fairly spectacular degree and lifted fans and players alike.
Nor was this just a momentary effect, either. It started a run of seven sucessive league wins, lifting the spirits of players and fans alike. Suddenly, hopes were raised that Bell's return would give a side that missed the title by a single point the season before the impetus to catch surprise leaders Nottingham Forest this time round, or maybe inspire Cup success.
It wasn't to be. It soon became clear that the player who'd returned was a shadow of the one who'd featured up to November 1975: the new version could read the game superbly, had skill and vision in abundance, but couldn't run. At times, he almost seemed to be dragging his right leg behind him.
In the end, he retired in the summer of 1979, having played fewer than 40 more games for the club. It was a sad way to bow out, but at least he left some of the finest football memories Maine Road ever witnessed. And his comeback created a magical atmosphere on a cold winter's afternoon that no one present will ever forget.
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