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.
The Bristol City away fixture in February was when our unbeaten run of 17 league games came to an end. The Robins finished up 1-0 winners, scoring from a free kick on the edge of the box which we disputed. Former World Cup final referee also courted controversy that day by ruling out a Peter Barnes strike which would have rescued a point.
A week before the Ashton Gate loss, Jimmy Hill criticised us as being over physical on MotD after they covered our game against Arsenal and singled out Brian Kidd in particular. It was a big deal at the time because Hill was the leading pundit back then and, believe it or not, what he said did attract quite a lot of attention. I remember that Tony Book said afterwards in his autobiography that Kidd was badly affected by the comments and lost form for a few weeks - and the effect of that was crucial. That Arsenal game was our 16th game unbeaten and we were looking well set in the league. After it, we won two, drew two and lost three of the next seven league games, the unbeaten run itself being lost a week after Hill's outburst. We also went out of the Cup at Leeds a week after that. So maybe it did genuinely have an effect. It was also very unfair: while we had certain players who were no shrinking violets, we were no different from most sides at the time and there were others who were worse. Kidd, for instance, was no way in the same league as someone like Joe Jordan when it came to being a striker with a penchant for dishing out the physical stuff. Anyway, if you go to the mcfcvideos page on youtube and watch some of the highlights of games from this era, you can occasionally hear the chant, "Jimmy Hill is a w@nker, is a w@nker," coming loud and clear from the Kippax. This is why.
The most notable dropped point that people remember is the Dave Watson own goal right at the end of the 1-1 draw with Liverpool at Maine Road at Christmas. It was a pretty tight game, but we were the better side, got the breakthrough in the second half and would have deserved the narrow victory we appeared to be grinding out. Then Watson slipped when trying to get the ball back to Corrigan and misdirected it past the big goalkeeper. In the final analysis, the point lost last night couldn't have proved more crucial.
Mike Doyle going off injured at West Ham when the score was 0-0 but we were well on top was another one. We had to reorganise the team completely, lost the momentum and they sneaked a 1-0 win. Gary Owen came on for Doyle, and if I remember correctly we ended up with Brian Kidd at centre half - only one sub in those days, so you used to get these kind of bizarre reshuffles quite regularly. Multiple substitutions have now put an end to that.
Liverpool away at Easter was one of those 'typical City' afternoons. It was a chance to claw back ground on the Merseysiders, but we went one down early on, and were well under the cosh, only Corrigan saving us from a greater deficit. We hung in there, then fought back in the second half and equalised with about 15 minutes left. A draw at Anfield would have been a more than acceptable result in the scheme of things, and would eventually have won us the title, but we lost concentration after scoring and gifted them a poor goal immediately after the restart. The manner of the loss was very disappointing, because we were normally an extremely solid team defensively that season.
Gary Owen's back pass gifted Everton a point at Maine Road in a match we dominated in the penultimate game of the season pretty much sealed the fact that we'd finish second, although as it turned out, we'd have lost the title on goal difference even if we'd won that night.
One added frustration was that Manchester United did the double over us, 3-1 each time, and being the only team to beat us at Maine Road all season. So we lost the title by a point, and United were the only opponents from whom we didn't take even a single point over the whole campaign. That was pretty galling.
Ultimately, though, the game that probably cost us the most that season actually didn't happen during that campaign. It was another match against United, but it was the League Cup tie which took place in November 1975. Though Colin Bell eventually played again, and though we went on to win the League Cup in February 1976, the injury suffered that night by the incomparable midfielder meant he was never the same again. That arguably cost us the title in 1976/7 - and much, much more!
Back in May 1977, no one would have thought that a team as good as the one we had - even if it had missed out on the title - would be without silverware for long. As the years moved on, it began to look as though we might never have another serious championship bid. Now that's changed, and I'm waiting impatiently for the next one: 2011/2, maybe?
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