Super Steve, Young captain fantastic
The 1980’s were not the best years to be a City fan.
After the FA Cup Final loss in 1981 we struggled in the top flight and the seasons we didn’t struggle was because we were in the second tier!
Despite that we did have a good Youth side and in 1986 the City side beat United in the FA Youth Final, 3-1 on aggregate and the Captain for the side that day was none other than today’s birthday boy, Steve Redmond, who celebrates his 44th birthday today.
This young lad would appear for City almost 300 times before leaving in 1992 for Oldham in a transfer deal for superstar Rick Holden, who? Exactly. Holden would stay just the one season with City before moving, meanwhile Redmond appeared over 200 times for Oldham and then 150 times later for Bury.
While at City he became City’s youngest captain before Micah came along in 2007 to take that record. In his debut season for City he appeared nine times but did enough to secure his place in the next. Although that was a poor season and saw City relegated. City changed their manager and Mel Mechin turned to Redmond to Captain the team. The next three seasons Redmond didn’t miss a game, League or Cup.
In 1989 Redmond commanded City back to the top flight before taking the field on that day against Manchester United in the 5-1 win. Then Peter Reid came in and although he continued to play Redmond, the arrival of record signing Keith Curle in 1991 saw the start of the end of Steve’s career at City.
What made the sale strange from a City fans point of view was the fact that in Redmonds last two full seasons City had finished 5th in the League. The defence seemed to be in order at that point so why fix something when it isn’t broken?
Aged 24 when he moved away from City it seemed he had his best years ahead of him, and would spend them at lesser clubs. Peter reid for all his plaudits for what he managed to do at City will possibly look at this as a bad move, but there again how much did he have to do with it?
There was another Peter in the backroom at that point who liked to meddle at times. Looking at the evidence I would hazard a guess that Swales had more of a hand in this deal as Redmond continued to be a constant fixture of a Reid team right up until his departure, although Vonk did make his full debut in Redmonds last game.
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