A look back at the City’s first piece of glory

Five years after Ardwick had been dissolved and reemerge as Manchester City the blues would lift their first piece of silverware, the Division 2 title. 

The season was only 34 games long back then with a Division made up of 18 teams and under the management of Sam Ormerod it was important that City be the first of the Manchester clubs to get promotion to the top tier. Manchester United, then Newton Heath, were also a contender but with City you had the likes of Meredith and Williams to help fire City to the automatic promotion place (which indecently this was the first season for).

City started off well enough with the opening tie on September 3rd against Grimsby ending in a 7-2 victory for the blues. Next up was a loss to Newton Heath themselves which was followed by a draw at home to New Brighton Tower before defeat away to Lincoln saw the pressure mount. 

The next game was against Woolich Arsenal and by this time already City were seven points behind league leaders Port Vale and a cool four behind Newton Heath. The game against Arsenal was a well timed victory for City and that seemed to give them momentum going on. From then until Boxing day City were undefeated with a home 4-0 win against Newton Heath on the 26th of December.

Taking a closer look at that Boxing day derby game and that was very important we won and didn’t drop points. Going into the game before Christmas City were only two points clear at the top, with Newton Heath second. That defeat for them dropped them down to fourth and that would be their final position at seasons end. 

Next came a familiar storyline for most City fans, after doing the hard work the team then slumped to back to back defeats. Not to fear though as after that blip City would finish the season very strong indeed, winning eleven of the remaining fifteen games to comfortably finish in top spot and the first automatic promotion. 

City scored 92 goals and only conceded 35 on their way to promotion and were a cool 6 points clear of second place (and 9 above Newton Heath) considering that only two were awarded for a win that means that although the season wouldn’t end until April 22nd, no one could catch City after the win on this day in 1899.

PA Cityboy

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