Site update

In light of the latest dramatic events I've decided to place today's planned feature on City's ownership and management structure on temporary hold.

I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to make some sense of the latest developments, but it should be noted that a statement on the official site refers to the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) "investing" in the club rather than taking it over.

Personally, I sense there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye, and I'm not yet convinced that Thaksin really intends to sell up. But hopefully we'll get a much clearer picture over the next couple of days.

Tomorrow I'll be publishing an updated Premier League / world transfer spending table (which may contain a surprise or two) and later in the week I'll be detailing how much City have actually spent since the Thaksin takeover.


Player ratings v Sunderland

I don't know if Sky are annoyed at selling their 10% stake in City too cheaply, but this week I've given them the red card for their bizarre ratings for this game.

Ratings come from (in order): MEN (Chris Bailey); xavi6, Vhero, bobadji, LookMumI'mOnMCF.net, Svensational, SvenIsDaMan, goat_thelegend, Niall Quinns Discopants, Grob, (Mancityfans), blue_blue (Wookie's Lair), Sky Your Rating and the BBC.

Hart: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 7, 7.6, 6.9 (av: 7.1 )
Precious little to do in terms of shot saving but there was confidence about work. (MEN)
Composed, solid etc etc. Didn't have a lot to do but did the little things well again. (xavi6)
Not a lot to do, but conceded 0 is all that matters. (bobadji)

Corluka: 7, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 7, 9, 9, 8, 7, 6.6, 6.7 (av: 8.2)
Couple of dodgy moments early on but settled well into rhythm. (MEN)
Best game in a loooooong time. Very calm, played lovely football, and defended well. (xavi6)
Brilliant today, hopefully he'll stay and form a decent partnership with SWP. (bobadji)

Richards (Ben-Haim 46): 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 7.2, 6.5 (av: 7.0)
Took a could of nasty blows to either end of his anatomy and off at break. (MEN)
Kept Cisse quiet while he was on. Hopefully he's ok. (xavi6)
Went off at h/t but looked a lot better at CB than midweek. (bobadji)

Dunne: 7, 7, 6.5, 7, 7, 7, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 8, 7.3, 6.7 (av: 7.2)
When he starts well the captain often continues in the same vein and did here. (MEN)
The skipper did well today. Didn't give any of the strikers a sniff. (xavi6)
Didn't have anything to do really, but what he did, he did well. (bobadji)

Ball: 7, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, 8, ,8 ,8 ,8 7, 8, 7.1, 6.4 (av: 7.8)
Continues to show improved form and was neat, tidy and accomplished.
We all knew he could defend but he actually looks a threat going forward now. Played very, very well again. (xavi6)
Really good, solid at the back, and grabbed himself an assist for SWP's 2nd. (bobadji)

Ireland: 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 8, 7, 8.2, 7.5 (av: 8.3)
Survived the axe when Petrov went lame and did himself proud again. (MEN)
Some lovely link play with Jo and a great finish for the goal. Another good game from Superman. (xavi6)
Preferred to Elano. Scored, and looked generally lively. (bobadji)

Hamann: 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 7.6, 6.6 (av: 7.8 )
Never does anything extravagant but it always has a positive purpose. (MEN)
If only he was ten years younger. Can draw a foul in any situation and was a real calming influence in the middle. (xavi6)
He's great to watch, good passer, good tackler, knows when to foul, and knows how to draw the foul. Shame he's slow as fuck really. (bobadji)

Johnson: (Gelson 81): 7, 8, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 7, 8, 9, 5, 7, 7.8, 6.7 (av: 7.5)
Looked much more influential when he managed to get forward. Made goal. (MEN)
Liked him a lot today. Played more like the West Ham game than the midweek one. Got forward a lot and generally just played well. (xavi6)
Looking much better, like the start of last season. Did well for Ireland's goal. (bobadji)

Kompany: 8, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8, 8.2, 7.5 (av: 8.3)
Another impressive effort and he doesn’t seem to have a weakness. (MEN)
We've got a real star here. Last week clearly was no fluke. Has all the assets to be a top holding midfielder. (xavi6)
Another cool performance from the Prince. He's Hamann but 10 years ago. Brilliant. (bobadji)


Wright-Phillips (Elano 85): 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 10, 10, 10, 9.5, 9.1, 9.0 (av: 9.7)
Superb. Never stopped running, tackling, smiling and scoring!
Carlsberg don't do dream returns........!!!! Fantastic to have him back and two goals capped a great day. (xavi6)
What can you say? Superb. (bobadji)

Jo: 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 8, 8, 7, 7.5, 7.9, 7.1 (av: 7.8)
Much better. A threat in air but miscued his one real chance to score.
Fully deserved a goal. Ran his bollox off upfront and got involved in some lovely build ups. Couple more weeks playing with the rest and he'll be sorted. (xavi6)
Great touch and movement, did really well for 2 of the goals. Just lacking a goal or his game would've been complete. (bobadji)


Subs:

Ben-Haim (Richards 46): 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8, - , 7, 7, 8, - , 6.8, 6.3 (av: 7.1)
Intelligent and sturdy defending. (MEN)
Solid, didn't give their strikers a sniff. (xavi6)
Didn't have lots to do, but was solid. (bobadji)

Gelson (Johnson 81): 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, - , - , 6, 6, 5, 6.3, 5.9 (av: 6.1)
Plenty of energy. (MEN)
Buzzing as usual. (bobadji)

Elano( Wright-Phillips 85)
Didn't have a real chance to influence the game. (bobadji)

Subs not used:

Schmeichel, Garrido, Evans, Sturridge



Is it time for a new badge?

There's been plenty of discussion about this on the talkboards over the last few days, fuelled by this highly dubious Sunday Mirror story, which claims that Thaksin is going to give our badge a Thai-makeover, incorporating an elephant / mythical creature / Bangkok ladyboy, or whatever, into the design.

Considering that this is the paper that brought us the classic 'Thaksin Asks Players To Bow' nonsense, and that photos of next season's kit, if genuine, have the current badge on them, I'm guessing the story is largely mischief-making by a disgruntled - and possibly former - employee.

However, the possibility of a change of badge was raised at a Points of Blue meeting earlier in the year, attended by City's head of operations Sara Billington, and the matter appears to be under review. Certainly, with the club under new ownership a change of badge might be appropriate, particularly as there are plenty of fans, myself included, who have never been happy with the current one.

Although the introduction of the new badge in 1997 made good sense (Francis Lee revealed at the time that we weren't getting royalties on the old one), I do think it's a very flawed design. While the overall look of the badge is not bad, it hardly screams either "City" or "Manchester". Here it is close up:




My first gripe is the eagle, which looks too much like the back of US quarter, or worse, a Nazi symbol. The eagle was taken from this creepy-looking City of Manchester badge created in 1957, but doesn't appear on the much more commonly used City of Manchester coat of arms (pictured lower down) which was created in 1842.

The three stars "have no significance and are purely decorative", according to Mcfc.co.uk, and there's even a question mark about the meaning of the Latin motto "Superbia In Proelio". Although it translates as "Pride in battle", "superbia" is best defined as an arrogant or excessive type of pride.

Below are the designs that have been used throughout the club's history, starting with the Ardwick AFC badge dating from 1887:



That design was ditched after Ardwick evolved into Manchester City in 1894, and the official coat of arms of Manchester was adopted as the club crest. United also used this crest until the late 1960s though it appears that, unlike City, they needed permission on each occasion. "Concileo et Labore" loosely translates as "wisdom and effort":



The only other design I've seen used before the 1970s is this odd one that appeared on season tickets in the 1920s. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to have lasted that long:



The 1970s saw a redesign of the official Manchester crest which, for some reason, involved losing a stripe:



Traditionally only worn for Cup finals, the crest was used on shirts from 1977 to 1981:



I love both the look and the idea of using the Manchester coat of arms on shirts, but the fact that the club can't copyright it means it's unlikely to make another appearance. I'm presuming that copyright was also the reason the classic round badge was introduced, with clubs recognising the potential in club merchandising by the 1960s.

According to Gary James' Manchester: The Greatest City, the original version of this badge first started appearing in programmes and club documentation in the mid-1960s, but wasn't used on the shirt until the 1971-72 season:



In January 1972, a modified version of the badge was introduced. Surprisingly, this particular design has only been used on shirts for 19 seasons (compared to 11 seasons for the new badge) though somehow it feels much longer than that. Maybe my feelings about it are largely shaped by nostalgia, but I just think it is a thing a beauty:



Personally, I'm with Sir Ron Manager at Citymancs, who believes we should revert to this design. It's not clear who currently owns the copyright on the badge, but it might still be Eddie Phillips, who ran the old souvenir shop. According to this interview with Francis Lee, Phillips bought the rights to the badge from Peter Swales in the 1980s and also paid an annual flat fee for control of the souvenir shop, worth just £60,000 a year to the club in 1994.

That deal was terminated in 1995 when City took back control of the Maine Road souvenir shop and Phillips moved out (the redeveloped merchandise operation was making an estimated £2.5 million-a-year by 1998). It appears he took his badge with him, although there are still a few items at the City Store with it on.

Considering how much design consultants charge, you do wonder whether it would be just as cheap for the club to buy back the copyright. PR doesn't come cheap either, and reverting to the classic badge would certainly be a great publicity coup for our controversial owner.

Another option is a new badge that's close to the traditional design, such as this one posted by Wheelsy OSC Sydney at Bluemoon.



Or failing that we could just go the whole hog, with this design posted by MaineRoadMemories at Mancityfans:



~ I found an an excellent site called Behind The Badges, which has the history of the club badges for 98 English league teams.
~ You can see a graphic of every City home kit since 1884 at Historical Kits.

Some curious things from City's history

A section devoted to City's history has been launched over at the main site. It's very much work-in-progress and will have a lot more additions in the coming weeks.

For the last year or so I've been researching City's history at Manchester's Central Library, particularly the scandals that affected the club's early years. I'll be publishing the results of my research soon, but here are a few surprising things I've dug up:

Firstly, here's an advert for season tickets from Aug 1929, which reveals that while men paid £3 / 3s for a season ticket, women were only charged £2 / 2s.



But things were certainly different back then. Here's a job advert from 1923 that you might not get away with nowadays:



Now here's a report I stumbled across from The Guardian from May 1955 which reveals City's failed attempt to buy the Fallowfield Stadium, which hosted the 1893 Cup Final that drew a crowd of 45,000. I haven't come across any references to the club wanting to move out of Maine Road at this time, so I'm presuming we were planning to use the venue for training purposes.



The next item lends support to the idea that the bitter rivalry between us and United was very much a post-war development (something I touched on in this story about the bombing of Old Trafford). The cartoon was published in a United programme in the 1930s, and is one of several that depict the two clubs as regional 'brothers'.



The final items are possibly the most interesting, particularly in light of the criticism aimed at Thaksin over the way he is using our club for political ends. Like most fans, it makes me fairly uneasy too, but I do have to take issue with journalists such as Simon Hattenstone, who claims that being used by a right-wing politician is a betrayal of the club's historic values. In fact, I've discovered that it is actually very much part of City's heritage.

City's first chairman, Tory brewer John Chapman, blatently used his club connections when he stood for council elections in Ardwick in 1905 and 1909. Here's one of his campaign postcards:



John Allison, who became chairman in 1906, also used the club in political campaigns:



But the biggest - and baddest - political wheeler-dealer of all was Stephen Chesters Thompson, who was President of Ardwick AFC when it was created in 1887. He was bankrupted by a series of court cases in which he was accused of defrauding his company and bribing voters. Chesters Thompson was the managing director of Chesters Brewery, which ploughed huge sums of money into Ardwick in its early days, and his bankruptcy almost certainly caused the financial crisis that resulted in the formation of Man City in 1894.

In fact, I'm starting to wonder whether turmoil and intrigue has somehow been written into this club's DNA. I've been researching the backgrounds of some of the people currently involved with City, and found enough there to make me a bit uneasy about the club's future. I'm not saying there's enough to be alarmed, though it is making me fairly cautious about recent announcements.

But I'll be writing more about that soon.

A detailed look at Hughes' record

Now that it's official, let's take a good look at what sort of manager we've got.

When Hughes took charge at Blackburn on 15th Sep 2004, the club were second to bottom of the Premiership with two points from five games. The previous season, under Graeme Souness, they had finished 15th, compared to 6th the season before that. Here's how they performed under Hughes:



When placed in the context of the financial resources Hughes had available, his record at Blackburn looks more impressive. The table (below) shows the net transfer spending for each Premiership club over the last four seasons, and reveals that Hughes has spent less than any other manager except Wenger.

(Profits from transfers are in brackets. The Blackburn figures include the £1.5m fee for Morten Pedersen, who signed a month before Hughes became manager).



And here are his signings in full:



The signings of Santa Cruz (fourth top Premiership scorer last season with 19 goals), Benni McCarthy (26 goals in 59 appearances) and Bentley clearly show he has a good eye for a player.

More importantly, his ability to spot of bargain is also striking. Yesterday The Sun claimed that Santa Cruz could be the subject of a £15m bid from Man United, while The Times estimates Bentley to be worth in excess of £12m - making a combined potential profit of £23m. That's in addition to the £2m he's made from his signings so far, with a £2.5m profit on the sale of Kuqi, £1m on Bellamy, and a £1.5m loss on Savage.

The final table, I believe, is one of the best indicators of a manager's ability. It shows how much each Premiership club paid in wages in the 05-06 and 06-07 seasons, then divides that by the number of league points won (£ per point). I've separated the Top 4 clubs from the others as they're pretty much in a different economic league.

The figures for wages are from accountants Deloitte (listed by the BBC here) and unfortunately are only available for those two seasons.



Of course, Sam Allardyce's position at the top of the table shows that brilliant management of resources can count for little when stepping up to a bigger club with higher expectations. The fact that Hughes has only had four years as a club manager also leaves a question mark (I've excluded his time as Wales boss from this feature as I just don't think it's that relevant to club football).

As to whether we're better off with Hughes than Sven, that's a question that may never be answered. But my gut feeling is that, in the shape of this combative and successful former international, we've got ourselves the thinking man's Stuart Pearce. And that has to signal progress from where we were just a year ago.

Whether he'll do enough to satisfy an impatient billionaire owner, or be in agreement with his advisors about potential signings, only time will tell.