By Jim Brown
A season which started with so much expectation, delivered mostly disappointment, and ended with City having to do the business on the final day of the season for the ninth time in 29 seasons.
In August, everything seemed right with the world. City had a manager more used to success than struggle, his assistant had been one of the Britain’s finest players and Atkinson was being given serious money to spend. What could go wrong?
The answer? Just about everything. The bullish talk this season had more substance than hitherto. City turned down offers totalling £10 million for Dublin and Ndlovu, signalling that the club were now a buying, not a selling club. During the summer Atkinson had been liberally splashing the cash to bring in the calibre of player he wanted. At the time, few doubted his judgment. Having spent £1.5 million soon after his arrival, Ron bought a further six players – Brazilian midfielder Isaias from Benfica for £500,000, Portuguese youngster Carlita from Farense for £250,000, Luton midfielder Paul Telfer for £1.15 million, Crystal Palace winger John Salako for £1.5 million, Paul D Williams from Derby for £1 million, and Ghanaian prodigy Nii Lamptey from Anderlecht for £450,000. Out went Sean Flynn to Derby as part of the Williams deal, John Williams to Wycombe, Mike Marsh to Galatasaray of Turkey, Paul R Williams to Plymouth, and Steven Pressley and Sandy Robertson to Dundee United. Ron’s most audaÂcious move – to try to sign Wolves striker Steve Bull – didn’t come off. Despite the two clubs agreeing a fee, Bull decided to stay at Molineux and reap the rewards of a bumper testimonial.
The season started well enough. City shrugged off an opening-day defeat at Newcastle to put Manchester City to the sword in the first home game. Creditable draws against Arsenal, Chelsea and Forest suggested relegation was not on the agenda this season. But City had a long habit of counting their chickens. A depressing autumn saw the team go fourteen league games without a win, City’s worst sequence in the top flight. The only bright note was a 3-2 Coca-Cola Cup win over Spurs, the Sky Blues recovering from two goals down. Not only were the team losing matches, they were gathering red and yellow cards at an alarming rate and had five players were sent off in a nine-game spell.
Out came the chequebook again. Richard Shaw was signed from Crystal Palace for £1 million to bolster the suspect defence. He was quickly followed by Leeds starlet Noel Whelan, who cost a club record £2 million. Whelan made an instant impact with three goals in his first four games. The dreadful run was arrested at a snowÂbound Highfield Road with a 5-0 thumping of Blackburn. A prosÂperous Christmas saw City creep off the foot of the table.
The impetus given by Whelan’s signing lasted well into the New Year, and relegation fears seemed to be receding until successive home draws were followed by a shocking home defeat at the hands of fellow strugglers Bolton. By this time, Big Ron had taken the spending to £13 million, with the addition of Eoin Jess, a £1.75 million signing from Aberdeen, and Liam Daish, yet another central defender, bought for £1.5 million from Birmingham to shore up the persistently leaking defence.
The week before Easter it looked all over for the Sky Blues, who had a testing run-in. They were in nineteenth place with only one win in twelve, and confidence had drained away. Defeats at the Dell, where Atkinson had an on-camera bust up with Sky TV pundit Andy Gray, who questioned the players’ commitment, and at Spurs, pushed them to the brink.
Those last weeks of 1995-96 were crammed with incident. Title-chasing Liverpool were beaten by another Whelan goal. Two days later City fell to the eventual champions, at Old Trafford, in a game marred by a tragic accident which left David Busst’s leg and career shattered. A home win over rival strugglers QPR and a plucky draw at Forest eased the fingers from around City’s throat, but the key result was a win at Wimbledon, inspired by Peter Ndlovu, which left Big Ron shaking like a jelly at the post-match press-conference. Now all that was needed was to beat Leeds at home on the final day. In the event a goal-less draw was enough, though the occasion was marred by mindless Leeds hooligans posing as fans. City survived on goal-difference. Rivals Manchester City came back from two goals down at home to Liverpool, and at 2-2 there was general uncertainty among their players whether or not they had done enough to finish above Coventry or Southampton. They took their foot off the gas, which was just as well for the Sky Blues. Had both Manchester City and the Saints scored late winners, Coventry would have gone down.
It would have been ironic had City been relegated. Under the astute chairmanship of Bryan Richardson the club had shown more ambition than for many years. The vast sums put at the disposal of the manager was funded in part by the novel ‘buy a player’ scheme. This involved club benefactors funding the purÂchase of new players in return for a slice of any future transfer fee.
