Match Of The Decade

[Curlie]

Can we include non-City games.
Only get to 3 or 4 a season and had to go to 13 before I saw my first win :(

[Pretty Boy Lee]

Gues by default mine would have to be the 3-2 against Charlton where Joey Barton scored a screamer.

[Ted Hughes]

Neville/Goat Derby at Maine Rd.

[CityFanFromRome]

Would have loved to attend either the Hamburg home game last season or the away derby in Sven's season (Vassell and Benjani to score and us winning 2-1, would have loved being there for it).

[simon12]

I love decade threads....

What is the best match you have attended in the past 10years - or for our overseas posters who are unable to get to games the best match you would of loved to attend.

Mine has to be the derby match back in 2004. 1st season in CoMs and we blasted the bastards 4-1 with a sublime SWP finish in the 90th minute.

EDITED FOR POSTERS WHO HAVE NOT ATTENDED A GAME IN THE PAST 10YEARS.

I`ll go for this as well. Funny as fuck Wes Brown ushering him away from goal saying go on have a go.

[mr_nool]

I have very slimp pickings ... Pompey at home under Sven, Wigan at home last January, and Chelsea at home in December.
All three were wins, and the Pompey game was a quite entertaining one, but the Chelsea game was hands down the best.

Noteworthy: City always win when I'm at Eastlands; There is a 66.7% chance that the manager will get the boot within a month after my visist.

[sandman]

Mine has to be the derby match back in 2004. 1st season in CoMs and we blasted the bastards 4-1 with a sublime SWP finish in the 90th minute.

That was an awesome day, but for me it was the Maine Rd Massacre.

City are still eccentric, but it is United who have gone bananas. At one time it was the players who were popular on Saturday it was United's new owner Michael Knighton, who was signing autographs. Makes a change from cheques. He watched the match clutching his portable telephone – perhaps in case he felt the need to call his bankers, although he said afterwards that United would not be spending any more on players just yet.

There were not enough mega-bucks on the pitch to save United from a thrashing. But City's manager Mel Machin had the key: "We played with passion," he said. Bryan Robson was sore and sorely missed in a midfield that was bankrupt of ideas to stop City's surges. As for the defence – what defence? United's manager Alex Ferguson said he had never seen a worse defensive performance in his managerial career.

"It was like climbing a glass mountain," he said. Certainly City were far too slick and slippery for United's back four, including Pallister, the most expensive player in the League. Very expensive for United. He misjudged White's cross and Oldfield, unmarked in front of goal, hammered City into the lead after 11 minutes.

The crowd were still on their feet applauding when Morley made it two a couple of minutes later. By half-time it was 3-0, Pallister dumped on his bottom as Oldfield skipped round him to thread in a cross that Bishop met with a thunderbolt header.

Several hundred United supporters had got into the City end at the start, and when fighting broke out the game was held up for eight minutes while they were escorted to the other end of the ground. Many people thought they should have been ejected and by half-time, if they were United supporters, they might have wished they themselves had been.

However, five minutes into the second half Beardsmore, who looks like a seven-stone weakling and plays with the energy of a nuclear reactor, crossed to Hughes waiting at the far post. His super scissors-kick volley crashed past Cooper. City being City, and without Clive Allen who is injured, there was just the possibility that United might still claw something back. It was not to be. City 's fourth came from Oldfield just before the hour, and Hinchcliffe made it five with a spectacular header four minutes later.

City fans were chanting "easy". There were also mischievous chants of "Ferguson out", and these must have come from City fans too because by then most of the United supporters had left ... including the troublemakers.

Scorers Manchester City Oldfield (11, 58min), Morley (13), Bishop (35), Hinchcliffe (62).

Manchester United Hughes (50).

Manchester City Cooper, Fleming, Hinchcliffe, Bishop, Gayle, Redmond, White, Morley, Oldfield, Brightwell, Lane (Beckford, 79).

Manchester United Leighton, Anderson, Donaghy, Duxbury, Phelan, Pallister, Beardsmore (Sharpe, 73), Ince, McClair, Hughes, Wallace.

Referee N Midgley (Bolton).

'It was the fear of losing' – Lake
Paul Lake, speaking to Daniel Taylor this week, said the match was the highlight of his career. "I think Ken Barnes probably best summed up the derby experience when he said: 'It was the fear of losing, the fear of letting your fans down in front of their biggest rivals.'"

Lake also recalls an experience he had on the morning of the match. "Halfway through my journey to Maine Road I pull up to the traffic lights at the junction of Stockport Road and Dickenson Road in Longsight. And stood there at the adjacent bus stop is a City fan in his thirties with his arm around his young son, both of them kitted out in replica shirts and the old-style blue, white and red scarves. Having clocked me sitting there in my car, this fella nudges his lad and then does something that will stay with me forever. Pressing his palms together as if in prayer, he looks at me beseechingly and simply mouths "please ... please ... please."

'It was the lowest point of my career' – Pallister
Gary Pallister, who had signed for United from Middlesbrough in a British record deal of £2.3m the previous month, wrote the following in his autobiography: "[Steve Bruce and Bryan Robson were out injured but] there was no excuse. The funny thing was that we started off really well, playing lovely football, but then there was trouble behind one of the goals which spilled over to the side of the pitch, and the players were taken off. After that, everything City hit went in. I'd say it was the lowest point of my entire career."

Pallister describes the manager, Alex Ferguson, as being "in shock after the game, practically speechless" and remembers returning to training on Monday at the Cliff after spending the weekend in Middlesbrough with his family. "There was no security and when I walked from the dressing room there were four burly United fans waiting for me outside the door. They told me I wasn't fit to wear a United shirt, we shouldn't have sold Paul McGrath, I was a 'disgrace' to the club, the whole treatment. I thought it was just me but it turned out that all the lads had got abuse from these guys. They really ripped into us and it was quite frightening."

[ruralblue]

It's a close toss up between the 4 - 1 or the last derby at Maine Road when Neville fed the Goat. Mmmm

Will go for the latter.

rural

[Nigels Tackle]

Spurs 3 City 4, 4th Feb 2004

Amazing.

[Scatman]

I didn't enjoy the 4-1 much. Even at 3-1 with 5 to play I still thought we'd get beat. I preferred Evra's debut against us where he got murdered. The best game I attended was the one v Bolton, 6-1 I think where SWP scored a couple and got sent off for taking his shirt off. Great goals, great atmosphere, and Bolton had the not to be forgotten Jardel playing for them. The game I wished I'd been at was the comeback v Spurs where Barton got sent off.

[Niall Quinns Discopants]

Neville/Goat Derby at Maine Rd.

this one would be it for me, if I had chance.

I attended some pretty decent games this decade (home wins against Newcastle and Bolton for example) and some truly shit ones (home loss against Charlton week after derby, away loss to Reading where Dabo got sent off). For some reason Crystal Palace away win under Keegan stands out for me. Great atmosphere, nice day and we played real end to end Keegan football. Schalke was by far best day out though.

[Chinners]

I've got two (greedy guts that I am)

Last derby at Maine Road + First derby at CoMS

[Chinners]

Spurs 3 City 4, 4th Feb 2004

Amazing.

Good reminder. In one match that summed up being a City fan. Every emotion was experienced that day!

[JB]

Spurs 3 City 4, 4th Feb 2004

Amazing.

This would be the one for me - the Greatest Comeback of All Time.

[rick1894citizen]

Last derby at Maine rd without shadow of doubt it was absolutley class day.

[King Kev]

Neville/Goat Derby at Maine Rd.

I'd go along with this. A brilliant performance from every City player, one of the best atmosphere's I have ever sampled and we stuffed the rags. A perfect day.

[LookMumImOnMCF.net]

I didn't make it to said derby so for me it's the Hamburg home leg. I was amazed as I'd never felt an atmosphere at Eastlands like that before. Great stuff.

Disappointment at the end though obviously.

[pears12]

for me the match I would of most liked to attend in last decade of city was 4-3 against spurs.. best game I attended in last decade was Australia vs Uruguay in Sydney which got Australia to WC for first time in 32 years..

[Curlie]

Can we include non-City games.
Only get to 3 or 4 a season and had to go to 13 before I saw my first win :(

Yeah non City games can be included, you didnt go to that game where a striker scored 7 yes SEVEN goals in one game did you?

Sorry most of you.
It had to be Our Wee Country 1, England 0
and the bonus was I had a Healy 1-0 scorecast.
Winnings put wooden floors down in livingroom and hall.

Hope to get over on Wednesday night (tore calf muscle last week and may have to pull out) and hope it will be first of many many contenders for game of the ...................... what's this decade called anyway?

[Socrates]

Can we include non-City games.
Only get to 3 or 4 a season and had to go to 13 before I saw my first win :(

Yeah non City games can be included, you didnt go to that game where a striker scored 7 yes SEVEN goals in one game did you?

Sorry most of you.
It had to be Our Wee Country 1, England 0
and the bonus was I had a Healy 1-0 scorecast.
Winnings put wooden floors down in livingroom and hall.

Hope to get over on Wednesday night (tore calf muscle last week and may have to pull out) and hope it will be first of many many contenders for game of the ...................... what's this decade called anyway?

That's a nice story. I don't like to think of folks living with grass floors in this day and age. Hope you find another winner soon and can get a proper roof.