Allow me to take you back to a different time
A time before Sheikh Mansour’s billions. Before Toure, Silva, Agueroooo. Before FA Cups, league titles and all the other pots and pans currently glistening in East Manchester’s finest trophy room. Before Josep.
2005, the era of Sommeil, Sibierski and (gulps)… Jon Macken. A period when being a Manchester City fan was basically like being a West Ham fan in that we had a new stadium with no atmosphere and finished 15th every season.
This, I believe, was the beginning of my club’s ‘banter era’.
“But wait you bitter blue bastard,” I hear you cry. “What about the false dawns of the 1980s where you took on record signing flops like Trevor Francis and had your pants pulled down by Ricky Villa? Or the troublesome ‘typical Citeh’ 1990s under Francis Lee’s stewardship, with Steve Coppell lasting 33 days in the job followed by a cataclysmic plummet down to the third tier of English Football.”
All very fair points, I’ll accept.
I would argue however that a ‘banter era’ should be characterised more by under-performance, false dawns and calamity, and while there are elements of those in the 1980s, the 1990s feel more like straight up turmoil, destruction and utter capitulation.
Arsenal’s recent ‘banter era’ – as some have labelled it – has still seen them win three FA Cups and only miss out on Champions League qualification twice if you include this season. Plus, I’m writing this so I decide how to define what is clearly a very childish and basic concept. No further arguments please.
We begin, as all banter eras should begin. With hope…
Prologue: 2004-05
It was Kevin Keegan’s wonderland, we were all just living in it. Four seasons under King Kev had been mostly sublime. Promotion to the Premier League, big name signings like Nicolas Anelka. Attacking, irresponsible football.
But all good things come to an end, and Kev’s magic had seemingly run its course. With only nine wins in twenty-nine games by March of the 2004-05 campaign, Keegan made way and caretaker manager Stuart Pearce filled the void.
Unproven with no managerial record to his name, Pearce surprised everyone by losing just one of City’s nine remaining league games.
This is where it began.
In the final game of the season needing to beat close rivals Middlesbrough to secure UEFA Cup qualification, Pearce gave the term ‘sweeper keeper’ a whole new meaning, deploying goalkeeper David James upfront with ten minutes to go. Like an unmanned horse in no man’s land, James caused havoc (unintentionally I think).
Somehow we got a penalty. Somehow Robbie Fowler missed it. Somehow we’d royally fucked things up.
2005-06: Some Banter
The next season Pearce showed his true colours and showcased a classic ‘banter era’ trait: mediocrity.
We weren’t awful, we were just nondescript. We tried to convince ourselves that weird youth players like Willo Flood, Lee Croft, Stephan Jordan and Ishmael Miller were world beaters. We had a penchant for average left wing loanees (Kiki Musampa, Albert Riera) and let our best player go in Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Oh, and we signed Georgios Samaras, aka the king of banter era City, Georgios Banteras if you will (I will). The guy permanently resembled a stick insect stuck in peanut butter, on ice.
We dreamt the faintest of dreams by getting to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup, before inevitably losing to West Ham at home courtesy of two Dean Ashton goals (a player we’d tried to sign instead of Samaras a few months prior).
This was back when reaching the quarterfinals of any cup competition was a huge deal for us, be it FA, Carling or Thomas Cook pre-season invitational.
The last time we’d reached the quarterfinals of the FA Cup was in 1993. I was one.
2006-07: Peak Banter
Now we’re talking.
This season had everything. But it also had absolutely nothing. And most of it involved Joey Barton.
He was our top scorer with an impressive SIX league goals. He earned his first and only England cap in February. Bernardo Corradi knighted him with a corner flag. He showed off his bare arse to Everton fans at Goodison Park. He was banned from speaking to media after criticising Stuart Pearce’s signings. Oh, and he caved in Ousmane Dabo’s head in training.
Yes, this was truly the season when Joey Barton had more storylines than Karl Fletcher in Dream Team.
On the pitch the most tragically memorable thing was that after a 2-1 win against Everton on January 1st, we didn’t score a single goal at home for the rest of the season. Every week the fans dragged their feet over to Eastlands praying not for a win or even a draw, just a goal. One sodding goal, even an own goal or a Ben Thatcher goal would’ve sufficed.
A couple of wins towards the end of the season lifted us out of danger, but we weren’t done yet. Rubbing salt into wounds, United came to Eastlands with three games left and won to all but grasp their first title in four years, eventually clinching it the following day when Chelsea failed to win. Joy.
The final standings? Work this one out. One of the dourest seasons I’d witnessed as a City fan ended in 14th, a position higher than the previous season, but with a point less (42). Looooool.
2007-08: Fun Banter
Finally some actual fun.
When you switch on Sky Sports News in August to see Sven Goran Eriksson, THE Sven Goran Eriksson, unveiling such a random array of continental talent as Elano, Vedran Corluka, Valeri Bojinov and, er, Javier Garrido, you know it’s going to be a bat shit season.
(Photo: Manchester City)Like a 16-year-old kid on Football Manager, Sven went wild in the summer transfer market thanks to the *not at all dodgy* funds provided by new chairman Thaksin ‘Frank’ Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister of Thailand. Cool.
Things were enjoyable and hilarious in equal measure. We were genuinely quite good at times, hovering around the top 6 for half the season.
Elano scored screamers, Michael Johnson looked like the next Colin Bell, and Stephen Ireland showed everyone the Superman underpants his mum had bought him from ASDA. Everything was fun and games.
Whether Sven lost his magic touch or we simple had a surplus of luxury players, form dipped in the New Year and never recovered. Ninth place was fine after the previous two seasons, but weirdly it felt like a massive disappointment by May.
Of course, all banter eras must end as they started, which in our case was with a miserable day out against Middlesbrough. F*cking Middlesbrough. Again.
8-1 it finished at the Riverside on the final day of the season, an early Richard Dunne sending off setting the tone for what became a metaphorical grave digging for Sven (and several other players).
Afonso Alves, remember him? He scored three despite being Boro’s version of Samaras (ffs). Signed from the same club (Heerenveen) and utterly useless 95% of the time.
And so concluded Manchester City’s modern era of banter.
That summer we appointed the pragmatic Mark Hughes, signed soon-to-be club legends Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, and completed a productive pre-season schedule. Stability and common sense prevailed at last.
Then Sheikh Mansour made us the richest club in the world and signed Robinho ‘for bantz’ (albeit a different kind of bantz).
The end.
Epilogue: We scraped into the UEFA Cup under Sven after coming sixth in the Fair Play Rankings, aka the only the way you’re allowed to enter Europe during a banter era.
