The Club With No History Has Achieved Something Unlikely to Be Repeated

All too often I get told by the ill-informed that Manchester City have no history.

It has begun to get tiresome, especially when people who are too young to understand fully, or those of all nationalities who only realised football existed when Sky beamed it across the globe, are those passing on their opinions.

So here is an interesting tidbit of historical information for all of the unaware fans of the beautiful game.

Manchester City are the last club to field an all English team that won the FA Cup.

The year was 1969 and every player was English, the substitute was English and even the manager was English.

The team was Harry Dowd, Tony Book (c), Glyn Pardoe, Mike Doyle, Tommy Booth, Alan Oakes, Mike Summerbee, Colin Bell, Francis Lee, Neil Young and Tony Coleman

Sub—David Connor

Manager—Joe Mercer

Even more remarkable for me is the fact that City achieved the same feat in the Cup Winners Cup the following season, but with changes to three positions. 

This time the team was Joe Corrigan, Book (c), Booth, George Heslop, Pardoe, Doyle, Tony Towers, Oakes, Bell, Lee and Young

Sub—Ian Bowyer

Manager—Mercer

City of course won both games with important goals scored by Young, a local Manchester lad.

The 1969 team was made up almost entirely of players from the North of England, the only exceptions being the captain Book and winger Summerbee.

Even the manager, Mercer, was from the region.

In the 1969 FA Cup winning side Dowd, Doyle, Booth, Young, Coleman and Connor were Manchester born.

In the 1970 CWC Corrigan, Towers and Coleman were similarly local talent born and bred in Manchester.

Will such a feat every be achieved again? I seriously doubt it, certainly not by an English team.

Nowadays, of course, we all fawn over what Barcelona do using a mostly Spanish side, with local ties to the Catalan "Nation," but City did it years ago with the majority of the team from Cottonopolis.