It’s been some week.

Manchester City legend Tony Book left us on Monday, comedian Tony Slattery the day after, and news of the deaths of Joan Plowright and David Lynch came on Thursday.

Then, yesterday, we lost Kenny Wilson and Denis Law (see previous posts.)

Anthony Keith (Tony) Book: 4/9/1934 – 13/1/2025.  So it goes.

Tony Declan James Slattery: 9/11/1959 – 14/1/2025. So it goes.

Joan Ann Plowright: 28/10/1929 – 16/1/2025. So it goes.

David Keith Lynch:  20/1/1946 –15/1/2025. So it goes.

Denis Law died yesterday.

What can you say about the only Scottish footballer ever to win the Ballon d’Or? Simpy magnificent.

He is Scotland’s all time top goalscorer, a record held jointly with Kenny Dalglish.

He played club football for Huddersfield Town, Manchester City, Torino, Manchester United and City again.

He once scored six goals in an FA Cup tie for Manchester City against Luton Town. Sadly these goals do not appear on his record as the game was abandoned with twenty minutes left to play. City lost the rearranged game 3-1! Of course Denis got their goal.

It was with Manchester United that he made his greatest mark in club football, in that great triumvirate of Best, Law and Charlton.

Denis Law: 24/2/1940 – 17/1/2025. So it goes.

One of that great Manchester City team of the late sixties and early seventies Francis Lee, has died. Along with Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee, Neil Young, Tony Book et al, City legends all, he was part of a formidable force in English football of the time.

He won various trophies with them including the second of City’s top Division titles (the previous one was in 1937 and they would not win another till 2011.)

After moving to Derby County he won another league title. Overall he made 500 league appearances, scoring 228 goals, and played for England 27 times (10 goals.)

Francis Henry (Frannie) Lee: 29/4/1944 – 2/10/2023. So it goes.

Manchester City’s best team may have been the one of the very recent past. Certainly in terms of trophies won it is the most successful. However City’s last great side, the one of the late 60s and early 70s, is worth mentioning in the same breath.

That side’s outstanding performer, one of the greatest players Manchester City ever had, if not the greatest, Colin Bell, has died. The only one of City’s players ever to be dubbed ‘the King’, in his case ‘King of the Kippax’, after the Kippax Street Stand at City’s old Maine Road Ground. He was also nicknamed Nijinsky after a famous race-horse of the time due to the seemingly effortless way he covered the ground. The team was an attacking force to be reckoned with and Bell was its driving creative hub.

His stature at the club was such that one of the stands at City’s new ground, the Manchester City Stadium, aka the Etihad, was named for him.

There was a fine appreciation by Simon Hattenstone of what the man meant to City supporters in yesterday’s Guardian.

By all accounts he was a decent man as well as a great footballer.

Colin Bell: 26/2/1946 – 5/1/2021. So it goes.

On Match of the Day a few weeks ago the commentator on Leicester City’s game mentioned that seven years ago Danny Drinkwater (I think) had been turning out for Leicester against Stockport County in the third tier and now he was at the top of the Premiership, remarking what a contrast that was.

I thought, wait a minute, it’s not just Leicester whose fortunes have changed.

In that season Leicester won League One and began the journey back to the big time whereas Stockport County ended it 18^th, partly due to a ten point deduction for going into administration.

The next season Stockport finished dead bottom and went down to League Two. (Norwich City won League One that season: yo-yoing up and down the divisions is second nature to some.) The season after that Stockport completed their descent through the Football League by also finishing bottom – of League Two – and so to relegation out of it.

Two more seasons and they even fell out of the Conference into the Conference North. This is the sixth tier of English football, a regionalised league, where they remain, 11^th as I write. (Despite this regionalisation in its lower reaches the Conference is now called the National League.)

Football can be a cruel sport.

Notwithstanding this tale of woe Stockport have what on the face of it seems an unlikely fame in China once even having a Chinese team named after them. As that article reminds us at one time Stockport County were the second biggest team in the Manchester area, lording it over Manchester City.

They still manage to attract crowds of over 3000 to their Edgeley Park Ground (image from the link above):-

While researching this post I came across this Football League Fourth Divison (as it then was) top four from season 1966-7:-

1. Stockport County P 46 W 26 D 12 L 8 F 69 A 42 GA 1.643 Pts 64
2. Southport P 46 W 23 D 13 L 10 F 69 A 42 GA 1.643 Pts 59
3. Barrow P 46 W 24 D 11 L 11 F 76 A 54 GA 1.407 Pts 59
4. Tranmere Rovers P 46 W 22 D 14 L 10 F 66 A 43 GA 1.535 Pts 58

(For my younger readers the GA statistic is for goal average, the precursor to goal difference for separating clubs equal on points – for which in those days there were only two for a win. It’s an interesting quirk that the top two here had identical goal scoring and conceding records but Stockport had won three more games.)

Admittedly it’s forty-nine years on but all four of these clubs are now plying their trade outside the Football League, albeit in Tranmere’s case only for this 2015-16 season. Barrow and Southport have in their time also fallen to the sixth tier – more than once – but have managed to climb back up to the fifth level again.

Maybe Stockport can do so too some time. Whether they can ever outdo Manchester City again is more doubtful.

A magnificent achievement by Wigan Athletic to win the FA Cup yesterday. A place in Europe to boot.

One more illustration of the unpredictability of football – and the romance of the FA Cup.

Wigan join a long list of Lancashire clubs (including Blackburn Olympic, the first to do so) to win the trophy. Congratulations to the Latics.

Given that Wigan were playing Moneybags United (sorry; Moneybags City*) they ought not to have had a prayer. Yet it’s there in the record books for ever now. And manager Roberto Martinez has won one more major trophy than new Manchester United boss David Moyes. It’s a funny old world.

Not least that, come Tuesday night, Wigan could be relegated.

There was another unlikely event involving teams named Athletic on Saturday. In the SFL Div 2 play-offs Dunfermline of that ilk eventually beat Forfar Athletic on aggregate over two games and extra time.

Yet by that extra time Forfar were down to eight men, thus giving Dunfermline an overwhelming advantage. I was listening to the radio reports coming in from the game. Forfar had taken the lead (4-1 on aggregate) and it struck me that with the one man down they were at the time, extra time was the most likely outcome. Given that Dunfermline were at home even that one man advantage would probably mean they would go on to win.

But how fair is it that Forfar would have to play extra time with a disadvantage in numbers? A football game lasts only 90 mins. In effect extra time is a new game, why should the sending-off extend into the 30 minute extension? I had an idle thought. Should not both teams be allowed to have a full complement of numbers for the extra period? (Unless there are further sendings-off, of course.)

When I discovered that Forfar were down to only eight players for extra time I knew it was curtains for them. But had they thought of it there was a way out. A way which goes against the spirit of the game – but so does any sending off really.

I believe there is a provision in the laws of football that should a team have fewer than eight men the game must be abandoned. I remember Neil Warnock, when he was manager of Sheffield United I think, – in exactly that situation of eight men remaining – encouraging his players to get themselves sent off to ensure an abandonment. Full marks to Forfar for not going down that road.

Dunfermline will be playing yet another Athletic – Alloa – in the play-off final.

*Wigan’s owner Dave Whelan is not short of a bob himself but the scale is a little different.

So the longest serving manager in European football is to retire.

(This apparently will leave Ronnie McFall of Portadown as the holder of that accolade, at least according to The Belfast Telegraph. There is nothing so good for a newspaper as a local slant to news.)

SrAlec’s tenure at Manchester United has certainly been a fruitful one. He has amassed a haul of trophies unlikely ever to be matched.

But how much of a turning point will this be for the club, though? Especially as he will be hanging around behind the scenes.

When Matt Busby stepped down to be replaced by Wilf McGuiness things were never the same again, probably partly becasue Busby was still hovering in the background.

It is of course an honourable thing for the club not to discard its loyal employees when their main use has been superseded but there are dangers here. United went into a sharp decline (which arguably had already started under Busby) and were relegated to the second tier a few years later, from which they quickly bounced back up.

However, it took till Fergie arrived over 20 years later for the really good times to roll around once more.

It seems David Moyes is the favoured replacement. Good timing, with him being out of contract at Everton in a few weeks.

Moyes has done an incredible job at Everton with little in the way of resources by comparison with Man U. If he is offered and accepts the job he is probably a strong enough character not to feel overshadowed by Ferguson but what if results should fall off? Will he be given the same slack from fans and board that Ferguson has enjoyed when first Arsenal and then Chelsea and lately Manchester City threatened to become top dog in English football?

It most likely won’t happen but I wonder what odds you’d get on United being in the Championship in four or so years time?

Well congratulations!

That’s the first time I ever recall my first poppy sighting of the year not to be on the chest of a politician.

I caught one of Manchester City’s board wearing one while watching the Lech Poznan game on Thurday night.

Normal service was resumed on Friday when Tory MPs were sporting them in the House of Commons.

Saturday lunchtime and the Football Focus boys were also bedecked – even the behind the scenes ones supposedly preparing for Final Score. The BBC enforcers were obviously on the ball.

Every single one of these poppies was the kind with the green leaf. I.e. the ones us mere mortals of the public can no longer obtain.

It’s at least three weeks to Armistice Day. I can’t help feeling that such ostentatious display is more than a little unseemly.

Carling Cup, Semi-final, first leg.

This is what you’re reduced to when the weather puts off match after match and you’re feeling withdrawal symptoms. (I would have been at Brechin on Saturday to assuage those but the thaw and heavy rain put paid to that.)

It was one of those games that starts with one team so on top, scoring, you think that there’s only one winner. Then of course, they lose.

Despite the commentators’ and pundits’ attempts to talk it up the match was turgid. City did little in the way of attacking and United had no cutting edge. It only really brightened up in the last ten minutes when United began to show interest. Wayne Rooney is a player, though.

It’s nice to know English refs are as error prone as ours.

(Actually it’s not. It’s depressing. It means there’s no hope of improvement.)