REVENGE IS SERVED

Bert of Leeds waves his bowling pumps

And the gods of football did bring down a terrible and heavy revenge on the men of Yorkshire. A coruscating, unflinching revenge at last for so many dastardly acts of the past: It came down first in a shower of poisonous toads on Neil Warnock, for his devilish deeds with his Notts County side of 1991 that beat City in an incredible FA Cup game, when City would not have scored if someone with a crane and wrecking ball had flattened every member of the opposition, widened the County goal and issued Alan Harper with a flame thrower. Revenge came down in a black pall of smoke on Leeds themselves for all those crunching defeats in the 70s from wee Billy and Big Jack. Revenge arrived swiftly too for the 5-2 thumping last time these teams met in the FA Cup, when Leeds' young cubs swiped City out of the cup in an afternoon of bristling attacking play. 


Report: Manchester City 4-0 Leeds United
Jolly: Mancini rewarded for trusting big names
 
Looking up into the stands before the match, there were the bent and greying shapes of Tony Book, captain in many a gruesome battle with these men of Yorkshire; of Big Joe Corrigan, who made possibly his greatest-ever save in the FA Cup against this very opposition in 1977, flinging his giant frame into an impossible horizontal swoop to keep the ball out of the City net; of Peter Lorimer, whose high-octane shots used to fly past the City defence before there had even been time to shout "duck." 


This article can be read in full on ESPN's MCFC pages

Gathering momentum:
 
3rd Round:    Watford H 3-0
4th Round:    Stoke A 1-0
5th Round:    Leeds H 4-0
6th Round:    Barnsley H ....

Q/F draw:  City v Barnsley; Millwall v Blackburn; Everton/Oldham v Wigan; Man Utd/Reading v Middlesbrough/Chelsea