MIRROR IMAGE: CARNAGE AT HOME TO PALACE

MANCHESTER CITY 0-2 CRYSTAL PALACE  |  MANCHESTER CITY 1-3 CRYSTAL PALACE

Saturday 30th October 2021  |  Saturday 5th December 1987

✅💣 EXPLOSIVE RED CARD SINKS CITY'S CHANCES | In 1987, chasing a promotion place back to the elite, City's 12-match unbeaten run came to an end as goalkeeper Eric Nixon exploded into action with a double booking in separate incidents with Palace striker Mark Bright. Taking the law into his own hands, Nixon punched the Palace raider on the nose after a "collision" going for a through ball. Fast forward to 2021 and Aymeric Laporte also decided to police pacey Palace strikers according to his own personal rule book, disregarding the regulations of the game. In wrestling the slippery Wilfried Zaha to the ground, he too fell foul of a picky referee, this time the ineffable Andre Marriner, and was sent for the much-heralded early bath.

✅ 2-GOAL DEFICIT PROVES TOO MUCH TO CLAW BACK |  Nixon's 1987 theatrics completely torpedoed City's chances, as his red card also coincided with the award of a penalty that brought Palace level. From there, with a man extra and a bemused Steve Redmond deputising in goal, the visitors ran riot. Laporte also chose exactly the wrong moment to leave his team mates to it, as City were beginning to mount a concerted effort to get back on level terms after an early Palace breakthrough. Once he had departed, however, right on half time, when City could conceivably have had a chance to regroup and reorganise, City's chances were reduced to next-to-nothing.

✅🚨 PACEY PALACE ATTACKERS TIE CITY IN KNOTS |  For Mark Bright and Ian Wright, substitute modern day nemeses Wilfried Zaha and Odsonne Edouarde. On both occasions Palace arrived in Manchester with a pair of jet-heeled attackers that proceeded to make hay in the open spaces left by an opposing team trying to cover for having a man less. On both occasions the striker, who was embroiled in the red card scene was the one to wreak the goal havoc too, Zaha netting early on and Bright bagging two late goals in 1987.

✅😠 UPROAR IN THE STANDS  |  On both occasions the referee's actions brought lively scenes to the stands, with the 1987 match marked by referee John Deakin being hit on the head by a coin as he left the Maine Road pitch. In the modern reworking of A Palace Coup, Andre Marriner had to put up with a simple everyday barrage of abuse, questioning everything from his judgment to his parentage. With the home support in a state of advanced ferment in both matches, the players could not fail to be caught up in the lively atmosphere, leading to the inevitable...

✅🥊 ...MASS BRAWL AND PRETEND FISTICUFFS!!!  |  Ah, the wonderfully cathartic effect of a "seemingly unjust" red card. Seen through the rounded prism of the infamous home beer goggles, any of Andre Marriner's works can be viewed as skewed at the best of times, but there is nothing quite like a dubious, VAR-induced frenzy to get the juices flowing. With Zaha widening his eyes to a degree that would chasten a bull terrier, the home players saw fit to wade in. Similarly in '87, with Bright clearly aware of Nixon's earlier yellow card (he had been involved in the incident, after all), his calculated actions also brought the house down, on and off the pitch, with City's most combustible firebrands, Neil McNab and John Gidman, quick to whisper sweet nothings in the Palace man's ear hole. Both men were booked for their troubles, while the crowd got so worked up that one individual divested himself of his loose change in the direction of John Deakin's upright bonce.

The more things change, the more they stay the same....

86 GAMES

As it states in Tim Rich’s excellent collaboration with Brian Horton, the ex-City manager and Brighton midfield terrier clocked up over 2,000 games in the English professional game, bettered only by Alex Ferguson and Graham Turner. It is quite a feat.

It is a true testament to the staying power of a player who was tenacious, skilled and perceptive for Port Vale, Luton and Brighton and a manager, who was imbued with all the best qualities of the British game.

Tasked with the unenviable job of picking up the pieces at City (a repetitive theme in the 80s and 90s), Horton was also saddled with expectation levels that would have flattened an ox.

The infamous Brian Who headline that met his eyes on Day One at Maine Road would have squashed lesser men, but Horton threw himself into the job with enthusiasm and passion, his performances in front of the press matching his team's energetic efforts out on the pitch.

Against the odds, he produced a swashbuckling side that, for a while at least, produced some of the best attacking football City fans can remember.

Often unafraid to play what looked like a front four, occasionally five when they got carried away, it brought unforgettable away days at QPR in the League Cup (4-3), title-chasing Blackburn Rovers (3-2) and a home game with Spurs (5-2), which the BBC’s John Motson christened “one of the best matches I have ever commentated on”.

That Ballet in the Rain will forever be remembered as the quintessential Brian Horton City match. The flow was non-stop, with both sides enjoying periods of flamboyant dominance. Spurs, led for the last time by Ozzie Ardiles, played their part, by attempting to take on City at their own expansive game. The result was a veritable feast of attacking football in an absolute downpour, which, thanks to the redevelopment of the Kippax, cost many people their clothing. 

The loss of a sodden pullover or a wrecked pair of trainers was small beer for the entertainment that was delivered in shovel-loads. It was a game where City's promise shone brightly and continued to flicker at Loftus Road the following midweek, when a League Cup tie refused to go quietly. It was all such heart-warming stuff and, to give it the compliment it is due, sits comfortably alongside some of the better efforts of Kevin Keegan, Manuel Pellegrini and even Pep Guardiola.

Horton's team lacked consistency, however, and when trouble arrived, City took off in the wrong direction. Within two games of the Spurs and QPR rollickings, City went down, unforgivably 0-5 at Old Trafford. The season drifted badly and was only saved from disaster by two more Hortonesque displays of cavalier football, a 2-1 Easter win over Liverpool at Maine Road, when Maurizio Gaudino skipped the light fantastic and the afore-mentioned win at Ewood, seemingly handing the title to United. 

  

Patience draws thin, however.

Horton’s time was soon up, with Alan Ball seen as a safer pair of hands for the Premier League struggles ahead. Within three years City were in the third division. 

Brian Horton had long gone by then, but the memories of some of the brightest matches of a truly dark decade in City’s history would stay with us until better times arrived.

Future City star Trevor Sinclair is one of the celebrating players as QPR win 3-2 in the last
game of the 94-95 season, Brian Horton's final game as manager of City