EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY: WOLVES 1998

📸 Season 1997-98, Championship

📆 6th December 1997

🏟 Maine Road

A one-goal defeat that saw City drop to 18th in the second division (Nationwide League Division One) table. The goalmouth scramble at the North Stand end features two Wolves players who had earlier worn the sky blue of City with differing levels of distinction.

Keith Curle (2), a £2.5m signing from Wimbledon under Peter Reid, played over 200 games in a five-year stay in Manchester, becoming captain and a semi-reliable penalty taker too. His last game for City was the relegation disaster against Liverpool, when Alan Ball ordered Steve Lomas to waste time at the corner flag when City needed to score another goal to survive. What a way/day to bow out. Curle famously netted a penalty at the Scoreboard End at Old Trafford and ended up walking back towards the centre circle with a City fan draped around his neck. Was less lucky with a penalty at Cardiff in the cup that was saved and resulted in City going out in a bearpit atmosphere in south Wales. 

Curle served Wolves for a similar period after leaving City, lasting four years and making over 150 appearances up to the year 2000. Helping out in a beleaguered Wolves rearguard here is 'keeper Mike Stowell (3), nearly 400 appearances for the West Midlanders standing against his 14 loan appearances for City in 1988. Stowell's inauspicious City debut came at Ewood Park, where he dropped a clanger for the home side's first goal. Stowell also played in the 4-0 mauling by Liverpool in the FA Cup 6th round, his biggest game for City. 

Wolves were another of six clubs Stowell played for as a loanee from mother club Everton, before joining full-time in 1990.

This was one of three games against Wolves that Paul Dickov (1) played for City, all lost, at a time when Wolves were something of a bogey side (curiously almost all of City's opponents in the 90s were bogey sides). On this occasion Dickov would be booked and the winning goal would be scored by Kit Symons (4), a defender synonymous with all that went wrong with City during this time. Leaping with Stowell and causing very little danger at all is another player whose mere mention brings City fans of a certain vintage out in the sweats: Ged Brannan.

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY: NEWCASTLE UNITED 1976

📸 Season 1975-76 League Cup Final

📆 February 28th 1976

🏟 Wembley Stadium, London

The 1976 League Cup has just been won. City are on their lap of honour, receiving gracious applause from the Newcastle supporters and a rapturous reception form Blues fans at the Tunnel End. It is City's third League Cup final of the 70s (winning in 1970 v West Brom and losing in 1974 v Wolves) and their first trophy since the Cup Winners' Cup and League Cup double of 1970.

Unused sub Kenny Clements (1), resplendent in Adidas hoodie (despite the fact City have never worn Adidas in their entire history) parades with his triumphant team mates. Clements, a boyhood United fan who had been on the groundstaff at Maine Road, had made his debut in August of this season in an away defeat at Villa Park. Starting life in the Central League as a central defender, he was switched to right back for a reserve game, ironically against Newcastle, and ended up staying there. He was edged out of playing in the final in his customary full back slot by Ged Keegan (4), a name to conjure with for both sets of fans in this fixture. Keegan had played excellently in the semi final second leg thrashing of Middlesbrough that saw City through to Wembley and kept his place for the final. His namesake Kevin would later play for Newcastle and manage both clubs through some of the most attractive football of their modern times. 

Lifting the trophy aloft is big Dave Watson (2), a magnificent centre half, particularly dominant in the air. Watson, bought from Newcastle's rivals Sunderland for £275,000 would go on to be one of the finest stoppers of City's modern history and a mainstay for England for many years. Alongside him, matchwinner Dennis Tueart (3) had also been bought from Sunderland, both players featuring in the second division side's heroic FA Cup final defeat of overwhelming favourites Leeds in 1973. Tueart, dubbed "King of All Geordies", a Newcastle fan, had just knocked the stuffing out of his boyhood team with an overhead kick in the 46th minute that would go down in the annals of great Wembley winners. Both Tueart and Watson would rival some of City's modern day heroes for a place in the Best Ever City Eleven.   

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY: NEWCASTLE UNITED 2003

📸 Season 2002-03

📆 18th January 2003

🏟 St James' Park, Newcastle

Newcastle go two-up through the horizontal Craig Bellamy (4), after Alan Shearer's "early strike" on 10 seconds catches Carlo Nash asleep straight from kick-off. Bellamy, at this time a complete pain in the backside to City's defence, will - after an odyssey that takes him to Celtic, Liverpool, Blackburn and West Ham - ship up at City for a two-season cameo of feisty front-running under Mark Hughes. In January 2009, he will even net a neat left-footer for City against his former club in the fixture at the City of Manchester Stadium.

In the background is Sylvain Distin (1), who has already made the journey from Tyneside to Moss Side five years ahead of Bellamy. The cultured left-footer slots perfectly into defence on the left side alongside Richard Dunne (2).  The Irishman will play 346 first team games for the club, included amongst them 24 matches against Newcastle. As the Premier League's record red card recipient, Dunne registered one of his total of eight dismissals in this fixture. As the Premier League's own goal champion, the Irishman also netted one of his 10 career own goals against Newcastle.

In a career that took him from Nottingham Forest, to QPR, via Newcastle, Tottenham and Villa, Jermaine Jenas (3) first played against City for Nottingham Forest in 2001, a Championship fixture which saw City include ex-Newcastle players Darren Huckerby, Steve Howey and Stuart Pearce in the side.  

* Also playing in this 2003 fixture were the self-same Steve Howey (ex-Newcastle, playing for City) and Shay Given (Newcastle's keeper, future City custodian).