New MCFC History section on Bluemoon

After months of hard work, I'm pleased to finally be able to launch the new MCFC History section of Bluemoon. It's been a long time in the making, and is a collaboration between myself and Gary James, the prominent City author and historian. I say collaboration, but Gary has obviously done all the hard work in his decades of extensive research on the club, I just brought it together online and did the mind numbing data entry, including the details of every game City have ever played, which is over 5000 games. Anyone who claims we have no history can do one - my arched back and deteriorating eyesight from endless days sat at my computer are testament to that.

So, where to begin?

As already mentioned, we've got details of every fixture City have ever played from 1892 to the present day. This includes the date, result, attendance, line-up, goalscorers, substitutions, and video footage where available. These can be searched by season, by opponent and by competition.

There's also a list of our record attendances, including the 84,569 packed in to Maine Road to see City beat Stoke in the 1934 F.A. Cup. No history, my arse.

Next, there's a record of every player who has ever played for City's first team, currently 950 and counting. These can be searched alphabetically, by top goalscorers, and by top appearance makers. There is also a list of City's greatest 50 players, which is obviously subjective and likely to be the source of some debate. You can blame me, not Gary for that, as it's based on an article I did for The Times a couple of years ago.

There's a short biography of every manager the club have ever had, going back to 1889 and a list of chairmen, going back to the club's inception. There's also details of all eight home grounds the club have ever played at.

We've also gathered all available video footage from a variety of sources (YouTube, British Pathe, the official site) into an extensive video archive, although sadly Premier League licensing restrictions mean little footage from this era is available, but there are some great clips going back to 1924.

Other features include a list of City's honours, records, a timelime, a bibliography of relevant books published about City, and a history of City's kits lovingly illustrated by Matt Coleman.

I won't bore you with any more details, but hopefully you'll have a look around and find it to be a valuable resource. In many ways it's an extension of the great work started by the sadly departed Steve Kay with his excellent MCFCStats website, and we're looking to evolve and grow the database in the coming months (adding further details on players, matches etc). As City begin to attract new fans from all over the globe, it's important for them to be able to learn about our history whilst at the same time providing an up-to-date, extensive record for existing fans to use for reference puposes. I'm sure there's one or two errors in there, as a result of typos from me, so please give us a shout if you notice anything glaring (at one point a typo in the database had Mario Balotelli appearing in a line-up from the 60s, not sure what Mike Doyle would've made of him).

Hope you like it, as it's been a mammoth undertaking and it's a relief to finally be able to launch it.

Gary's new book, Manchester - the City Years: Tracing the Story of Manchester City from the 1860s to the Modern Day, is available now to pre-order on Amazon.