- 6 weeks ago
This next upload takes us back to the dramatic final day of the 1995/96 Premier League season, a day when four clubs Manchester City, Coventry City, Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton all entered the afternoon fighting to avoid the one remaining relegation place, with Bolton and QPR already down. As results filtered through, Wednesday, Coventry and Southampton all drew their matches against West Ham, Wimbledon and Leeds respectively. That left Dave Merrington’s Saints in the most precarious position of the lot. Everything now hinged on what Manchester City could produce at Maine Road against Liverpool, who themselves had one eye on the upcoming FA Cup Final the following Saturday against Manchester United. What followed was a tense, emotional and chaotic thriller, the kind that would later become a trademark of clashes between these two clubs in the Pep versus Klopp era of epic Premier League title races and Champions League battles. But in 1996 the stakes were even more brutal. Top flight survival was on the line for Alan Ball’s Manchester City, in his first season in charge.
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00:00So Southampton were now the team in jeopardy if Manchester City could beat Liverpool at
00:04Main Road.
00:05It was a thrilling and emotional match, watched by Tony Gubber.
00:08And that's another misdirected pass by Nigel Clough which has sent McManaman skipping away.
00:20Now this could be a problem, Fowler goes on his outside, here's Rush, it's a corner.
00:25Jamie Redknapp with Liverpool's corner, over the head of Ruddick, Mark Wright's there,
00:36and here's McManaman, skips around into the six-yard box, oh, it's an own goal, Lomas.
00:45That's just the star that Manchester City wouldn't have wanted, and it's Liverpool's first attack.
00:54There's Nicky Somerby, Rob Jones just slipped, looking for Quinn, yes, yes, Quinn, James saves it.
01:11Somehow Liverpool kept it out.
01:14Here's Brightwell.
01:21Oh, Mark Wright came to win it, he was very fortunate, the...
01:24Oh, that's... Quinn! Yes!
01:27Oh!
01:29It's heart-stopping stuff on the terraces at Main Road.
01:36Quinn denied the equaliser.
01:40Son of his corner, off the head of Fowler.
01:44Here's Brown.
01:46King Cladsey.
01:48Brown, they've got plenty of players in that penalty area, City.
01:53Cross blocked by Mark Wright.
01:57It's a good long throw, here's Quinn.
02:03Back post, Rossler!
02:05The wrong side of the woodwork for Manchester City's fans.
02:10Rossler met it with great deliberation, but he put it the wrong side.
02:25Still City trail to that own goal.
02:30Here's Somerby.
02:32Well...
02:33It's a penalty, or is it?
02:35Well, he stands right on the edge of the penalty area.
02:42And I'd have to say that the challenge by Ruddock was inside the penalty area.
02:48Stephen Lodge blew the whistle and pointed.
02:51It wasn't clear whether he was pointed to the spot.
02:54He clearly given a foul by Ruddock.
02:57But surely it's in the area, not outside.
03:00Liverpool have got everybody back in the defensive wall,
03:07and it looks as if King Cladsey's going to hit this one.
03:10Michael Thomas was probably only four yards away when he blocked it.
03:18McManaman rushes free.
03:20There's Fowler, it's three Liverpool attackers on two defenders.
03:23It's deflected!
03:25It's two!
03:27Rush in his final match.
03:30Liverpool's captain for the afternoon.
03:32Gets his seventh of the season.
03:35His 346th in a Liverpool shirt.
03:40He'll certainly want to claim it,
03:43although there is a deflection off Keith Curl.
03:46Just stretched out his boot and it hit his studs
03:48to leave Ike Immel wrong-footed.
03:51Kennedy on as a second-half substitute for Liverpool,
03:56who are very comfortable at 2-0 ahead.
03:59And here's Rossler.
04:01Well struck.
04:02Clawed down by James.
04:08Kennedy then completing the saving job.
04:11Here's Quinn.
04:13Here's Quinn.
04:14Here's King Cladsey.
04:15And he's left foot.
04:16Well, even he's caught the bug.
04:17Here's Lomas.
04:18Put out by Mark Wright.
04:19King Cladsey.
04:20There's tight control in the penalty area.
04:21Obstructed by Rudder.
04:23Penalty!
04:24Well, even he's caught the bug.
04:32Here's Lomas.
04:34Put out by Mark Wright.
04:40King Clancy.
04:43There's tight control in the penalty area.
04:47Obstructed by Ruddock. Penalty.
04:50The magic in the feet of King Clancy.
04:54Brings a penalty and Ruddock is shown a yellow card as well.
05:00Now, Rosler.
05:03To peg one back for City.
05:07It's 2-1 to Liverpool.
05:11And there are 20 frantic minutes left.
05:16Has that finally lit the spark?
05:21Rosler places the ball on the spot.
05:24It's his 13th goal of the season.
05:30It was 12 games in the Premiership before Manchester City got into winning ways this season.
05:36And then a 1-0 home victory over Bolton.
05:42Cut out by Ruddock.
05:43Corner.
05:50Sunderbu at the corner.
05:53Here's Michael Brown.
05:54Took it down very well.
05:55Gets it back off the chest of Mark Wright.
05:59Here's Phillips.
06:01Rossler.
06:01Rossler.
06:02Rossler.
06:04Yes!
06:07Kit Simons.
06:09It's 2-2.
06:12The big defender up to help out in attack on an afternoon when the forwards have been missing chances.
06:20Phillips to Brown.
06:30Kavlashvili.
06:36Oh, he was pushed over by Rob Jones.
06:38Free kick.
06:39Now.
06:41City 1.
06:41Everybody forward for this.
06:44They haven't got Niall Quinn on.
06:45He is being substituted.
06:47And Tadzi will take the free kick.
06:55Somerby.
07:02It was behind Kavlashvili.
07:10Can you tell me what you've said to your players in the dressing room you've just come out?
07:13Well, there's not a lot.
07:14You can say to them that they've had a go today, but it's over a season.
07:18And unfortunately, our shocking start, we've paid daily for it at the end.
07:23From November onwards, we've picked up 36 points, which is a fantastic haul.
07:28From 24 games, 25 games, which is a good haul.
07:33Niall, can you put it into words for us?
07:35How Manchester City feel tonight?
07:37Well, there's a huge cloud over the club.
07:40You know, just as a player on behalf of the rest of the players, I can only apologise.
07:43Not for today's performance or the last couple of performances, but for perhaps the way we started the year and the problems we placed upon the club.
07:51And as one of the team, I can just apologise for those who have travelled the length and breadth of country for us.
07:55Because at the end of the day, the book stops at us, and we'd like to apologise.
07:59Your form over the last eight or ten games, though, has been pretty good, hasn't it?
08:04Yeah, it counts for nothing now, Tony.
08:05I mean, I just, I mean, the feeling now that all the players are concerned, and me too, I mean, you look back to your careers, and you look back when I started, and you go to big clubs and trials, and you think football's the greatest thing in the world.
08:15You get accepted at a club, and you're the bee's knees, everybody's happy for you.
08:19Nobody ever thought me to be days like this, and it's a bit hard to swallow.
08:252-0 down at half-time, though.
08:26City did come back, and in the end, it was just one more goal that was required, wasn't it?
08:30Yeah, I mean, I was off the field at the time, and the players did tremendous to get back into it, and Kit Simons had a header near the end, and it came back off the line.
08:37And that goes over, I mean, we're all heroes, and we've kept the club up, but it hasn't done, it's gone the other way, and it's a terrible feeling, but we know where we let the fans down, where we let the club down, and that was early on in the season.
08:50You've had the ups in football, you've been a World Cup winner, this is one of your lowest moments?
08:55You're very, very disappointed for an awful lot of people, yeah, but the important, what you've got to do, you've got to, life must go on, and in a couple of days to sit down and think,
09:06and then start all over again.
09:09There was no negative thoughts in the camp whatsoever, and I think that was what pulled us through in the end.
09:14We had a very positive attitude, nobody was even talking about going down, and that's the way it proved.
09:19I've survived, the club's survived, the club is far more important than any individual, sometimes you see silly stories about individuals.
09:26Shepherd Wednesday Football Club is a worthy premiership club, it has a marvellous ground, it has a marvellous pitch, but there's some surgery required,
09:33I think that's clear, because we haven't done any better this year than they did last year.
09:37So we've got to make changes, and they've got to be progressive changes, because we've got to get above that area of strugglers.
09:45We got into a position in the middle of the second half with stick or bust, because we knew the results of the other matches.
09:50I thought for a long period of the game, we were on top of the game, you know, if we could have scored.
09:55I mean, Noel Whelan was very unfortunate to have scored at least once, I mean, Luke, he's made a fabulous save, another couple of attempts.
10:00But after that, you're in that position where you don't know whether to charge forward and try and nick it, or say hang on a bit.
10:07We know at this moment in time we're in the premiership.
10:09When you were at Palace, of course, you experienced relegation on the final day of the season.
10:13I mean, what's the difference now, having survived on the final day?
10:16Well, I mean, it's tremendous. I mean, obviously, I mean, really, I think I'm still going to start growing grey hairs or something, you know, struggling two years in a row.
10:23And I think if we'd have gone down again this year, I think it was a stigma that would have stuck with me for the rest of my life.
10:27So, I suppose for myself and Richard Shaw, we're very relieved.
10:30During the match, were you aware of what was happening in the other games that were concerning the relegation spots?
10:34No, you know, I didn't really want to know. I just thought, if we do our job right and we get a result of some sort, we don't get beat, then I knew we'd be OK.
10:41But I was one of those players that I didn't really want to know.
10:45I'm sure I've made some mistakes this season. The important thing is to learn from any mistakes.
10:50But at the same time, I've lost no confidence in my own ability.
10:52But I just sometimes think, what am I doing in this type of business? But no, I'm here still.
11:00City aren't they go down. I feel sorry for them. At times they played some super football, didn't they, this season?
11:04But they couldn't get enough goals.
11:06Yeah, and they did have that horrific start. So they were a handicap right from the start.
11:10They fought back well and they have got some good players.
11:12But I suppose overall, they've clearly conceded to have got many goals.
11:18And today, especially, along with many other times this season, they've missed a lot of chances.
11:23And they had three, four, five good ones today.
11:26This is the, fairly early on in the game, Somerby gets a good ball across.
11:32Quinn gets up well at the far post as he does.
11:35Bad luck. Comes back. Gain another chance.
11:38And it was that sort of afternoon for Manchester City.
11:41You thought at that stage, Liverpool won up.
11:43It was going to be one of those days.
11:45And that's sort of the way it proved.
11:47Here's another one.
11:49This is the greatest chance of all.
11:50This is an appalling miss from Rossley.
11:52This is quite literally an open goal.
11:55And he manages to head on to the outside of the post on that one.
11:59Late on.
12:002-0 down.
12:01They got it back to 2-2.
12:02Fantastic performance to do that.
12:04Showed great spirit.
12:06And this is the difference.
12:07How close it can be between promotion and relegation.
12:10Cavalashvili just wide there.
12:13And that Alan Bull expression says it all.
12:14If just one of those had gone in, they're up, aren't they, in Southampton?
12:18It's an if-word, isn't it?
12:18It's an if-word, yeah.
12:19If maybe and should have been and could have been and all that stuff.
12:22Might have been.
12:23Yeah.
12:23Sad day for them.
12:24There was something we noticed in that game where they were playing for time at the end,
12:29which was rather difficult to understand.
12:30Yeah, I think it's happened a number of occasions.
12:32Here's a free kick.
12:33There's five minutes to go.
12:34The score is 2-2.
12:35Now, obviously, there's some duff information reached the field
12:39because Lomas gets the ball and keeps it in the corner
12:42like you do when you're a goal up and you're just trying to cling on.
12:46Do you think he thinks a draw is okay?
12:47I think there's a supporter in the crowd that's probably a Coventry fan
12:50who shouted, don't worry, Leeds are three up.
12:53Something like that.
12:54I mean, it's a bit cruel to laugh, but...
12:56Are you sure?
12:56He wasn't just playing for a corner, was he?
12:58No, he was definitely playing for time.
13:00It's happened before.
13:01I remember in 1986 when this mob won the league and I was playing for Everton
13:05and what had to happen was that Liverpool, we didn't want them to win
13:10and we had to win at home.
13:11And we got about two goals up and suddenly there was a little roar in the crowd
13:15and then it started going in.
13:17In the end, there was this huge roar going right around the ground
13:19and everyone knew in our team that Liverpool had gone a goal down.
13:22Got in at half-time, they were one-up.
13:24Liverpool fans, I think, started.
13:26But the thing about that is, the amazing thing,
13:28the manager must have thought that they only needed a draw as well
13:32because when the first incident occurs,
13:34he would have been out the tunnel and down to the edge of the pitch.
13:37Yeah, he'd be saying, get the ball into the box.
13:40So a bit of misinformation and they're playing for time
13:43and they're in a great position there on the right-hand side of the box.
13:45Cunning those Coventry people, aren't they?
13:48Very clever.
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