CITY 0 DERBY COUNTY 1
League Division 1
27th March 1970
attendance 42,316
scorers McFarland(18)
Ref Jack Taylor
City Corrigan, Book, Mann, Doyle, Booth, Oakes, Jeffries, Lee, Glennon Young, Pardoe – Sub Towers(unused)
Derby Green, Webster, Robson, Durban, McFarland, Hennessey, McGovern, Carlin. O’Hare, Hector, Hinton
FROM THE PRESS BOX
PETER GARDNER WRITING IN THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS 28TH MARCH 1970
The one bright spark from another plodding League display by Manchester City was the impressive form of Derek Jeffries.
Wearing a no. 7 shirt, but bearing not the slightest resemblance to an orthodox right winger, he generated the only excitement in a laborious game in which the Blues were beaten by Derby County, their third successive home defeat.
Jeffries possesses undoubted talent and ability with his skill on the ball perhaps the brightest asset of all.
But all around the bright new star of Maine Road were dull clouds to dim the picture in this 1-0 defeat with County’s powerful young centre half Roy McFarland the only goal from an Alan Hinton free kick in the 18th minute.
Derby controlled it throughout with Willie Carlin and Terry Hennessey outstanding. City, Jeffries apart, had no one to match them. Tony Book, Arthur Mann and Alan Oakes contributed non-stop performances, but there was too much lethargy around them to inspire hope that the one goal might be wiped out.
Chris Glennon did have one superb chance to make his first League game a glorious debut, but he pulled a shot outside. The outcome was that it was anything but a debut to remember for young Glennon.
It was again painfully obvious that without Colin Bell and the ever-aggressive Mike Summerbee City are a pale shadow of the side who can generate so much endeavour and excitement.
The result was that Rudi Gutendorf, coach to Shalke 04, the Blues European Cup Winners Cup semi-final opponents in Germany next week, left 10 minutes from the end completely unimpressed. But then perhaps that is not a bad thing from City’s point of view.
However such abysmal performances at League level do nothing to inspire confidence in the club from ultra critical supporters who are demanding better shows than this.
