City Corrigan, Book, Donachie, Towers, Booth, Oakes, Young, Bell, Mellor, Lee, Summerbee. – used Subs Healey(46), Connor(53), Jeffries(70)
City saw this trip to Malta as a break for the players from the cold English winter, and to get further experience of playing in Europe. However there were concerns from the players when they saw the pitch at the Gzira Stadium, they described it as “the worst they have ever seen.” It was basically just a strip of hard, baked sand, with the consistency of concrete.
Malcolm Allison, more on the defensive, said: “We knew about this situation and obviously there will be a bit of difficulty with it. The lads are prepared to meet this hurdle and the advantage of this trip here has been tremendous. The team spirit has been wonderful and the relaxation has helped to put everyone in great shape, both mentally and physically for the second half of the League programme. And with this in mind I’m not particularly worried about this afternoon’s game on this pitch.”
The game itself was quite a sedate affair, players attempting to stray away from injuries on the bone hard pitch, with no sharp turns or tough tackling. The sort of game you’d see in England on a frozen pitch.
Despite this Neil Young, who was City’s best player on the day, left the field with an ankle strain and Dave Connor suffered a groin strain.
Manchester City:
Corrigan, Book, Donachie, Towers, Booth, Oakes,
Young, Bell (Captain), Mellor, Lee, Summerbee.
Subs:
Healey for Corrigan (46)
Connor for Young (53)
Jeffries for Connor (70)
Many thanks for the information Stephen – I’ve now updated the page with it
I was at that match. I was a Royal Marine with 41 Commando and a bunch of us went to see it. Years later I sold the programme on eBay for quite a bit more than I paid for it (6d!)