Punch, bribes and scandals - the story of madness surrounding Manchester City in 1905-06

#PausaHistoria

The 1904-05 season saw one of the tightest races for the title in English football history, with Newcastle Utd, Man City and Everton all with a realistic chance of winning the prize with 2 gameweeks left.

Man City were in pole position as 2 wins in their last 2 games would have guaranteed them the title. Their penultimate game would be a 2-0 home win against Everton, which would end Everton's chances, and City would go to Aston Villa with the aim to finish their season on a high.

However, Aston Villa would end up being party poopers by beating Man City 3-2, which would give Newcastle Utd the title. The game was a particularly rough one, with contemporary reports naming various City players of being unnecessarily aggressive in their challenges.

Towards the end of the game, City's Sandy Turnbull (in pic) hit Villa's Alex Leake without any apparent provocation. This caused tensions until the final whistle after which the Villa players surrounded Turnbull and started to beat him to seek revenge.

The FA launched an inquiry into the events of the game and proceeded to hand a month long suspension to Turnbull and the two match referees. However, the FA would follow this by adding a season long ban for Leake (in pic) and Man City captain Billy Meredith.

The latter decision was delivered because an unnamed person who reportedly held 'a responsible position in Birmingham Municipal life' told the FA that he had overheard a conversation where Meredith had offered Leake £10 to ensure Aston Villa lost.

However, the following season FA officials spotted Meredith always being around the Man City dressing rooms and club offices, asking for money. While it seemed suspicious enough, Man City suddenly reported him to the FA for this misdemeanour towards the end of the season.

Annoyed, Meredith began to expose all of Man City's financial secrets. At the time, the league had a maximum wage limit of £4 per week (the average wage in UK then was £70 per year). He claimed he had been earning £6 per week for the last 2 yrs and so did most of his teammates.

This led FA to investigate the entire scenario. It turned out that a percentage of the stadium revenue was going to the bank accounts of the club directors instead of the club itself. These were spread across different banks and from there off-the-books cash went to the players.

This was all done under the lead of newspaper magnate Edward Hulton, who had bankrolled this process with an aim to create the best team in the land. Under Hulton, Man City had finished 5th, 3rd and 2nd in the previous three seasons and had won the FA Cup in 1904.

The FA banned all 17 players from playing for Man City ever again. The club were ordered to provide regular financial reports in the future. Additionally, 2 of the club's directors and the manager Tom Maley were banned for life, while the others were forced to resign.

Sandy Turnbull and a number of other players would end up at Man Utd, where Turnbull would again be a central figure in the match fixing scandal of 1915. You can read more about that in this thread https://twitter.com/PausaFutbol/status/1298922001306771457?s=19

After 3 seasons of struggle, Man City would be finally relegated in 1909. It would be 1937 before the club would be involved in another title race. This time they won it, without any controversy surrounding it.

A century later and we now had hackers and UEFA that accused Man City of flouting the financial rules. Unlike last time though, this time they emerged out of it unscathed and victorious.

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