Originally formed in 1880 as St Mark's of West Gorton, Manchester City FC adopted its current name in 1894 – and the club have been wearing their famous sky blue shirts for almost all of its history.
Although Manchester City have won the League on just two occasions – 1937 and 1968 – they've also captured the FA Cup four times and the League Cup twice.
The most successful, and famous, season in the history of the club has to be that of 1969/70, when Manchester City became the second English club to win a European and domestic trophy in the same season.
The European Cup Winners' Cup was gained in Vienna when Polish side Górnik Zabrze were beaten by two goals to one. The scorers that day were City legends Neil Young – who had scored the only goal in the previous season's FA Cup final – and the unforgettable Francis Lee. The League Cup was won at Wembley when WBA were beaten 2 – 1 after extra time; Mike Doyle and Glyn Pardoe finding the net.
When Newcastle were beaten in the 1976 League Cup final, few City fans could have imagined that that would prove to be their last major trophy for more than 30 years.
Some famous names have played for the club throughut the years. Great goalkeepers have included Frank Swift, Joe Corrigan and Bert Trautmann (the German who memorably helped win the 1956 FA Cup whilst playing with a broken neck for the last 17 minutes).
Billy Meredith, Peter Doherty, Don Revie and Roy Paul are all significant figures in football history – and from more modern times – Colin (Nijinsky) Bell, Tony Book, Niall Quinn, for example. Managers have included such contrasting characters as Joe Mercer, Malcolm Allison, Peter Reid, Kevin Keegan and Sven-Goran Eriksson.
City made concerted challenge to the teams at the top of the Premier League in 2009/10, their first year under ownership of the Abu Dhabi United Group and finished in fifth place in the league; they'll be looking to improve on that this year bring some long-awaited trophies to the club.
Manchster City Fixtures
