August 25 - Maine Men | On This Football Day

ONE of English football’s most iconic grounds saw it’s first game today in 1923 as
Manchester City got the ball rolling on their 80-year residency at Maine Road in Moss Side when they faced off against Sheffield United.

When the Citizens decided that they needed a new stadium following fire damage to their Hyde Road ground in 1920 club bosses drew up a hugely ambitious plan for a 120,000-seater stadium based on the design of Hampden Park. This was scaled down to 80,000, but it gave City the second biggest stadium in the country after Wembley.

Showing a darn sight more efficiency than we’re used to from stadium builders these days, the ground took 300 days to complete and came in at a cost of £100,000. It was rumoured that a gypsy curse was placed on the ground when a gypsy camp was evicted from the ground, which could certainly explain a fair few things down the years.

The first match drew 56,993 fans and saw the home side beat Sheffield United 2-1, despite Frank Roberts missing a penalty. Horace Barnes was the first City player to score at their new home, with Tom Johnson adding the second.

Over the years Maine Road would play host to countless City classics, rugby games and gigs, usually in front of bumper crowds. An English record was set for City’s 1934 FA Cup sixth-round match with Stoke when 84,569 showed they were mad for it and turned up to support their team.

One of the best things about Maine Road was the character of the stadium and the fans that filled it every week. One of their contributions to fan-dom in England was the craze for bringing inflatables to the match, inspired by a fan that brought an inflatable banana in honour of Imre ‘Banana’ Varadi, their former Leeds and Newcastle midfielder during his spell at the club in the late 1980s.

Maine Road managed to survive the Taylor Report, but not without the loss of the Kippax Street Terrace in 1994. Nine years later the club moved to the City of Manchester Stadium, a year after it had hosted the Commonwealth Games. The last game at Maine Road was played in May 2003 and, City being City, they lost 1-0 to Southampton.

Check out this excellently made video that pays tribute to the old stadium below and also check out what else happened today here.