Glyn Pardoe
Stalwart of the great 1960s Manchester City side which gained European glory
GLYN Pardoe, who died last Tuesday aged 73, was the youngest player to appear in a senior shirt for Manchester City, making his debut a few weeks before his 16th birthday.
HE became a linchpin of their great team of the late 1960s, when they won the League, the FA Cup, the European Cup-Winners’ Cup, and in 1970 the League Cup — in which Pardoe scored the winning goal at Wembley.
He was born on June 1, 1946 to Leslie and Mary Pardoe and brought up in Winsford, Cheshire, where his father was a tailor. He played for Mid-Cheshire Boys, and was tapped up by Everton and Manchester City, plumping for the latter as his cousin Alan Oakes was on the books there.
He made his first-team debut in April 1962 aged 15 years and 314 days, against Birmingham. For the next couple of seasons he made sporadic senior appearances as a forward, and played in the 1964 FA Youth Cup final against Manchester United;.
City had been relegated from the top flight in 1963, but the club’s prospects brightened considerably when the formidable managerial partnership of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison took over. Pardoe set about establishing himself as a first-team regular, scoring 11 goals in 50 games as they won the Second Division title in 1966.
His career went up a gear a couple of months into the new season; with both left-backs, Bobby Kennedy and David Connor, injured, Pardoe, though right-footed, stepped up and made the position his own. In the 1967-68 season, he played all but one game.
They went into the season’s final game needing to beat Newcastle to take the title. In front of 20,000 travelling fans they won 4-3, holding off Manchester United by two points.
Their title defence the following season was undistinguished — they finished 13th — but they did reach the FA Cup final against Leicester City. Pardoe was a doubt after picking up an injury, but passed a fitness test. On what Joe Mercer described as “a cabbage patch” of a pitch, City won 1-0.
That put them in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup, and they cruised through to the final in Vienna the following year. With Pardoe at left-back they beat the Polish Gornik Zabrze 2-1 to take what remains City’s only European trophy.
The following season they reached the League Cup final, against West Bromwich
Albion. Jeff Astle put the Midlanders ahead after only five minutes, Mike Doyle equalising from a Pardoe corner to take the game into extra time. In the 102nd minute, Francis Lee hared down the right wing and sent in a cross to the near post. Colin Bell flicked on and Pardoe held off a defender to steer the ball into the net.
But the following December, in a Manchester derby at Old Trafford, Pardoe suffered a badly broken leg: at one point amputation was feared. Pardoe was out for nearly two years, ending his hopes of an England call-up.
By the time he returned, Willie Donachie was City’s first-choice left-back, and thereafter Pardoe’s appearances came mainly on the other side of the defence.
Following knee problems, he retired in 1976 after 380 games, just before his 30th birthday. He stayed at Maine Road on the coaching staff for 16 years, helping City reach the Youth Cup final in 1986.
He later worked as a match summariser on BBC Radio Manchester.
Glyn Pardoe is survived by his wife Pat; their daughter Charlotte married the son of his old team-mate Mike Doyle, and Pardoe’s grandson Tommy Doyle is a promising City youngster and England junior.