I’M BUZZING!
Club legend Mike Summerbee can’t wait to see what Pep will do next at his beloved City
MIKE SUMMERBEE is convinced Manchester City can succeed where he and his team-mates failed – by dominating English football for years.
City will be presented with the Premier League trophy at the Etihad tomorrow after romping away with the title in Pep Guardiola’s second season in charge.
It is 50 years since City won their second league crown and Summerbee, a member of that side, believes Guardiola can lead the Blues to a sustained period of domestic dominance.
“I think you’re looking at an era,” said Summerbee. “There’s a big future here.
“Pep’s created something you know is long-standing and I think they’ll get even better.
“They’ve got a big chance of back-to-back titles. We’ve got a very young side now. He’s looking to the future – a long way into it as well.” It is hard to see Guardiola’s formidable squad suffering the same fate as Malcolm Allison’s 1967-68 titlewinning side, who slumped the following season to finish 13th.
“It just started to creak and Malcolm started to play games,” recalled Summerbee, 75.
“It was a bit unstable. You couldn’t say you’re going to get a continuation of things.
“Now you can feel confident you can go on from here. At that time you had 15 players for a whole season. The squads were small but you wanted to play every week, you limped onto the field sometimes, played with injuries. Now you have to have squads.
“Pep has to be a magician to do what he’s done.
“You’ve watched games, you’ve watched eras, but you’ve never seen anything like this for a long time – I’d like to see him stay forever.” City pipped United to the title on the final day of the season 50 years ago, beating Newcastle 4-3 while their rivals suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at home to Sunderland.
Despite playing for rival clubs, Summerbee’s best friend – and best man – was George Best, and he recalled how they met up the night City landed the title.
“He could have bottled it but he was there at 1am, and we went out in the Cabaret Club – people don’t understand what a nice person he was,” said Summerbee. “United were the team of the moment but we ruined the show.”
History has repeated itself half a century on – the challenge now for Guardiola and his players is to do what Summerbee and his team-mates were unable to do by staying at the top.