‘Brilliant club, but it was in a right old mess’
FORMER DEFENDER ON HIS ‘CRAZY’ TIME AT CITY
IT’S fair to say things didn’t exactly go to plan for City while Kit Symons was there.
The Welsh defender joined a Premier League side from Portsmouth in 1995 and left, three years and several managers later, when relegation to the third tier of English football was confirmed.
If it was a shock for the Blues to lose their top-flight status after seven years, what followed next could scarcely be believed.
The club expected to challenge for immediate promotion and, when that didn’t happen, aimed to achieve it the next year. Instead, they suffered two drops in three years to leave them languishing in the third tier.
For Symons, though, despite the many lows it remains a period of his career that he looks back on fondly.
“I had a tough spell at Man City because during my first season there we got relegated on the last day of the season. I loved the club, it’s a brilliant club with a lot of very, very good people there but it was just a club that was in a mess the time I was there,” he told M.E.N Sport.
“I played there three seasons and I had six or seven different managers including caretaker managers. It was a crazy time and City was a club in decline that made too many mistakes over a short period of time.
“But I’ve got some great memories. We did the double over Leeds
United in that Premier League season, which was great for our fans.”
City’s Premier League adventure ended in truly bizarre fashion. Needing to better Southampton’s result on the final day of the season, the Blues clawed their way back from 2-0 down at home to Liverpool with goals from Uwe Rosler and Symons.
But manager Alan Ball mistakenly thought Southampton were losing and so instructed his team to waste time and take a draw. By the time the error had been realised, City could not find a third goal.
It was a bizarre mistake that summed up the chaos of that part of City’s history.
“We ran down the clock,” said Symons. “But we got the wrong information because we needed to win! For a few seconds I thought ‘I have scored the equalising goal,’ which was going to keep the club up and obviously I would have been a hero then. But it didn’t quite go to plan and the draw put us down.”
City now are unrecognisable as a football club to the one that Symons left in 1998.
Boasting incredibly rich owners and the best manager in football who revolutionised the game with his Barcelona side, they have won the last two Premier League titles with record points totals and have the world-class players to match the facilities at the Etihad Campus.
For all that has changed, though, Symons still sees the same supporters turning up to cheer the team on that were watching them fall down the divisions.
“The football club is unrecognisable but in a good way,” he said. “Firstly, they have a different ground, a different stadium, a different training ground, so many different people that changed that were working at the club and I think the only constant is the supporters. That stayed. “It’s a totally different club because they have worldclass players coming in but a football club is the supporters in my opinion.
“I am just really pleased to see City as a dominant force in Manchester and I love seeing them winning titles and cups and picking up silverware.
“I am pleased for everyone concerned.
“The City supporters are brilliant, simply fantastic and deserve all the success they’ve had over the recent years because they turned up in huge numbers when it wasn’t going well.”
I played three seasons for City and I had six or seven different managers. It was a crazy time
Kit Symons