STRIFE OF Ex-City boss Horton: Sporting Lisbon only wanted £1.5m for superstar Figo but we couldn’t afford him... it does make you wonder what would’ve happened if things had been different
BRIAN HORTON never got the kind of transfer budget Pep Guardiola takes for granted – but he definitely has the same eye for a player.
Luis Figo was once top of Horton’s wish-list when he did Guardiola’s job as manager of Manchester City back in the 1990s.
When he became No.2 to Phil Brown at Hull, it was Edinson Cavani they wanted to score their goals when the Yorkshire club were promoted to the top flight for the first time in their history in 2008. And when Horton followed Brown to Preston three years later, they failed in their efforts to convince the club to invest £100,000 on Halifax striker Jamie Vardy.
“I had seen Vardy playing wide left and I knew Halifax’s manager Neil Aspin and that we could get him for a hundred grand,” recalled Horton.
“But Preston wouldn’t do the deal and Jamie moved to Fleetwood instead. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Everyone in football has a story about the one who got away.
“When I was at City, Malcolm Allison told us about Figo – but Sporting Lisbon wanted £1.5million and that was too rich for us. I don’t think that would be a problem for Pep Guardiola, would it?
“It was the same with Cavani. We were looking for players who would take us to the next level, but the deal wasn’t done.
It does make you wonder what would have happened if things had been different.”
Horton, 71, is one of a select band of men whose career in football spanned more than 2,000 matches.
As a player, he was a midfield enforcer for Port Vale, Brighton, Luton and Hull. In 1983, he skippered the Luton team that relegated City by winning 1-0 on the final day of the season.
Ten years later, he returned to the blue side of Manchester to become City manager in the final days of Peter Swales’ reign as chairman.
The first question put to him at the press conference to announce his appointment was: “Who are you?” Horton said: “City’s fans were already suspicious of me because they wanted the chairman out of the club. But we played some great football in the two seasons I was manager.
“They still talk about a 5-2 win over Spurs that John Motson said was one of the most thrilling performances he had ever seen.
“In the space of three days at Easter, we beat Liverpool at home and then won 3-2 at Blackburn against a team that went on to win the title.”
By then, Francis Lee had ousted Swales as chairman and Horton was sacked after a final-day defeat at home to QPR cost City the chance to finish 12th and an extra £250,000 in prize money.
Horton, who was replaced as boss by Alan Ball, added: “I told the players, after we beat Blackburn, that I knew I was gone.
“The defeat against QPR was a convenient excuse – but the biggest disappointment was that they broke the team up by selling players such as Paul Walsh, Niall Quinn, Tony Coton, Peter Beagrie and Garry Flitcroft.
“City were relegated 12 months later and two years after that we were in the old Third Division.”
It could be argued that City did not recover until Sheikh Mansour’s investment transformed the club in 2008.
Horton is still remembered by the City fans with great affection and still lives in the Manchester area.
He added: “I was at a dinner at the Etihad on the night I celebrated my 70th birthday.
“At the end of the night, Pep Guardiola came over to our table to speak to me and, after telling him how much I loved watching his teams play, he invited me to watch a training session.
“Because of the pandemic I haven’t been able to take him up on his offer.
“But I think it shows that, while City have changed massively over the last few years, they are a club that won’t forget where they have come from.”
Two Thousand Games: A Life in Football by Brian Horton, published by
Pitch, is out now