For a generation, it will seem unfeasible that the following six words were used: ‘Manchester City are trailing at Chesterfield.’
In this week in 1999, City went behind against Chesterfield in a League match. A third-tier League match.
City were fifth at kick-off and were about to drop to sixth. They were the 50th best team in England, playing in what was known as Nationwide Division Two. Twenty years on, as Dave Reeves says: ‘Big Man City were losing to little Chesterfield.’
In this week in 1999, City went behind against Chesterfield in a third-tier league match
Reeves was a 32-year-old striker from Merseyside. He had been a ‘late starter’, spotted at Heswall by Sheffield Wednesday as they scouted Ian Woan. Reeves’s twin brother Alan played for Wimbledon in their Premier League days in the 1990s.
Dave Reeves signed a £75-a-week contract in 1986 and made his debut for Howard Wilkinson in a Wednesday victory over Arsenal two years later. Nigel Pearson and Gary Megson scored for the Owls. Then, via Bolton, Notts County, Carlisle and Preston, Reeves was down the road at Saltergate scoring past City goalkeeper Nicky Weaver.
City, says Reeves, ‘were expected to romp away with it’. He is talking about the League, not this game. There is still amazement in his tone that City were in the same division.
‘Chalk and cheese,’ Reeves says of the contrast with today, although chalk and diamonds might be more appropriate.
City then were a fallen club. In 1996 under manager Alan Ball, they had been relegated from the Premier League, and two seasons later City went down to the third tier for the only time in their history.
Steve Coppell had succeeded Ball at Maine Road, only to leave after a month. Frank Clark came in and stayed for 14 months before Joe Royle replaced Clark in February 1998.
There had also been spells under caretakers Asa Hartford and Phil Neal. City were spiralling downwards, out of control.
And here they were in the third
