Manchester City will wrap up their tour of America today against Tottenham Hotspur. It has been, overall, a good tour with exciting new faces added to the squad along with a few younger faces who, we can only hope, develop under Pep Guardiola and maybe even get to see them press the first team for a place in the coming seasons.
In recent years, America has become a go to destination for us on our pre-season warm ups, exhibition games, or whatever you want to call them, but City have links with the States which go back so much further than that, and with sister club NYCFC, they will continue long into the future I suspect.
From 2010 until this pre-season we have visited the land of the free five times whether it be in pre-season, or in 2013, a post season visit. It all kicked off against MLS side Portland Timbers seven years and two days before we would face Manchester United in the first Manchester derby played outside of England.
City won that game 3-0 with goals from Stephen Ireland, Emmanuel Adebayor and Jo (remember him!). It wasn’t to be the greatest of tours as far as results went though with the next two games in New Jersey ending in defeat against Portuguese side Sporting and then ‘soon to be’ NYCFC rivals, the Red Bulls. Club America, from Mexico, held us to a draw before we headed to Baltimore to face Inter Milan, a game I attended, which ended in a 3-0 loss.
In 2011 we went back, with somewhat better results, although we wouldn’t play any of the European giants. Wins over Club America and Vancouver were overshadowed by Mario Balotelli and his antics against LA Galaxy. Showboating left both the fans, LA Galaxy players and, then City boss, Roberto Mancini fuming. Balotelli was instantly substituted.
We would skip America for our pre-season plans in 2012 but visit the shores for two games at the end of the 2012/13 season. Both games were against Chelsea, first in St Louis Missouri, followed two days later with a game at Yankee Stadium, which saw City beat Chelsea 4-3 and 5-3 respectively. The year 2014 would see our final visit until this current one and we would leave undefeated, well sort of. Beating Sporting Kansas City 4-1 and AC Milan 5-1 initially we then lost the last two games against Liverpool and Olympiacos on penalties, after both ending in 2-2 draws.
We have also had a couple of American players in our squad at various times in our history. Of course, most fans will know of Claudio Reyna due to his continued association with us through NYCFC. Although injury hit, he was on our books from 2003 until his contract was terminated by mutual consent in 2007. In Reyna’s last year at City, we acquired DeMarcus Beasley on loan from PSV. He was exciting to watch in a team which looked nothing like the side it does now, a decade on.
Going back even further though, and before the glory years of Mercer and Allison, before Bell, Lee and Summerbee we had a New York native, Gerry Baker. Signed by then manager Les McDowall. Gerry made his debut in a 3-1 defeat away to Bolton. He would go on to score nine goals in 22 league appearances that season and five the next, leaving only a few months in, his last game a 5-3 defeat at home to West Ham on November 4th, 1961.
So surely that’s the earliest association we have with America right? Well not really. In fact, you have to go back to the time when Manchester City wasn’t known as Manchester City, but as Ardwick. In 1894 players Alec Wallace, Archibald Ferguson, Mitchell Calvey and Tommy Little all left us to join the American League of professional soccer. Created by the owners of baseball clubs, the Manchester City quartet would find themselves in Baltimore, playing for Orioles FC. The baseball owners saw this as a viable option in keeping their stadiums full during the winter when baseball closed down. Had it been allowed to flourish who knows where American soccer could be right now.
However, due to accusations of illegally recruiting foreign players and talk of a rival baseball league being formed, along with other pressures the league was disbanded before it had really begun. Baltimore had played only four games, winning all and scoring 24 goals in the process. Due to the dates, I cannot find much about what happened after the collapse of the league for Calvey. Fergusons playing history just stops. However Wallace and Little returned where Tommy was welcomed back by, now officially Manchester City, where he would play another season. Wallace, however, had to find other employment with non-league side Hereford.
So there you have it, from 1894 we had players trying to help America embrace the worlds most beautiful game. In the 60’s and 90’s we welcomed US internationals to our beautiful club and now, the circles complete and with the popularity of the sport now growing in America, we are back.
