Class of 92: Out of Our League by Gary Neville & Phil Neville & Paul Scholes & Ryan Giggs & Nicky Butt & Robert Draper

Class of 92: Out of Our League by Gary Neville & Phil Neville & Paul Scholes & Ryan Giggs & Nicky Butt & Robert Draper

Author:Gary Neville & Phil Neville & Paul Scholes & Ryan Giggs & Nicky Butt & Robert Draper [Neville, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473530614
Publisher: Ebury Publishing
Published: 2016-09-07T23:00:00+00:00


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Those that were at Manchester City still remember the day that changed everything: 1 September 2008. Salford’s striker James Poole was an 18-year-old getting ready for training at the Premier League club. He had just been awarded a professional contract at the club, the team he had supported as a boy, and life was replete with enormous opportunities. He wasn’t yet on the verge of the first team but he had made the first important step. And that summer he had been part of a group that had won the prestigious FA Youth Cup, an indication that these young men ought to be among the best in the country. Daniel Sturridge, now with Liverpool and one of England’s best strikers, played in his team.

‘We had tellies in the changing rooms, and one day we’re all getting ready and it pops up that City had signed Robinho for £32million from Real Madrid,’ recalls Poole. It was a preposterous notion at the time. City were a running joke in English football, the perennial failures forever being beaten up by their big brother down the road. Though he would ultimately turn out to be an expensive failure, Robinho was one of the most feted players in the global game. City were more used to scouring less powerful leagues for bargains. Suddenly they were taking star players from the biggest club in the world.

Unheralded, Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi had purchased the club and immediately signed Robinho as a statement of his intent. It would take some time for City to become the force they are today, but essentially the entire outlook of the club changed. Without warning, it had been transformed from a jobbing Premier League outfit into a global brand. More stellar names would follow Robinho. Argentine Carlos Tevez was signed audaciously from Manchester United in a deal that was reported to be worth £47million in total; Nigerian Emmanuel Adebayor was signed from Arsenal for £25million.

Robinho, Tevez and Adebayor were all strikers. Poole, 18, was also a striker. ‘They’d signed all these players and as a City fan I was delighted, I was in dreamland really, but as a player I think we all realised from that summer things were not going to be as they’d been previously, which at times got really frustrating for a few of us.’

Under Welshman Mark Hughes, who was the manager at the start of 2008, Poole felt there might still be a chance of progressing to the first team. ‘There was a lot of people there who wanted us to be involved with the first team, like the coach Glyn Hodges, who was under Mark Hughes and was really good for us, He’d had a football league career, and he was a really good coach, wouldn’t let us slack off. He brought great intensity to our training.’

Yet Hughes wasn’t cutting it for the new owners with their global ambitions. So, alongside the trophy players, came a trophy manager in Roberto Mancini, an Italian who had had great success winning three successive league titles at Internazionale in his home country.



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