On 29 January 1972, City went top of the League after beating sixth-placed Wolves 5-2 at Maine Road. Manager Malcolm Allison had predicted that City would win the title earlier in the season. Now, with only one defeat in their previous 14 league games, his exciting, free-scoring side had become the bookmakers’ favourites.
The previous day, a third member of Joe Smith’s consortium, 47-year-old Ian Niven, had been appointed to the board. He replaced Frank Johnson, who had died in hospital on 14 January, aged 67.
An engineering consultant who was now the landlord of a Denton pub, Niven had ‘specialised in public relations’ for Smith’s consortium during the takeover dispute. They had dubbed themselves the “Malcolm Allison Fan Club”, and now it appeared that their faith in “the greatest man in football” was being rewarded.
The key to City’s upturn had been the signing of 29-year-old striker Wyn Davies. Francis Lee, whose hat-trick against Wolves had taken his goal tally to 25 in 27 league games that season, explained to the Daily Mirror,
“Before he arrived in Manchester during the close season, I was playing as an orthodox centre forward.
Frankly, I was finding it a bit restricting. The problem is that at 5ft 7½in, I’m just not big enough to challenge in the air. People—including my old team boss Joe Mercer—began to knock me.
That was before “Winston” arrived in the summer. We played together at Bolton, and I was delighted when Malcolm Allison told me he was going to take him from Newcastle. He asked me my opinion. I said that at £60,000 he couldn’t go wrong.
So it has proved. I’m always marked wherever I play. But with big “Winston” in the middle I am free to go for goal by other routes.”
Lee had scored a staggering ten penalties in the League so far that season. Most of them he’d won himself, prompting the joke that City now had a Chinese player named “Lee Won Pen”. His penalty haul was most likely down to the influence of Allison, who once boasted that he’d only won the Victor Ludorum trophy at school after deliberately tripping an opponent. Although Lee “emphatically” denied claims that he had dived for penalties, in later life he happily revealed that his trick was to kick his right leg away with his left foot when the referee’s view was being obscured by an opponent.
According to Mercer, Davies “was our second choice after we failed to sign Rodney Marsh.” But now Allison believed that the addition of the skilful and unpredictable Marsh would clinch City the title.
City were still top of the table on 9 March when Marsh arrived from QPR for £200,000. “I don’t think Joe wanted me but Malcolm got his way, as he generally did then,” Marsh recalled in his autobiography, Priceless. “Years later, I learned that they had a big falling out about signing me.”
City were five points clear of Brian Clough’s Derby when Marsh made his debut on 18 March. The player recalled,
“When I joined Manchester City, they were so superior to any other First Division side. City had so much panache, so much style and vibrancy.
They had a playing system that was unique at the time. City played with two conventional half-backs. Mike Doyle was on the right and Alan Oakes was on the left with Tony Book, Tommy Booth and Willie Donachie behind them as defenders. When Doyle and Oakes were not needed in defence, one of them moved up as a midfield player and the other stayed back. Both were more than skilful enough to do either task comfortably. It was a great system.
When I came into the team, it completely upset the balance. For City, I played the same way as I had for Rangers, as a free spirit if you like, and that’s what the team wasn’t used to. It wasn’t that I was playing badly. It was just that the other lads weren’t used to my style and I confused them.”
Allison tinkered with formations, trying a 4-4-2, then a 4-2-4. Marsh did manage a successful appearance as a subsitute at Old Trafford on April 12, where he scored one and set up another in a 3-1 win. But it proved to be a false dawn.
Unable to incorporate Marsh’s free-flowing style, City’s title bid petered out.
"I know in my heart that if Manchester City hadn’t signed me, they would have gone on to win the championship in 1972," Marsh admitted.
In the close season, Allison’s “Fan Club” on the board made it clear to Mercer that he was no longer valued at the club. After attempting to remove the word “manager” from his job title, they offered him a new contract that would have meant a 33⅓ per cent cut in salary.
On 15 June, the 57-year-old Mercer quit to become manager of Coventry City. He told reporters,
“Just how humiliated can you be? If you’ve got any guts how can you stand for it?”
But before departing, he offered Allison this advice:
“He’s just got to start listening to other people again. When you stop listening—as Malcolm has done in the last few months—you stop learning.”
City got off to a disastrous start in the 1972-73 season. A 2-1 defeat at Chelsea on 26 August meant that they had lost four of their five opening matches. In a London nightclub following the game, it became clear that it wasn’t just Allison who no longer listened. As composer James Last played to the assembled guests, a group of drunken City players, led by Mike Summerbee, decided to drown out his piano-playing by singing, ‘We ain’t got a barrel of money’. Allison, who had taken them to the club, responded by ordering more champagne.
Without the calming influence of Mercer, Allison's behaviour was not only spiralling out of control, it was in danger of bringing the players down with him.
Not long after, Allison took Lee and Marsh to the Brooke House Hotel on Wilmslow Road following a Sunday morning training session. Their “lunch” consisted of two cases of Bollinger champagne. A few hours later, with only one of the 24 bottles left undrunk, Lee attempted to drive home in his brand new Mercedes and crashed it straight into the back of another car.
On 14 October, following a 3-2 defeat to Mercer’s Coventry, City dropped to second to bottom. Allison’s response was to tell the board that he wanted to sign George Best, whose drink problems were now common knowledge. The choice was perhaps understandable. Now estranged from his wife and four children, Allison's personal life was unravelling as quickly as was United's wayward striker.
On 29 September, club president Albert Alexander—said to be the only man Allison was afraid of—died at his Isle of Man home, aged 80. The following week, he was replaced as president by Smith. With tensions between the takeover group and the old guard still running high, Smith was replaced as vice-chairman by Swales, the only candidate deemed acceptable to both sides.
The 38-year-old Eric Alexander was also re-elected as chairman. Swales declared that he was "happy” to be working under him, while Smith was "more than happy" with his new role. But old scores were about to be settled.
On 7 December, Chris Muir returned to the board, three years after Albert Alexander had forced him to resign. His appointment meant that the takeover group now controlled four of the nine boardroom votes.
He told the Manchester Evening News,
“I have taken some kicks, but it is a wonderful feeling to know that the kicking is over.
Now I feel I can play a part in the future development at Maine Road under the guidance of the new president. There are many exciting plans we have in mind for what should be a rosy future.”
What Eric Alexander didn't yet realise was that this "rosy" future did not include him remaining as chairman.
Part 7