HARKING back to pre-takeover times and comparing them to the lush splendours of today can get old real quick and especially to the younger contingent of the Manchester City fan-base who did not experience the bleakness before the boom. For them, presumably, the transformation that has taken place these past couple of years under Pep Guardiola is mind-boggling enough when contrasted to the relatively orthodox success enjoyed under Mancini and Pelligrini while reminiscences about Swales or skipping over dog muck down Moss Side alleys is as relevant to them as anecdotes concerning landline telephones.
Even so, watching City’s kids excel and grow in the Asia Trophy this week – minus their prince regent Phil Foden who is due to hook up with the squad in Hong Kong – it was impossible to not think back to the late eighties when the Blues produced five England Under 21 internationals through their ranks; teens of genuine quality who had the club’s DNA running through their blood.
One of Man City's greatest Derby days & one of United's worst. Andy Hinchcliffe scores as they win 5-1 in 1989. Love David White's cross on the run #mcfc @YourMCFC pic.twitter.com/QcPFKf4zJS
— @forgottengoals (@forgottengoals) November 11, 2018
It was an exhilarating high witnessing the emergence of David White, Andy Hinchcliffe, Ian Brightwell, Steve Redmond, and the supremely gifted Paul Lake and it came during a time when City tended to lurch from mediocrity to calamity. In that quintet, though there was a substantial source of joy and most pertinently immense pride because it’s exciting enough when a youngster breaks through into the first team but when they’re local – all but Brightwell were born and raised in the north-west – it means so much more. There is a connection umbilical and special as the lad whose bin man lives on the same street as your uncle John starts to mix it with the big boys.
Switching to the present, three of City’s brightest stars-in-the-making certainly have Bert points to spare. Tommy Doyle is the grandson of Mike Doyle and Glyn Pardoe, each bona fide Blue legends in their own right with 828 appearances between them. Had the club with their infinite resources bristled at accusations of no longer being attached to their roots and cloned a player who was Manchester City through and through they would have made the blonde-haired midfielder. His inclusion in the pre-season squad was anything-but-token however. Doyle was superb against West Ham. He’s been superb for years, for the EDS and prior to that the under 18s.
Phil Foden and Taylor Harwood-Bellis meanwhile both derive from Stockport, traditionally a hot-bed of City support. The latter’s dad would often don the Vernon Bear mascot suit at Edgeley Park while the final words of his grandad – who was a City season ticket holder for decades – to Taylor before he sadly passed recently was, “Do it for City”.
The Pep Guardiola influence Ft. Taylor Harwood-Bellis (17)
[via @rostadius] #MCFC pic.twitter.com/1BFuRHKpXc
— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) July 18, 2019
Seeing Doyle’s energetic marauding shade the performances of established Premier League stars like Mark Noble in Nanjing and Harwood-Bellis being immaculate at the back – the senior players were said to be ‘blown away’ by the 17 year old defender – brought a frisson of anticipation that is altogether different to the elation felt when a new expensive signing impresses from the off. And it occurred to me that had the duo – along with Foden, unquestionably the most talented of the whole bunch – come to prominence way back when the club’s very future would have been hung on them.
Whereas now they are a cherry on top. For the present at least they are merely curios to enjoy in friendlies and kids you aspire to see in Carabao Cup line-ups.
Realising this I briefly indulged in a rather odd flight of fancy, imagining City to be rubbish thus fast-tracking these promising prodigies into the first-team set-up at the earliest opportunity through necessity. There we could enjoy watching them develop before our eyes instead of behind the scenes. We could experience the thrill of seeing local teens – Blues to their boots – live out their dream and ours.
The reverie, however, didn’t last for long and not just because it amounted to making a complaint in paradise. Additionally, the scenario is moot. That’s because the reason why Doyle and Harwood-Bellis – and Nmecha and Poveda too – will struggle to break through this season is due to City’s riches that have bought players whose standards are unbelievably high. But it was that same fortune that constructed a £200m academy that is largely responsible for bringing these kids up to a competitive standard to begin with.
In short, we can’t have it both ways.
Manchester City are taking 10 teenagers on their pre-season tour of Asia:
Luke Bolton
Tommy Doyle
Phil Foden
Taylor Harwood-Bellis
Ben Knight
Ian Carlo Poveda
Gavin Bazunu
Adrián Bernabé
Iker Pozo
Nabil TouaiziAngeliño and Rodri are going too. pic.twitter.com/jYCtBuloeP
— Scouted Football (@ScoutedFtbl) July 13, 2019
Furthermore, modern football negates the fantasy even if City were their Eighties incarnation, ergo a bit rubbish. This summer West Brom have been deprived of two outstanding young prospects far too soon with Louie Barry going to Barcelona and 16-year-old Morgan Rogers being snapped up by – aptly – Manchester City.
And this, to a lesser extent, has always been the way. Should we take Phil Foden in a time machine back to our Championship days then sure he would have played thirty-plus games last term but you can bet your bottom dollar he’d be targeted soon after by Liverpool or Arsenal. It is a circumstance born out by Paul Lake who is beloved by the fan-base for exclusively being brilliant in blue. But if injury hadn’t cruelly curtailed his career at the age of 21 Lakey would surely have played the majority of it at Anfield or an equivalent. Meaning we would have forever claimed him as our own while elsewhere he became a legend.
So where does this leave us with the likes of Doyle and Harwood-Bellis rapping against City’s glass ceiling? Firstly, we should acknowledge that this is undoubtedly a first world problem to have. Second of all, encouragement lies in the fact that if and when our finest prospects make their mark they will be City for life because crudely put, we are the lions in the jungle now.
Lastly, perhaps we should cede too that it was inevitable we would one day reach this juncture, after a decade of simultaneously assembling a phenomenal first-team squad and building the finest academy around.
At some point, they were always going to meet. And it was always going to get complicated.
All I know is that should a merging successfully take place, and in years to come City’s midfield is staffed by Tommy Doyle and Phil Foden in cahoots then that will feel extraordinarily special indeed.
