Sunday 7 August 2011

Manchester bids for the Olympics A.D. 1993


Manchester United's 1990 FA Cup win is said to have saved Alex Ferguson his job. On 15th May 1991, Mark Hughes scored twice as United beat Barcelona 2-1 in Rotterdam to win the European Cup Winner's Cup with a starting line-up [Sealey; Blackmore, Pallister, Bruce, Irwin; Sharpe, Robson, Ince, Phelan; McClair, Hughes] which would be subject to several changes over the next few years. In 1992, Francis Fukuyama declared 'the End of History' in so far as the model of liberal democracy could not be improved upon, something which had been demonstrated dramatically in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bill Clinton's election as President of the United States in 1992 had an end of history feel about it. Manchester seemed to be emerging from a dark period in its history after the pain of the Thatcher revolution, with a new light rail system, the Metrolink, opening in April 1992. Barcelona hosted the Olympic Games, something Manchester watched with interest as it too was bidding to host the Games in 2000 (after a failed bid to host the 1996 Games). The Barcelona Games were a huge success, showing what was possible in terms of boosting a postindustrial city's regeneration. The Football League had its moment of rebirth in 1992 as the first Premier League season (and the first Champions League) got underway with Sky Sports spending an unprecedented amount on TV rights, something which would change the face of the game.

The soundtrack for 1993 was New Order's Regret and James' Laid. Another Manchester band, the unsigned Oasis, got their big break in May when Alan McGhee, the owner of independent record label Creation, saw them play at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow. In the same month, Manchester United won the inaugural Premier League (25 years after George Best, Bobby Charlton and Nobby Stiles had helped them to win the European Cup), Peter Schmeichel and Eric Cantona having been added to the team that had won the Cup Winners Cup two years earlier. Ryan Giggs was awarded the PFA Young Player of the Year Award for the second year running. Boddingtons launched their iconic 'Cream of Manchester' advertising campaign with the phrase, "By 'eck, it's gorgeous!" On 24th September, thousands gathered in Castlefield to hear the results of the IOC's decision on who was to host the Olympics in 2000. Manchester made it to the third round of voting, ahead of Istanbul and Berlin but finished behind Beijing and eventual hosts Sydney. It was a better showing than Birmingham had managed in 1986 (for the 1992 Games) or Manchester itself in 1990 (for the 1996 Games). Ultimately not being awarded the Games didn't matter as it provided the basis for a successful Commonwealth Games in 2002 and inspired the city to think of itself as a rival to Barcelona. Perhaps not winning the games had a worse effect on Birmingham, which has since struggled to carve a niche for itself in the face of intense competition from both London and Manchester. Had it won the Games in 1992 instead of Barcelona (a big if, considering its poor performance), Birmingham would almost certainly have consolidated its second city status, probably attracting more investment away from London and increasing its international name recognition. As things stand, even Digby Jones has recently questioned Birmingham's second city status.

On 12th May 1994 it was announced that John Smith, the leader of the Labour Party, had died of a heart attack. As the debate began to centre around whether it would be Tony Blair or Gordon Brown who would challenge John Major's unpopular Conservative government at the next general election, Manchester United won the FA Cup for the eighth time, beating Chelsea 4-0 on 14th May with goals from Cantona (2), Hughes and McClair. The team had also retained the Premier League, making them the first United side to win the double. On 30th August, Oasis released Definitely Maybe, which became the fastest selling UK debut album ever. In his first conference speech as leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair announced his intention to scrap Clause IV of the party's constitution, the commitment to nationalized industry. Oasis bridged the gap between albums by releasing their Christmas single Whatever, confirming their growing status as one of Britain's most popular bands.

On 25th January 1995 Eric Cantona, Manchester United's leading scorer from the previous season, was involved in a spectacular brawl with a Crystal Palace fan (leading to an eight-month ban) before telling a press conference that 'When the seagulls follow the trailer, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.' Blackburn Rovers would go on to win the third Premier League on the last day of the season after a closely fought campaign. During the summer of 1995, Robbie Williams was seen partying with Oasis at Glastonbury, shortly before his departure from Take That (who topped the singles chart with Back For Good and Never Forget). Oasis would lose to Blur in the high profile Battle of the Bands on 20th August as Country House outsold Roll With It but their second album What's the Story (Morning Glory)?, released in October, would go on to become one of the best-selling UK albums of all time. Simply Red achieved their first number single with Fairground. A legacy of the city's two unsuccessful Olympic bids, The NYNEX Arena opened on 15th July 1995 (later to become The M.E.N.). With a capacity of 23,000, it was (and remains) one of the biggest and most modern buildings of its kind in Europe. Also opened in 1995, Santiago Calatrava's Trinity Footbridge (linking the centres of Manchester and Salford, close to where the Lowry Hotel would be built) was a signal of intent, marking the start of a postmodernist architectural boom. On the opening day of the 1995-96 season, Manchester United lost 3-1 to Aston Villa with a young team that included Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, David Beckham (all aged 20) and Phil Neville (aged 18). With Paul Ince, Mark Hughes and Andrei Kanchelskis having been sold before the start of the season, Alan Hansen commented on Match of the Day that "You'll never win anything with kids." They ended the year ten points behind Newcastle.

United were able to close the gap before eventually becoming the first team to win the double twice, beating Liverpool in the FA Cup final on 11th May (Neville, Neville, Butt, Beckham and Scholes all making an appearance). Five days later, The Lightening Seeds released their song Three Lions against a backdrop of rising expectancy as England prepared to host Euro '96 (thirty years after their 1966 World Cup victory). In Manchester's case, football arguably was coming home as it was here that the Football League had been founded in 1888. With a capacity of around 55,000 at this stage, Old Trafford was one of the host venues and would host the semi-final between France and Czech Republic. Beforehand however, on the morning of Saturday 15th July 1996, parts of the city centre had to be evacuated after it was discovered that a bomb had been placed on Corporation Street between the Arndale Shopping Centre and Marks & Spencer. Although no-one was killed in the uncontrolled explosion at 11:20, hundreds of people were injured and millions of pounds worth of buildings were devastated in what was thought and later confirmed to be the work of the Provisional IRA. It came at an already uncertain time for the city centre's main shopping districts, as planning permission had finally been given to build The Trafford Centre (a huge shopping mall which would open in September 1998) on the western outskirts of the city with easier motorway connections than the city centre. In the immediate aftermath of the bomb, Council leader Richard Leese and Chief Executive Howard Bernstein travelled to London by train to request the money necessary to rebuild the city and were offered a show of support by Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, who suggested an international design competition which was won by Ian Simpson and resulted in Cathedral Gardens and Urbis (due to become the National Football Museum). As Manchester recovered from the trauma of the city centre bombing, a young David Beckham lobbed the goalkeeper from behind the halfway line on the opening day of the 1996-97 season, his first step on the road to global superstardom.

Manchester United would reach the semi-finals of the Champions League in 1997, losing to Borussia Dortmund (their best performance in the competition since winning it in 1968), and go on to win their fourth Premier League title in five years (having coming come very close to winning it in 1995). David Beckham won PFA Young Player of the Year as Eric Cantona announced his retirement. Eighteen years of Conservative government came to an end as the Labour Party won the 1997 General Election in May with 13.5m votes (63.4%). As the scale of the landslide became clear, incumbent Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed a jubilant crowd outside Royal Festival Hall: "A new dawn has broken, has it not?" For Manchester, it was beginning to seem like it had. The next ten years would see huge scale investment, culminating in the construction of the Beetham Tower in 2007 (at 169m the tallest building in the UK outside London). Manchester United would go on to win the Champions League in a dramatic 1999 final against Bayern Munich (as part of an historic treble). The 2002 Commonwealth Games coincided with the opening of the Imperial War Museum North in Salford Quays, Urbis, the City of Manchester Stadium (itself based on designs for the planned Olympic stadium of the failed 1993 bid) and Tadao Ando's concrete pavilion in Picadilly Gardens. 2002 also saw the release of Michael Winterbottom's film 24 Hour Party People, a look back at the story of Factory Records and The Hacienda. Control (2007) would look in more detail at the story of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, thirty years after the Buzzcocks had released Spiral Scratch. There was more circularity of a sort when Manchester United won the 2008 Champions League final, fifty years after the Munich Air Disaster and forty years after they had won the European Cup for the first time, history repeating itself.

Whilst Manchester has yet to (and probably never will) recover its musical prominence from the heady days of the late seventies through to the early nineties, it can occasionally throw up a band or a song to add to the canon. Elbow's June 2008 single One Day Like This is a classic example and provides the soundtrack to the closing stages of the Ascent of Manchester. United's 2008 Champions League win was probably more significant than the previous two, with a global TV audience (or 'reach') of up to 200m tuning in to see a new generation of stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, lift the trophy. It proved that the club could remain successful under the controversial new ownership of American businessman Malcolm Glazer. In September 2008, on the closing day of the summer transfer window, Manchester City were taken over by an oil-rich Abu Dhabi businessman and member of the royal family, Sheikh Mansour, whose half-brother is the current President of the United Arab Emirates (after whom Dubai's 828m Burj Khalifa was named). He has since ploughed money into the club who in 2011 won the FA Cup (their first trophy in 35 years) and qualified for the Champions League (for the first time) under Italian manager Roberto Mancini. The City of Manchester Stadium, a legacy of the Manchester 2000 Olympic bid, has been renamed The Etihad and the area around it (SportCity) is due to be transformed (after plans for the UK's only 'supercasino' were scrapped by Gordon Brown in February 2008). SportCity in the east of Manchester is complimented by MediaCity in Salford Quays to the west (near Old Trafford). In the south of the city, the Oxford Road corridor is the centre for M:KC (Manchester: Knowledge Capital), the publication of the 2008 RAE results confirming Manchester's status as the main rival to London, Cambridge and Oxford as a centre for UK Higher Education research. The city's centre of gravity is shifting southwards, not just because of the affluence of the Cheshire-based global footballing elite (who travel by train to Wembley direct from Stockport on the Pendolino).

We've mentioned SportCity, MediaCity and Knowledge Capital as three parts of Manchester's modern geography (East, West and South), all within the M60 ringroad. But perhaps the most important innovation lies just outside the M60. It is thought that John D. Kasarda's concept of the Aerotropolis, the urban area centred around the airport as the main hub for economic growth, will be the single most influential factor in the development of future cities. It's with this in mind that the development of Manchester's Airport City enterprise zone may help it to compete in the newly globalized economy, capitalising on its name recognition as one of the top footballing cities in Europe. If there was a thirteenth stage in the history of modern Manchester's development (following on from Peterloo; the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the Abolition of the Corn Laws; the Lancashire Cotton Famine; the Manchester Ship Canal; the Rutherford Model; the Great Depression; the Small-Scale Experimental Machine; various achievements in drama, football and music, and an audacious bid for the 2000 Olympic Games) then perhaps it would be the arrival of the Airbus A380 at Manchester Airport on 1st September 2010, the world's largest passenger plane. Whilst British Airways has reduced its presence at Manchester (choosing to concentrate on an already overcrowded Heathrow), the three main Arabian carriers have decided to increase capacity on routes to and from the city. Globally connected, certainly better known throughout the world than most similar-sized cities through one (and now possibly two) of its football teams, Manchester still has a long way to go but is slowly establishing itself as the World City it dreamed of being when it bid for the Olympics in 1993. Having survived the rise and fall of Cottonopolis, the Ascent of Manchester, the world's first industrial city, is ongoing. There are huge challenges remaining [of the kind which make 'the End of History' a more relevant concept than people might first have thought] but there can be little doubt that Manchester is well-placed, indeed amongst the best-placed, to face them head on.

Thursday 4 August 2011

Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures is released on Factory Records A.D. 1979

On 11th February 1975, Margaret Thatcher became Leader of the Opposition. The 1973 oil crisis had resulted in rising costs which led to union demands for wage increases and there was a sense that the good times were over. In 1976, the Sex Pistols played twice at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, signalling the arrival of punk rock in Manchester. In January 1977, The Buzzcocks self-released their Spiral Scratch EP. Produced by Martin Hannett, it was a minor chart success and demonstrated Manchester's emerging DIY ethic. The Sex Pistols' Nevermind the Bollocks..., released in October on Virgin, represented a more commercial approach. In May 1978, Granada TV presenter and Cambridge graduate Tony Wilson started putting on club nights in Hulme with Alan Erasmus under the name Factory (a reference to Manchester's industrial heritage). The winter of 1978-79 was to become known as the Winter or Discontent as unions went on strike and even the dead went unburied in Liverpool. Returning from a summit in the Caribbean in January 1979, prime minister James Callaghan tried to downplay the situation, leading The Sun to headline: 'Crisis? What Crisis?'
Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures was released in June 1979, the month after Margaret Thatcher had been elected Britain's first female prime minister with 13.7m votes (44%). Produced by Martin Hannett at Strawberry Studios, it was the first LP to be released on Factory Records, now based on Palatine Road in West Didsbury. Its dark sound reflected a darkening mood in the north of England at the time (1975-80 being the period of the Yorkshire Ripper), complimented by Peter Saville's sleeve design. In May 1980, as Joy Division were preparing to tour North America, singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. Ultimately this tragic moment resulted in increasing popularity for the band as their single 'Love Will Tear Us Apart', already a hauntingly beautiful song, became a chart success, as did their second album Closer. The remaining members of the band decided to carry on as New Order, with Bernard Sumner taking over vocal duties. In June 1981, as youth unemployment and racial tensions took their toll across the country, Moss Side became the latest inner-city area to erupt in mass riots, following on from the Brixton riots in April, and preceding the Toxteth (as well as Chapeltown and Handsworth) riots in July. A period of disenchantment seemed to be reflected in attitudes towards the city's architecture, with the Arndale Centre and the Hulme Crescents both coming to represent a cold, non-people-friendly austerity.

Factory Records had a forward-looking, civic-minded agenda so it was decided that profits from the sales of Joy Division and New Order's albums would go towards the creation of a new nightclub, based in a former warehouse building on Whitworth Street. Mike Pickering (who can be seen watching Manchester City with Noel Gallagher in the film Blue Moon Rising) was invited back from Rotterdam to book acts for the venue. It was to be called The Hacienda, based on a slogan from the situationist movement which had inspired Tony Wilson: '...the hacienda must built.' Punk rock had acted as a great leveller, demolishing everything that existed before, and now something had to be built in its place. Heavily influenced by the clubs in New York which Factory and New Order were now becoming familiar with, The Hacienda was to be a mixture between live music venue and nightclub, although it eventually came to be associated with DJ-only nights. The interior was designed by London-based Ben Kelly who used the distinctive yellow-and-black colour scheme which has since come to be closely associated with the club and the city itself. At a cost of £344,000, it came in way over budget (as had the Manchester Arndale Centre at £11,500,000), creating financial problems its owners were never fully able to overcome.

Modern, over-the-top, ahead of its time, The Hacienda was opened in May 1982, the same year as the formation of The Smiths. It was one of the first clubs to have no dress code. The emphasis here was to be on the music rather than fashion. In March 1983, New Order's Blue Monday was released. A dance classic, it was to become the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time. The Smiths played at The Hacienda in July and the stage was strewn with flowers, with singer Morrissey describing the iconic Manchester venue as "sterile and inhuman". In January 1984, Madonna made her first UK TV appearance on The Tube, performing at The Hacienda. A month later, The Smiths released their debut album, the first of four to be released over a four-year period. In the miners' strike of 1984, Lancashire miners were not as militant as their Yorkshire counterparts but it was a period of conflict and hardship nonetheless. July 1986 saw Factory Records organize the Festival of the Tenth Summer (it being the tenth summer since the Sex Pistols had played their seminal gigs the Lesser Free Trade Hall), with The Fall, The Smiths and New Order playing at the G-Mex (an exhibition centre based in the building which had housed the Manchester Central train station). In November, Alex Ferguson was appointed manager at Manchester United, beginning a reign that was to outlast that of fellow Scotsman Matt Busby. The club had won the FA Cup in 1983 and 1985 (reaching the semi-finals of the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1984) but had not won the league since 1967.

The summer of 1988 was known in Manchester as the second summer of love (a term which also covers the summer of 1989), with ecstasy becoming popular amongst club-goers and The Hacienda in particular becoming a centre for the new genre of Acid House (symbolised by the yellow smiley face). Whilst the drug-fuelled euphoria of the period is seen as a highpoint for the club (and the city itself), it also marked the beginning of its demise. Sales of alcohol decreased and gangs started causing trouble on the door and inside the venue as guns gained prominence, making young men from inner-city areas like Salford, Cheetham Hill and Moss Side effectively untouchable. The Stone Roses released their debut album in 1989 (since described by the NME as the greatest British album ever) and played at Spike Island in May 1990, the month New Order released World in Motion, the band's only number one single. On 4th July, England lost on penalties to West Germany in the semi-finals of the World Cup, the furthest they had gone in the tournament since winning it in 1966. The Happy Mondays released their album Pills n Thrills and Bellyaches (which contained the single Step On) on 27th November 1990. The next day, Margaret Thatcher left 10 Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister. It was an exciting moment for a city that stood on the verge of greatness but still had a lot of problems to overcome.

Monday 1 August 2011

Manchester United become the first English team to win the European Cup A.D. 1968



On completion in 1962, The CIS Building was the tallest building in the UK and, at 118m, the third tallest in Western Europe. By a strange quirk of fate, the top two belonged to cities whose teams had beaten Manchester United in the semi-finals of the European Cup. The tallest was the Torre de Madrid (1957, 142m) which, standing alongside the Edificio Espana (1953, 117m) overlooking the Plaza de Espana, was a dominant symbol of Franco's Spain. The second tallest was the Pirelli Building (1960, 127m) near Milan's Central Station, still one of Europe's most elegant skyscrapers. In the area covered by today's European Union, the Palace of Science and Culture (1955, 231m) in Warsaw, a symbol of Stalin's influence in the Eastern Bloc, would have dwarfed all of them. The Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the same year as the completion of the CIS Tower and served as a reminder of the climate of fear that surrounded the politics of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear armageddon still seemed a very real possibility.


In 1960, the year of the first episode of Coronation Street, a rock n roll group from Liverpool decided to change their name to The Beatles. In June 1962 they changed their line-up: John Lennon (guitar), Paul McCartney (bass), George Harrison (lead guitar), Ringo Starr (drums). In July 1962, Denis Law signed for Manchester United from Torino for 115,000, a British transfer record. In March 1963, The Beatles released their debut album Please Please Me, which went straight to number one. In September 1963, George Best made his Manchester United debut, aged 17, as Harold Wilson spoke of a Britain that was going to be forged in "the white heat of the technological revolution". The first episode of Top of the Pops was broadcast on 1st January 1964 from the BBC's Manchester Studios in Rusholme. Denis Law won the Ballon d'Or (European Footballer of the Year award) in the same year and The Beatles released their third studio album, A Hard Day's Night. In 1965, George Best appeared on TOTP as Manchester United won their sixth league title and with The Beatles releasing Help! and Rubber Soul.

1966 was an important year for British music and football. Manchester United were in their third European Cup and, on 9th March, they beat Benfica 5-1 away to reach their third semi-finals (which they would go on to lose to Partizan Belgrade). The scorer of the first two goals, George Best was dubbed "O Quinto Beatle" by the Portuguese press. As England was preparing to host the 1966 World Cup, Manchester group The Hollies released their single 'Bus Stop', written by Graham Gouldman who would go on to to form 10CC. Brought up in Collyhurst, Manchester United's Nobby Stiles was to play a decisive role in England's World Cup campaign, playing in front of the back four. His performance against Portugal in the semi-finals was particularly important as he man-marked Eusabio out of the game. After winning the World Cup, Bobby Charlton became the second Manchester United player to win the Ballon d'Or. In the music world, The Beatles released Revolver and The Twisted Wheel nightclub moved to Whitworth Street, kickstarting 'Northern Soul'.

Manchester United won their seventh league title in 1967, the same year The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, and in March 1968 they beat Gornik Zabrze to progress to their fourth European Cup semi-finals in as many tournaments. On 13th May, the last day of the season, Manchester City won their second league title (with a team featuring Mike Sumerbee, Colin Bell and Francis Lee), two points ahead of second place Manchester United. Two days later, United faced one of their toughest challenges, taking a 1-0 lead to the Bernabeu. In front of a crowd of 125,000, they earned a 3-3 draw against Real Madrid to reach their first European Cup final. On 29th May, they beat Benfica 4-1 (after extra time) at Wembley to win the tournament, ten years after the Munich Air Disaster, the first English side to do so. They joined an illustrious list of teams in having won the tournament: Real Madrid (6), Benfica (2), Internazionale (2), Celtic (1), Milan (1). Of the other English teams to have played in the tournament, two had reached the quarter finals (Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1960 and Burnley in 1961) and two had reached the semi finals (Tottenham Hotspur in 1962 and Liverpool in 1964). The Beatles released The White Album in November and, in December, George Best became the third Manchester United player to win the Ballon d'Or.

The success of The Beatles in this period frames the rise of George Best, the 'fifth Beatle'. Much more than Denis Law and Bobby Charlton (his fellow Ballon d'Or winners), Best represents the spirit of the age, the birth of the celebrity footballer and possibly the icon of the permissive society itself. As well as providing a cautionary tale about the dangers of excess, the story of his downfall in the 1970s perhaps reflects a wider darkening mood of disillusionment after the highs of the late 1960s. There are other similarities between Best and The Beatles, relevant to The Ascent of Manchester. They both moved from their hometown at a young age to pursue their careers in a bigger city and it was in their adopted homes that they invested the money they earned. George Best opened nightclubs and fashion boutiques in Manchester at a time when TOTP and The Twisted Wheel were also putting the city on the musical map. Peter Hook's The Hacienda: How not to run a club describes how The Beatles shaped attitudes of Manchester's next generation:



One thing that was certain and propaganda-free was the collective desire to give something back to Manchester, to inject something into the city - whatever that something might turn out to be. All were horrified by The Beatles model: you made it, go to London and spend your money there. The Beatles' Apple HQ on Savile Row was the antithesis of the Factory way.


'The difference is Manchester,' said [Tony] Wilson. '10CC, for example, made a load of cash and built Strawberry Studios in the early 1970s, so when Factory came on stream we had an international recording facility just around the corner from us. Similarly, New Order make a pile of money and together with a load of other people they're able to build the Hacienda...'


Hook 2009 (24)


The Beatles are often cited as the band that made Liverpool great (or something to that effect), but if we think about it, they really belonged to London - in the same way that George Best belonged to Manchester. The relatively much less successful 10CC did so much more for Manchester than The Beatles did for Liverpool by investing their earnings back into the city. But this should come as no surprise. Manchester in the 1960s had, for a time, the fourth tallest building in Europe; the nation's most-watched TV programme (Coronation Street); TOTP; three winners of the Ballon d'Or and the most successful English football team in Europe; Northern Soul. New Order were to show a similar (if slightly misplaced) loyalty to their hometown in the 1980s. But there were tough times ahead for the city, as the post-war consensus began to fall apart.