CITY 1 SOUTHAMPTON 1

League Division 1

14th September 1968

Attendance 29,031

Scorers
City Coleman
Southampton Davies(10)

Ref P Baldwin

City Mulhearn, Kennedy, Connor, Doyle, Heslop, Oakes, Lee, Bell, Summerbee, Owen, Coleman – Sub Bowles(unused)

Southampton Gurr, Kirkup, Hollywood, Walker, McGrath, Gabriel, Paine, Kemp, Davies, Melia, Channon – Sub Saul

DAVIES EQUALISES FOR SOUTHAMPTON

FROM THE PRESS BOX

CITY GET A TASTE OF EUROPE TREATMENT

Southampton gave Manchester City a taste of the tough guy European stuff in a shabby, maul of a match at Maine Road.
Four days before their first Champions Cup tie against the Turks of Fenerbahce; the Blues were given a thorough going over in hacking, tugging and shirt pulling tactics by a side desperate to hang on to the point they so obviously came for.
Not that City were innocent bystanders in a sorry 90 minutes wnded with Mike Doyle ripping off his shirt and slinging it to the referee, Peter Baldwin.
Perhaps Baldwin’s handling of explosive situations and the turning down of at least one so obvious penalty angered City as much as anything.
But, overall, it was their own inability to break down the sort of defence they are quite likely to meet in 48 hours time that led to all the frustrations.
Tony Coleman, with a lethal left foot his No 1 weapon of armament was by a street City’s most positive and spirited forward. Yet it was with his right that he smashed in the equalising goal.
While Coleman toiled, others around him laboured. Colin Bell cannot climb out of a dreadful bad patch. While Mike Summerbee never once escaped from the tenacious grip of the rugged John McGrath.
There was, in fact, no one capable of holding the ball long enough to bring Southampton out of their defensive shell, not as though they wanted to after Ron Davies had shot them ahead after 10 minutes with City’s marking so slack it was just not true.
PETER GARDNER WRITING IN THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS 16TH SEPTEMBER 1968