Corruption Allegations 1904-1905
Towards the end of the season 1904-05 , there was a three way race for the league title.
With Manchester City and Newcastle United having a game left to play, both teams had 46 points. Everton, who had finished their season had 47 points. Newcastle had the better goal average by 2.09 to 1.88 so City needed a big win to finish first. As it happened, Villa beat City 3-2 as Newcastle won at Ayresome Park - Newcastle's title.
However, after the game at Villa Park Villa captain Alec Leake made the claim that City's star player, Billy Meredith, had offered him £10 to allow City to win the game.
The FA found Meredith guilty of the offence and he was fined a banned for a calendar year. When City refused to help their player, he decided to turn whistle blower over the fact that City were regularly breaking the FA imposed maximum wage of £4 a week. He is quoted to have said,
What was the secret of the success of the Manchester City team? In my opinion, the fact that the club put aside the rule that no player should receive more than four pounds a week... The team delivered the goods, the club paid for the goods delivered and both sides were satisfied.
The FA then undertook an investigation into the financial activities of Manchester City and came to the conclusion that City had indeed been making additional payments, to all their players.
As a result, manager Tom Maley was banned for life and City were fined £250. A total of seventeen players were fined and suspended until January 1907. In order to pay the fines City were forced to sell their players and in an auction at the Queen's Hotel in Manchester, Meredith plus three others, Herbert Burgess, Sandy Turnbull and Jimmy Bannister were bought by United Manager Ernest Mangnall. These former City players became the core of United's team which won the club's first league title in the 1907-08 season.
Journalists were aware that what City had been doing was a widespread practice. Some of those based in Manchester argued that northern club, City were being made an example of by the southern based FA, and thousands of people complained. However, this was not the first time that the FA had investigated City - at the end of the 1903-04 (following City's FA Cup victory) they had looked into how the club was being run. Nothing major was unearthed, but suspicions had been raised and these things do have a habit of sticking.
So, the FA would not budge and the punishment stood. Thus the first great era in City's history was nipped in the bud before it had properly got going.
