Talk:Manchester derby

Separate article for women's derby?
Respectful suggestion that the women's derby receive its own article? As the current article notes, it is (obviously) a much newer fixture than the men's derby, and doesn't share the same history. Splitting it out would make this article a more manageable length, and also give the women's derby (with its own developing character and history) the attention it deserves, rather than making it a postscript to another (essentially separate) topic.

Not pushing hard for this change - but wonder if it would be worth it. Happy to listen to counter-arguments.Shiresman (talk) 01:33, 6 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not convinced how much difference it would make. I just ran a quick check and cutting the women's info out of the article will only abbreviate the article by about 10%, which doesn't really seem like enough change to justify the claim that it would make it "a more manageable length", and I'm not sure how much attention it would actually give the women's derby - I would suggest that, right now, being appended onto the men's article brings it a lot more attention that it would get on its own.


 * That said, it's not a matter which concerns me greatly either way - I'd be a lot more impassioned in my comment if the proposal were to delete it entirely but either way the information remains on Wikipedia so I'm happy either way. If you want to split it out I would support it, I'm just not convinced it's necessary right now.


 * Are there actually any precedents yet for women's derbies having separate articles? I know that Wikipedia advises not to follow precedents but I'm interested all the same. Falastur2 Talk 09:30, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * You're right - my suggestion was unnecessary. Best to leave the article as it is.Shiresman (talk) 01:04, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

The authors
The authors have failed to acknowledge the book on this topic which covers the derby in detail (see below0. Do they know about this?

"The Pride of Manchester" Cawley, S. and James, G. Publ ACL Polar ISBN 0951468217
 * I'm the main contributor to this article (so far). I know of that book and would very much like to get my hands on a copy. Unfortunately its out of print, and the last time I looked on Amazon second hand copies were going for silly money. If you have access to a copy of the book, contributions to the article would be welcome. Oldelpaso 22:18, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

mini derby?
Might it be worth a mention of the FC United v Maine Road derby of the North West Counties league? Disenfranchsed United Fans' Club v City Supporters Club! Blogdroed 19:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. It hasn't happened yet so it might be best to wait and see what happens and what media coverage it gets. Will definitely add that matches between the reserve teams are termed "mini-derbies" though. Oldelpaso 19:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Statistics are wrong
According to multiple sources the 19 August league match was the 148th competitive meeting between United and City. . Yet the sentence in the article reads, "As of 19 August, 2007 there have been 149 competitive meetings between the teams. United have won 60 and City 40, with the most recent game resulting in a 1-0 win for City." And then you look at the statistics table... according to it there have been 40 City wins, 49 draws, and 58 United wins. Add those numbers up and you get 147. So the article is wrong twice. --Tocino 18:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Must have been changed twice after the derby at the end of the last season, and the table not changed at all. The one just gone was the 137th League meeting + 6 FA Cup, 4 League Cup, 1 Charity Shield = 148. It'd be a lot easier to reference if mcfcstats.com wasn't done in Flash. Oldelpaso 20:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The result if all Premiership matches had been played consecutively
Can anyone tell me before I have to look up every game, what would be the cumulative scores since 1992. I am a city fan so be gentle with me but tell me the truth. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.176.252 (talk) 11:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Can't get all the earlier results from 1992-1995, but I can get the results below:-


 * December 1992 United 2-1 City
 * April 1994 United 2-0 City
 * November 1994 United 2-0 City
 * October 1995 United 1-0 City
 * February 1996 United 2-1 City (FA CUP)
 * April 1996 City 2-3 United
 * August 2000 United 2-0 City
 * April 2001 United 1-1 City
 * November 2002 City 3-1 United
 * February 2003 United 1-1 City
 * December 2003 United 3-1 City
 * March 2004 City 4-1 United
 * November 2004 United 0-0 City
 * February 2005 City 0-2 United
 * September 2005 United 1-1 City
 * January 2006 City 3-1 United
 * December 2006 United 3-1 City
 * May 2007 City 0-1 United
 * August 2007 City 1-0 United
 * February 2008 United 1-2 City

Hope this helps DAAdshead (talk) 16:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * TOTAL United 29-21 City

Graph
What is everyones opionion of the graph i created? MotorSportMCMXC (talk) 17:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Played for both teams
Can someone add a table/list of players who have played for both teams? --Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 11:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Played for both teams in a derby, or just played for both teams? Might be a fair amount of research if there isn't already a page for it on the web... Falastur2  Talk 23:07, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

I meant players who have played at any time for both teams. Similar lists appear in the articles on the Merseyside derby, South Coast derby and Potteries derby for example, so it's not impossible. Daemonic Kangaroo (talk) 05:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I once made a list here. Its entirely unreferenced, mind. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd certainly be willing to add it at some point in the future. Incidentally, is that list comprehensive, OEP, or just the ones you know about? Falastur2  Talk 00:43, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Tevez needs adding, but other than that as far as I know its all the players to have made league appearances for both clubs. I think all United players with league appearances have articles (I'm sure PeeJay will correct me if I'm wrong), so the list could be checked manually by looking through Category:Manchester City F.C. players and Category:Manchester United F.C. players. Players who only played reserve football at one club (e.g. Shaun Goater) are not listed. There's one who may be a special case: Tony Coton. While he never made the pitch for United he may well have been an unused sub in a derby. There are also a number of players who played for both sides in their pre-Football League days, and others who played for both in wartime matches. None of those are listed.


 * Busby, Coppell and Hughes ought to be split out as they played for one and managed the other. Ernest Mangnall managed both clubs and is the only man to do so. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:14, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Just spotted that Jon Macken never played for the United first team, so he shouldn't be there. Oldelpaso (talk) 11:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks OEP. I'll work on writing something up later (unless someone else gets there first). You guys might want to read and review and touch it up afterwards, though. I'm not very good at end-product stuff. Falastur2  Talk 11:37, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright guys, I'm done. Please go here and tell me what you think. If anyone wants to make improvements, please do. As I said before, I'm not very good at end product - if anyone wants to add prose to the proposal I'd welcome it but that's the kind of thing I'm not so good at. I'm going to be going away for a week as of tomorrow though, so please do nick the code to add to the article if you're happy with it and I'm away.

Oh, and the stats on Peter Beardsley aren't wrong. He only ever played an FA Cup game for United. If you guys want full stats I think I have the resources to do it (thanks to some good websites around) but it would take me considerably longer to research, hence why I just put in league games. Falastur2 Talk 19:02, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

No comments? None at all? Falastur2 Talk 18:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

All time results
I started editing to make the all time results look better and more standard with the result pages of other derby pages. Its just been reverted. I'd like to open up a discussion. Personally I think the whole city at home, united at home looks ugly. There are no cup games included. My version would have all games listed, with goalscorers and attendances listed. Xenomorph1984 (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)All time results should be all time results, a link that is used to confirm attendances [23] to a MCFC stat page shows at maine rd in april 1941 manchester utd beat manchester city 1-7, now iether this page is manchester derbys in the official league and cups or is it manchester derby full stop meaning every game where man utd have played man city. The page is misleading or is that result in 1941 not correct ? (user manqunian red )Manqunian red (talk) 21:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

A plea to those who frequently edit on here
Making constructive edits on this page is frustrating. There are Wikipedia editors (naming no names in particular) on here who do nothing but delete other editors work because simply they don't like it which ultimately hinders improving the quality of the page. Yet I don't ever remember them making a constructive edit on this page. Stevo1000 (talk) 18:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've seen the user talk discussion between you and PeeJay but figured replying here would make more sense. Over various points in my time on WP I've made multiple attempts at knocking this article into shape, only to get writers block after a mere couple of paragraphs. Achieving a sense of narrative flow is a real challenge, as I don't want to resort to a dreary "in year, this was the result, in year+1 the score was X." Ideally my next move (after completing the summary of cup matches that I started but didn't finish) would be continue the history section where I've only gone up to 1907. I'd like to convey the transition in the balance of power from United's first great team under Mangnall, through to his cross-town switch and the chain of events that ultimately led to the two clubs conspiring to keep Manchester Central out of the league. Unfortunately every time I attempt to draft something on it I merely end up with a hotchpotch that exposes the limits of my writing skills. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

All-time results
I think we should remove the list of all-time results. It dominates the article far too much, IMO, and probably violates WP:NOTSTATS. – PeeJay 21:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Surely it dominates the article because...it's the sole and entire subject of the article? This article is about times that our two clubs have played each other, and the all-time results...is what happened when they played each other. I concede the point about WP:NOTSTATS however (much as I detest that rule and can't abide following it) but could only support removing these results if it were part of a wider campaign to remove the same from other major rivalry articles, such as this one, this one and this one. Falastur2  Talk 22:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Leaving other articles aside for the moment, we can make the article about the Manchester derby without needing a table of every single game between the two clubs. I would support summary tables, and I would support a prose account of the history of the fixture, but a full list of matches is just overkill. I don't suppose there are any Featured Articles about sports rivalries, are there? As for the other articles with full lists of matches, I think they should be removed from those too, but I'm currently focusing on this one as part of my drive to get Manchester United F.C. to Featured Topic status. – PeeJay 23:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The table has a lot of repeated information. Perhaps it would look less dominant if some of this was trimmed. Changes in home ground can be mentioned in the text instead, the one exception being that there's probably a case for having an asterisk and note next to United's "home" matches at Maine Road. After the first few, the league matches are all in the top flight. If this is explained elsewhere, or maybe in a line introducing the table, that column could be removed too. Oldelpaso (talk) 08:11, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I could go with this. Also, PeeJay, I took a look at the list of old FAs and no, there are no derbies or rivalries of any sort (even non-football) on that list, which I guess doesn't help us hugely. Falastur2  Talk 10:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * When I say the tables dominate the article, I'm mostly talking about length, not width. So while I would be in favour of removing repeated information, I would be even more in favour of removing the tables completely. After all, what do those tables convey that we couldn't mention in prose, apart from a bunch of non-notable results. – PeeJay 11:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems quite excessive seeing that its what the article is about. If you want to save space maybe remove elements of 2010 onwards which is almost as large a 2000's and 1990's combined and double the size of pre 1970. Talk about recentism! Maybe the rather pointless played for city and united could be also broken down. After all I'm sure even the most passionate of City and United fans would struggle to remember Terry Cooke's contribution to football. Xenomorph1984 (talk) 12:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC) – HonorTheKing (talk) 16:51, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's all part of a larger effort to get this article to Featured Article status. As Falastur2 has mentioned, there are no articles about sports rivalries at FA status, but there are three Good Articles: Mets–Phillies rivalry, Johns Hopkins – Maryland rivalry and Federer–Nadal rivalry. Out of those, only the Mets–Phillies and Johns Hopkins–Maryland rivalries are comparable to the Manchester derby in terms of longevity, and the only table of results in either article is the list of American football results between Johns Hopkins and Maryland. Meanwhile, the Federer–Nadal rivalry article includes a list of matches between the two players, but limits that list to ATP, Davis Cup and Grand Slam meetings. I obviously don't know the exact reason why those articles don't contain complete lists, but I would imagine that it's for the same reason as I'm worried about: they would take up too much space. – PeeJay 13:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The Le Classique rivalry uses show/hide boxes. I don't know if this still counts but to be honest I think people searching for the Manchester derby would most likely be wanting to see a list of results (which are very well laid out as they are) than an article with a FA star at the top. Xenomorph1984 (talk) 14:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Call this a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but I'm not a fan of the way Le Classique is set out. They've gone OTT with gimmicky show/hide boxes and colour. And I disagree that people would be looking for a full list of matches; they're more likely to want to read an overview of the history of the fixture, highlighted with selected stats and great matches. A full list of matches really tells you bugger all. – PeeJay 00:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should remove the all-time results, we need to try and make the article FA. I fully agree with PeeJay comment from above.
 * And if it will be a part of the FT process than why not.

I think all time results should be included, its wiki and the whole ethos is to provide information, a site without the correct information isnt any use to anyone, a page about the manchester derby should include every derby match even friendlies and all time records and scores should be included from the games omitted from the page for whatever reason. I add from the paragraph above a link to attendance has been used [23] on that same page ...follow the links, matches>opponents>manchester utd.. 1941 at maine rd it states a 1-7 utd win...is this not a manchester derby result the derby which man utd and man city played in at maine rd...why isnt this result included on this page > (manqunian red)Manqunian red (talk) 21:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * War matches are not generally considered to be competitive matches by football statisticians, so I would not include this in the Statistics section. We do have a Non-competitive derbies section where it could be mentioned. However, when friendlies and minor competcitions are taken into account, that war league match is still not a record, as Newton Heath beat Gorton 11–1 in the 1886–87 Manchester Cup. Oldelpaso (talk) 18:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello's! Please for information for the all friendlies and testimonials meetings of Manchester United with Manchester City.Thank you!

2010 onwards
 The 1-6 score was the biggest defeat suffered by Manchester United at Old Trafford since 1955 and the first time they had conceded six goals at home since 1930.

Im confused as to how it can be their biggest defeat since 1955 if they havent conceded six goals at home since 1930

This information also conflicts with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Manchester_United_F.C._records_and_statistics#Matches where the more recent loss (1931) of 0-7 to Wolves would be relivant Theres also no information of a notable loss in 1955 on the records & stats page --MattMPh (talk) 22:19, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

– HonorTheKing (talk) 03:42, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You'r right and need to rewrite it, on 10 Sep 1930 they lost 0-6 to Huddersfield Town, and yesterday was another time they conceded six goals at home, while the biggest defeat suffered by Manchester United against City since 12 Feb 1955 was a 0-5 lose.

– HonorTheKing (talk) 10:33, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Not quite, HTK, but almost. The 1955 statistic is not about solely City games. The actual stat for 1955 is that that game was their biggest home defeat to any team since 1955, when they lost 5-0 to Sheffield United. 1930 was the last time they conceded six goals at home to any team, in the league - the 7-0 against Wolves was an FA Cup match. Falastur2  Talk 10:03, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes but thats not fully true, as United lost at home 2-7 to Sheff Wed in FA Cup in 1961. so the 1955 still need a reword (against City only OR leagues only) if not removal (as a diff team scored more just six years later). See source

Location map


After the recent edit war perhaps a slightly changed wording is needed. The map on the right doesn't show just Manchester, but neither does it show the county in its entirety. How about striking for the middle ground (proposed wording currently under the map on the right).

On a separate note, while the caption is a bit long it would be off-set my making the image larger. At it's current size the labels are very difficult to make out which is why the image is so much larger here. It would take up a sizable chunk of the article, but on my screen the next image is more than two screens down. Nev1 (talk) 14:01, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Kits are rubbish
Please explain what you mean by kits are rubbish in this edit (Price Zero&#124;talk 06:05, 5 May 2017 (UTC))
 * I mean they're not representative of anything. The kits they play in aren't at all relevant to the derby itself, so why put them in? – PeeJay 09:31, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Strong point, But here me out. In every time they face together they wear their home kit. Not away nor third kit. I think, it is like tradition. Like symbol, to give an idea that they are in home, anyway in Manchester. Your thoughts? - Price Zero&#124;talk 11:27, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If we could use their actual kits, I might agree, but these approximations add little to the article. If a reader wants to know what colours each team plays in, they should go to the team articles. – PeeJay 11:35, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Font Size
Why is the font so small in the second half of the article? Does somebody know how to change this as I can't seem to do so? Please help out if you can.Davefelmer (talk) 05:19, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The font doesn't seem small to me. Can you post a screenshot? – PeeJay 11:56, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * No, he's right. It is. Well, was. Someone used the wrong code to close a tag and it consequently imposed its alteration on the rest of the article. I've corrected it now. Falastur2  Talk 18:53, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

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Players who played for both teams
It was always my understanding that we were omitting any player who never actually recorded an appearance for one (or both) teams. I disagree with players like Freddy Veseli and even Jadon Sancho being on there because they didn't actually appear for both teams in a competitive match - Sancho will, of course, inevitably be added in a few days when he actually has. If we add players with no actual appearances then you end up going down a rabbit hole of "well this player sat on the bench for a first team friendly on one occasion" and in my personal experience that's a path which ends up with "this guy was a part of City's academy between the ages of 4 and 6 and then trialled for United when he was 12 so he has to be included too!" Falastur2 Talk 19:43, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Ryan Giggs is a prime example: he was at Man City's academy for a couple of weeks when he was 14 before spending his entire professional career with United. Players should have to have made at least one appearance for both clubs to qualify for these lists. – PeeJay 22:54, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Last match before COVID restrictions...
In the paragraph regarding 2001 there is a mistake about calling the 2001 Derby the last match before COVID restrictions. The last Derby match before COVID restrictions was the prior-year, on 8th March 2020, when when Anthony Martial and Scott McTominay scored for United to win 2-0, referenced in the prior paragraph. 2601:600:8500:32E0:FC6F:1DE7:F301:88B2 (talk) 21:14, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism
Someone vandalised the page statistics 41.114.150.143 (talk) 20:26, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Wrong stat
Somebody appears to have sabotaged the Biggest Win stat, replacing the existing 5-goal margin victories for both City & United with a wartime game from 1941 with no source. ER90s (talk) 10:23, 24 October 2023 (UTC)