On this, the 50th anniversary of our famous 2-1 win over Gornik Zabrze in Vienna, City legend Colin Bell has revealed how an agonising early European Cup exit twelve months earlier actually provided the fuel that helped fire our march to Cup Winners’ Cup glory.
Back in September 1968, fresh from our league title win the previous May, Joe Mercer and Malcom Allison’s men launched our maiden European Cup campaign with hopes high that we could go onto emulate Manchester United and lift the trophy known as old big ears.
The first-round draw saw City pitted against Turkish side Fenerbahçe and outspoken City coach Allison was in typically bullish mood, proudly proclaiming that City would go on and ‘terrify Europe.’
Reality was to provide a rude and sobering awakening, however.
After a goalless first leg encounter at Maine Road, City’s dreams of continental success crumbled in the claustrophobic, frenzied surrounds of Istanbul’s BJK Inonu Stadium as we went down to a 2-1 loss.
It was a bitter disappointment.
Yet, according to Bell, the setback only served to provide the City squad with a burning desire to put the record straight 12 months later when we embarked on our maiden Cup Winners’ Cup campaign.
“It was a culture shock going out to Fenerbahçe,” Colin admits. “Maybe the feeling was: ‘We’ll just go over there and win,’ but it wasn’t that easy.
“We’d never heard of them and thought it would be a piece of cake, but everything backfired. But, looking back, that may have been the best thing that could have happened.
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“It jarred us up for the following season in Europe. In retrospect, it couldn’t have worked out better.
“The lesson really sank in. We realised that the standard in Europe was a lot better than we thought it was and that we had to pull our fingers out.
“It showed us that there were no soft touches in Europe. Whoever you played, the standard was very, very good and we had to beat some excellent teams in the Cup Winners’ Cup.
“The Fenerbahce result made us all realise that one bad result and that was it.”
The trip to the Turkish capital was an eye-opener for then teenage central defender Tommy Booth who was on the cusp of making his big breakthrough into the City squad back then.
Looking back, Booth is equally adamant that the loss only served to fire a rocket up City – quite literally!
“It was our first experience of being in Europe– even for the lads who had been in the team a good few years – but I don’t think it helped when Malcolm came out with his famous line beforehand that ‘We were going to terrify Europe!’
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“That went down well!
“I’d never seen anything like it in that away leg with the Fenerbahçe crowd. It was my first time in a plane, first time abroad and their fans were sending rockets across the pitch with these fireworks attached and I was thinking: ‘What the hell!’
“I was on the subs bench that night and was sick as anything when we went out.
“But it definitely made all of the players determined to try and put the record straight in the Cup Winners Cup.”
