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It is late May 1999 and the last match of a long and arduous season. A team from Manchester score two improbable goals to rescue a final that had seemed lost. Having been behind with only a few minutes remaining, the goals spark wild celebrations, elevating the scorers to iconic status among the supporters.
Twenty-four years later this final is still considered a watershed moment in the club’s history. But the match did not take place in Barcelona but at Wembley – and the opponents were not Bayern Munich, but a club from Kent that had never been above the third level of English football. This was the playoff final between Manchester City and Gillingham that would decide which team would be promoted from the third tier.
City were attempting to reclaim their place in the First Division (now Championship), from which they had been ignominiously relegated the season before. They had joined the Football League in 1892 and this was their first experience of the third tier, so there was an understandable sense of desperation about their plight. It was imperative that they secured promotion at the first time of asking.
As the game was entering the final minute, Tony Pulis’ Gillingham were 2-0 up and preparing to celebrate promotion to the second tier for the first time in their 106-year history. Having scored two goals in the previous 10 minutes, the Gills seemed to have timed their winning surge to perfection. Even when Kevin Horlock pulled a goal back for City in the 90th minute, it seemed a mere consolation.
The Gillingham goalkeeper, Vince Bartram, was announced as the man of the match over the stadium PA and that seemed to be the cue for many City fans to head for the exits, resigned to another year in the lower echelons of English football. But, in the fifth minute of injury time, Paul Dickov fired the ball past Bartram to make it 2-2.
There was a delicious subplot between the striker and goalkeeper. Bartram had been Dickov’s best man at his wedding and vice-versa, so this was a peculiarly poignant moment for both men. City had drawn level at the death and the balance of this final had swung decisively. After 30 goalless minutes of extra time, City won on penalties (even though Dickov missed his spot kick), to cap an amazing climax. The club was on the way up again.
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This amazing transformation in the dying minutes of the playoff final helped pave the way for the future success of the club. Failing to earn promotion that year could have set City back for a while, if not terminally. Many City fans regard this victory as the one that turned everything around for the club and Dickov is still rightly revered for his goal, which was the catalyst for change over the following two decades. The seven Premier League titles won since 2012 may have never materialised but for that win at Wembley, so Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola all owe a debt to Dickov.
Four days earlier, United had scored two implausibly late goals of their own to win the Champions League final against Bayern Munich, completing the first treble by an English club. City’s victory in the playoffs final also went some way to ensuring that they enjoyed the slightest tint of redemption. Scrambling out of the third tier clearly does not come close to winning the premier competition in European football in terms of prestige, but it was arguably as important in City’s development.
The gap between the two clubs’ fortunes could not have been more acute in the run-up to those finals. City had failed to secure one of the automatic promotion places, finishing well adrift of runaway champions Fulham and five points behind second-placed Walsall. The day before United secured their 12th league title by beating Tottenham 2-1 at Old Trafford in front of 55,189 fans, City had travelled to Springfield Park to draw 1-1 with Wigan Athletic in the first leg of a playoff semi-final that was watched by a crowd of just 6,672.
City won the second leg of the semi-final 1-0 to edge past Wigan and secure their passage to Wembley, where three days later Alex Ferguson’s men would beat Newcastle 2-0 in the FA Cup final and pick up their second trophy of the season. The following week, United won the Champions League and completed the treble thanks to Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s late double at Camp Nou.
The pressure was on City to respond. Another year at such a low level could have been ruinous. Plenty of big clubs have struggled to regain their former glories after slipping down the divisions and becoming mired in the lower leagues. Had it not been for the events of those few, mad minutes at Wembley on 30 May 1999, the Manchester City we know today may never have had the chance to rebuild and establish the foundations for their recent dominance, which could culminate in only the second treble in English football.
