Manchester City and Me: Peter Barnes - It was the best weekend of my life! | OneFootball

City players past and present open up on precious moments and memories of their time with the Blues.

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Manchester City and Me: Dennis Tueart - It was something you couldn’t script!

In this edition of ‘Manchester City and Me’, we hear from wing wonder Peter Barnes as he discusses the best weekend of his life after helping his beloved City win the 1976 League Cup final before scooping the PFA Young Player of the Year.

I can’t believe our League Cup final victory was 50 years ago – but I remember like it was yesterday.

It was a wonderful day.

We stayed at Champney’s Health Farm in the week leading up to the final. Can you imagine that? Using the trees in the garden as goal posts.

You could tell what was coming, driving through London on the team bus on the day seeing cars with blue and white scarves hanging out of them.

The stomach was churning, the butterflies were there, the adrenalin was flowing. It was going to be my first-ever cup final and I just thought ‘this is amazing’.

Helen Turner was there with a scarf around her neck and with the big bell that she used to ring. She was there to give big Joe Corrigan his lucky heather before the game.

The atmosphere was fantastic. To be in that tunnel before kick-off as you’re waiting to go out, it was sensational.

There was myself, Ged Keegan, Kenny Clements, Paul Power in the squad – young lads who’d never been there before and it was wonderful to turn out for City, your boyhood team, in such a big game.

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Joe Corrigan on the Class of 1976

What was amazing – and little known about that day – was it was the first time my mum had seen me play. She never liked seeing me getting kicked! But my dad took her down to that final.

For my goal, we’d worked on that free-kick. Asa Hartford took it, Mike Doyle headed it across the penalty area, Joe Royle got a flick-on and it sat up really nice for me.

It bounced once and I was coming onto it. It fell perfectly for me and I thought ‘I must hit the target’. Thankfully I did and it flew in the bottom corner and I just felt total elation.

Scoring a goal for the club you love, the club you’ve been brought up supporting, in a major final in front of thousands and thousands of fans – a sea of blue and white - it doesn’t getting any better than that.

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What happened to the Class of 1976?

The winning goal from Dennis Tueart was another well-worked move – Willie Donachie this time into Tommy Booth who jumped and headed it across to Dennis and it was a wonderfully executed overhead kick to win the game. What a goal to win a cup final!

I’ll never forget that weekend because the next evening I was voted the PFA Young Player of the Year.

Joe Corrigan and Dennis Tueart stayed down with me in London for the ceremony. We actually shared a table with Manchester United players, there was Joe Jordan, Lou Macari, David Sadler.

I was nervous because there was about 600 of your peers in the room, all dressed up to the max in dicky bows, and then when they read my name out, I was a bag of nerves.

Dennis was telling me all the people I should thank in my speech and it just went out of the window when I went up.

Dickie Davies had called my name out and as I got to the stage, I turned to look at all the people and it was mind-blowing.

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We did it for Colin Bell: Joe Corrigan’s special tribute

I was a young lad, shy and not used to making speeches in those days.

I started off by saying ‘My Lords, Ladies’. Well, I immediately thought ‘that’s a mistake because there’s no ladies in the room’.

And then I just froze. My poor mum was banging the TV back at home because she thought the volume had gone. I’ve found out since that Tommy Booth’s wife was doing the same too!

I eventually said ‘I’d like to thank my fellow professionals for voting for me, thank you very much’. I couldn’t wait to get off the stage!

But it was the best weekend of my life. To score in the cup final, win the cup final with the team you love and then receive a prestigious award voted by your peers, it was the stuff dreams are made of.

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Mike Doyle and Tony Book remembered

Fast forward to the here and now and it’s been wonderful celebrating the 50-year anniversary of that cup final win – and the other week we held a special lunch with the former players association, Once a Blue.

It was wonderful to catch-up with the lads and reminisce on that wonderful day at Wembley.

Dave Watson and Joe Royle sadly couldn’t make it – and also our captain Mike Doyle and manager Tony Book are no longer with us but they are in our thoughts because they played such critical roles in the success we achieved.

Mike was massive for us at Wembley and for that team because he was a great leader, a great captain and he wanted people to win.

He helped the young boys in that squad at the time like me, Ged Keegan and Kenny Clements so much.

And he was a wonderful player too who went on to play for England, and I consider myself so lucky to have come through when he was there along with such other great experienced professionals as Tommy Booth, Dave Watson and Alan Oakes.

And then there was Tony.

He was a very determined man. He trained us hard. He was a hard taskmaster. But he wanted you to do well – for yourself more than anything.

He befriended my dad when he was alive. They’d go on holiday together so they were very close.

And when I lost my dad in 2010, Tony was the first one to call me up crying on the phone when I’d just come out of Macclesfield General Hospital.

He called me on the car phone and I just broke down, too.To have your boss ring you at such a difficult time meant an awful lot to me. He told me: ‘Your dad was a great man, he taught me everything about coaching and meant a lot to me’.

Tony was just a massive influence on my career. When I first signed for the club, Joe Mercer was the manager when I was a young apprentice at 15 but Tony was the manager who gave me my debut and who led us to this this cup final win that we’re celebrating this weekend. He will never be forgotten and neither will Mike.

It’s not lost on me that the Class of 2026 are in the League Cup final 50 years since our success at Wembley.

Hopefully a lucky omen for Pep Guardiola’s wonderful side. There’ll be no-one happier than me if they can lift the trophy in March!