Fifty-nine years ago this month, a barrel-chested footballer called Francis Lee left Bolton Wanderers for Manchester City, and an impressionable eight-year-old followed him. Within a year ‘the City’ were First Division champions, and ‘Franny’, my childhood hero, had become an England international.

Early memories are usually the most vivid. FA Cup winners in 1969, the men from Maine Road completed a trifecta of domestic pots the following year with the League Cup – and added a dollop of cream with the European Cup Winners’ Cup. The years of plenty didn’t last. In those days prizes were distributed more widely. But what larks.

Manchester City’s transformation, it appears, was facilitated by persistent rule-breaking by a foreign state

Manchester City’s transformation, it appears, was facilitated by persistent rule-breaking by a foreign state

Last week the club Lee served as a star player and, two decades later, as chairman, found itself chained in the doghouse. A Premier League investigation, conducted over three years of laborious fact-checking, found it guilty of 114 charges relating to financial jiggery-pokery.

Cooking the books, in other words – and in the eyes of their accusers, City then smothered them with a Béarnaise sauce. Beyond east Manchester, great was the rejoicing. A club once regarded as a variety act – the disgraced broadcaster Stuart Hall habitually referred to Maine Road as ‘the theatre of base comedy’ – have been widely resented since the Abu........

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