ON THIS DAY

Steve Coppell left Crystal Palace to make over as manager of First Division Manchester City in October 1996 but after only 33 days and six matches as boss he resigned the Maine Road job because of stress on this day in 1996. His assistant Phil Neal became caretaker manager.

The date of Alex Ferguson's first match as manager of Manchester United. It didn't prove to be the best of starts with a 2-0 First Division defeat at the Manor Ground home of Oxford United. I think that the smartest person that day was the fan who got hold of Fergie's team-sheet for the match - in June 2013 he sold it at auction for a mahoosive £19,000! Not bad for a scrappy bit of paper on which the manager had listed his team for that fixture - Chris Turner, Mike Duxbury, Arthur Albiston, Kevin Moran, Paul McGrath, Graeme Hogg, Clayton Blackmore, Remi Moses, Frank Stapleton, Peter Davenport, Peter Barnes with the one sub being Jesper Olsen.