Manchester City are back. Typically, appropriately, joyously, this club of unprecedented unreliability and instability returned to the Premiership yesterday, but in the most dramatic and nervous of manners. Naturally.
Not only did a fiercely committed Blackburn Rovers take a well-deserved lead two minutes from half-time through a delicate Matt Jansen volley; not only did Blackburn hit the City woodwork twice before and twice after that; but Ipswich Town, the only team able to deny City automatic promotion, took the lead against Walsall some nine minutes after Jansen's goal.
At that stage Manchester City were a First Division club and staying that way, Ipswich were in the Premiership. But within the next 28 remarkable minutes, City scored four times. Suddenly they were in a different league after four long years away. A side that was playing the likes of Wigan in the second division play-offs last May will now meet their other neighbours Manchester United next season. It is some transformation.
That has been the compelling storyline since Joe Royle took the risky decision to become City's seventh manager in eight years in February 1998. He could not prevent relegation three months later, but Royle, who manufactured a rising at Oldham Athletic from similarly unpromising circumstances at the beginning of the 1990s, has since turned City from being English football's favourite punchline into, potentially, a coming force. In truth, City will need a heavy supplement of quality before August, but all thoughts of the future were swamped by yesterday's achievement.
"We needed a kiss from lady luck, but after all this club has been through it deserves that," said Royle afterwards. He looked exhausted. "Sometimes we were poor, at other times worse. We were playing like pigs in labour but pigs do fly. When the second went in you could feel the swell of relief from the fans. I thought when they hit the post for the fourth time it might be our day."
That was the turning point yesterday. In the 58th minute, with Rovers one up and cruising, and Ipswich ahead at Portman Road, the thousands of City fans inside and outside Ewood Park - around 5,000 travelled without tickets just so they could say they were there - were understandably forlorn.
Their anxiety was to multiply, first when Ashley Ward cut inside Richard Edghill before striking a deliberate shot past Nicky Weaver. The ball cannoned off the far upright. Thirty seconds later Jansen took an awkward cross beautifully on his chest, twisted away from his marker and volleyed, all in the one impressive movement. Again the ball hit a City post, the same one Ward struck.
As Richard Jobson said, until that point, City were "absolutely awful". Unable to cope with Jansen's nippiness in front of Spencer Prior and Jobson, the full backs were also having difficulty containing Damian Duff and Jason McAteer. First in every challenge, it was as if it was Graeme Souness's team chasing the prize. McAteer had two good efforts blocked by Weaver in the first half and the young City keeper also made useful saves from Jansen.
Marlon Broomes had been the first Blackburn player to clip woodwork, with a 27th minute header, and just four minutes later David Dunn did the same with a swerving drive from 25 yards. When Jansen finally found the net with a clever volley after Ward had outjumped Jobson on a long throw-in, City could not complain. Significantly, they have stopped complaining.
Instead the elegant Ian Bishop replaced the muscular Jamie Pollock shortly after half-time, though Bishop's impact was limited as Blackburn continued to dominate. Then came the 58th minute dual escape and Bishop was free to exert a passing influence.
It rubbed off on Mark Kennedy, whose short pass teed up Kevin Horlock two minutes later. Horlock's tempting centre bisected the Blackburn defence and its keeper Alan Kelly. Shaun Goater knocked the ball in for the 29th time this season at the far post. `Feed The Goat' is a top-selling T-shirt in Manchester. The Goat had bitten back.
All changed. Seven noisy minutes on and Christian Dailly, at u £5.3 million possibly the most overpriced player of the past decade, failed to communicate with Kelly when heading a routine long punt to supposed safety. Dailly's header missed Kelly and Dailly could not retrieve the ball before it reached the line.
Now the City faithful began to celebrate with real belief. Another eight minutes and they had the decisive third. Kennedy got it, his 10th of the season, a cool side-foot finish following Edghill's confident run from the back. Sitting beside the City trophy cabinet on Friday Kennedy had spoken of the chance "for someone to make himself a hero". As he leapt into the arms of the smiling Royle, Kennedy had made himself one.
Last season's City hero, Paul Dickov, the man who scored the equaliser against Gillingham at Wembley, then added a straightforward fourth as Blackburn's defence collapsed. Rovers had been unbeaten at home under Souness.
But this was the sixth time City had gone behind away from home and ended up winners. They have learned how to come back. Now they must learn how to stay.
BLACKBURN: Kelly, Grayson, Dailly, Broomes, Harkness, McAteer, Dunn, Flitcroft, Duff, Ward, Jansen. Subs Not Used: Carsley, Ostenstad, Gillespie, Frandsen, Filan. Booked: Harkness, Dunn. Goal: Jansen 42.
MANCHESTER CITY: Weaver, Edghill, Prior, J Whitley, Jobson, Horlock, Pollock (Bishop 47), Tiatto, Kennedy (Granville 80), Goater, R Taylor (Dickov 53). Subs Not Used: Crooks, Wright. Goals: Goater 60, Dailly 67 og, Kennedy 75, Dickov 81.
Referee: T Heilbron (Newton Aycliffe).
