By Lucas Pereira, FootballPredictions.NET, 18:17 02/10/2020
Updated at: 18:17 02/10/2020
As one of England’s best-known football clubs, Manchester City have often searched for a sense of identity within their club badge. Originally depicting the Manchester Ship Canal back in the early days of the club, City’s badge has always been something the club are striving to perfect.
The importance of sponsorship and marketing within football in recent years has boomed. As a result, Manchester City has tried to keep up with the growing trends within the game.
Consequently, The Citizens hve changed their logo on multiple occasions since their formation as a football club back in 1894.
In 2015, Manchester City’s fans voted to change the club’s logo from the Eagle and Star design (that was added to the club’s kit in 1997) to a more traditional looking club logo.
Manchester City asked ‘Cityzens’ (season ticket holders and club members) to vote on the outcome of the new badge and it was launched on December 26th, 2015.
The rationale for the change came from a preference within the City fan base to follow the club’s more traditional design, whilst incorporating all of the elements that are signified within the logo.
Manchester City first used the new logo (on the right in the image below) at the start of the 2016/17 season.
Community Club
Despite their meteoric rise since being taken over, Manchester City remains a club intrinsically linked to the city of Manchester.
Most of the fan base emanates from Greater Manchester itself. As a result, City look to invest a great deal of time, money, and effort garnering opinion from the Blues faithful and the fan vote for the new badge was the perfect example of that.
2015/16 was a period of change for City, who were no longer seen as the rich upstarts. They had won silverware domestically with regularity and were very much within the established elite.
Not to mention the arrival of a certain Pep Guardiola in the summer of 2016 – a move that has transformed the club’s fortunes.
Bringing the club into a position where they were more marketable and relatable was the ultimate aim of the logo rebrand; And by using the old design of the club badge, while adding a modern twist – City fans old and new were appeased by the club’s new badge.
Seeing Stars
In 1997, the powers that be at Manchester City brought in a badge that was seemingly irrelevant to the club’s very ethos. Whilst a ship was still depicted within the logo, very few other features transferred over from the old badge design.
M.C.F.C was emblazoned on the logo (rather than the more traditional Manchester City Football Club) whilst the outline of a golden eagle was seen by many City fans as purely decorative.
In addition, three gold stars were placed at the top of the badge – once more without any discernible rationale for being there.
With gold stars usually reserved for teams that win Continental competitions or in international football, City were often the target of many a taunt from opposition fans – as their well-documented wait for European glory rumbles on.
Most Manchester City fans were very pleased to see both the eagle and the stars removed and the return to a simpler, spherical logo made sense to most fans of the blues.
Making History
Despite enjoying a rich history within the grand scheme of things in English football, the fact that the club was in the doldrums for the majority of the 1980s and 1990s is not lost on rival fans. City are often taunted with talk of ‘not having any history’ and that their fans are ‘plastic’.
Whilst this is not true, the club and City fans, in general, saw the logo re-brand as a real opportunity to remind the naysayers of the notoriety the club had garnered in the past.
With a red rose on the badge paying homage to Lancashire and a golden ship acknowledging the shipping trade that made Manchester famous, the new logo shows Manchester City’s impressive history off to the maximum.