Balotelli, Aguerooooooooo. Watch it, drink it in. I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again. (Martin Tyler)
It was the final moments of the 2011/12 season. City were drawing at home against QPR and in so doing were one point adrift of city rivals United in the chase for the Premier League title. Pause there (ok everyone knows what happened ) and consider the tragi-comedy events that litter City’s past.

Manchester City entered the football league in 1894 and won the then second division title and promotion to the first division in 1899. They claimed their first FA Cup in 1904 beating Bolton 1-0 and almost made it a double finishing runners up in the league. However after this promising start they were hit with charges of financial irregularities (17 players were suspended). Their inspirational skipper Billy Meredith, transferred to United and won two titles there as City’s Hyde Road ground burnt down. You can see a pattern set early.
Over the next three decades there was a distinct lack of success with only a single FA Cup to show though enroute to the trophy City achieved a highest FA crowd of 84,569 in their home victory over Stoke City, a capacity crowd record that stands to this day.
League success followed swiftly on the heels of the FA Cup triumph as they won their first First Division title in 1936/37 and United were relegated as well. Happy days for City fans. In true fashion though the club produced the worst title defence in English League history by managing to be relegated the following season. They even managed a positive goal difference and still got relegated, the only team in history to finish the season with a positive goal difference (+3) and get relegated. Yes that was the City way. It took them another 10 years to gain promotion.To add insult to injury a former City player Matt Busby took the reins at Old Trafford and we all know how that ended.

It took until 1955 for City to reach the FA Cup final again and though they lost they were back and won the FA Cup the next year 1956. That was the year Bert Trautmann played through the final with a broken neck. City were nothing if not dramatic.
However there was a deterioration over subsequent years and in 1963 City were relegated to the second division and whilst there a crowd of only 8,000 attended a January home game versus Swindon, 90% less than in their FA Cup heyday.

However in 1965 it was City’s turn to appoint an iconic managerial team in Joe Mercer and Malcolm Alison. Promotion was gained in 65 and a dizzying period of success followed, the First Division title in 68-69, the FA Cup in 1969 and European Cup Winners Cup in 1970 when they also won the League Cup. True to form however things couldn’t last. Mercer and Allison got involved in a board room power struggle but on opposing sides. Peter Swales emerged victorious and Mercer the club’s most successful manager to date (& a future England caretaker manager) was side-lined and left the club with Malcolm Allison taking the helm. He lasted a year.
City enjoyed some stability and with a League Cup win sprinkling the form but former skipper Tony Book was removed as manager in 1979 and Allison re-appointed and given a large chequebook. He sold crowd favourites, splashed £1.4 million on Steve Daley and was sacked after a year.

Though City revived a little, reaching the FA Cup Final in 81 there set in a period of marked decline. They were relegated twice from the top flight in the 1980s and despite a rally were relegated to Division Two in 96 in comedic form. Most relegated teams try to stay up but don’t do it very well. City were drawing 2-2 at Liverpool and thought a point was sufficient to keep them up. City players ran down the clock keeping the ball in the corner only to be relegated anyway and thus go down without actually trying to stay up.

Worse was to follow as they dropped to their lowest point ever with subsequent relegation to the third tier making them only the second ever European trophy winners to be relegated to their country’s third tier. At least it was a way to avoid repeated drubbings at the hands of city rivals United. In 94/95 season United put eight past City without reply over two games.

With things at an all time low further board room change followed and in 1999 City were at Wembley in the third division play-off final against Gillingham. In a tight game the Gills scored twice in final 10 minutes and it looked like City had fallen at the final hurdle but no. In true City drama they scored twice in injury time and won on penalties and all this 4 days after United completed their historic treble.
Further promotion to the Premier League followed and despite a hiccup relegation in 2001 they bounced back to remain in the Premier League since that time though there have been ‘City moments’ along the way including scoring the least home goals in a season, substituting a midfielder for a goal keeper so the goal keeper on the pitch could become a striker (don’t ask)! And having a multi millionaire owner reduced to no assets within a year of buying the club.
In 2008 Manchester City was purchased by the Abu Dhabi United Group and received considerable financial backing winning their first trophy in 35 years (FA Cup) in 2011.

All of which brings us back to that point in the 93rd minute of the 2011/12 season when Aguerro shimmied right in the QPR 6 yard box and levelled to shoot.
The league campaign had gone well including beating United 6-1 at Old Trafford before a dip in form saw United recover an 8 point lead. Uncharacteristically the normally ruthless United squandered the points and in the final game of the season City only had to match United’s result to win the title on their significantly better GD.

City were up against QPR, a team that started the day in the drop zone.
Remarkably at the end of normal time City had contrived to be trailing 2-1.
United’s game finished, they won 1-0 at Sunderland and were winning the title by 2 points. Two minutes into injury time Dzecko equalised. United were winning the title by one point and some of the United players were celebrating but the game at the Etihad still had a couple of minutes to play.
Back to Aguerro who provided the finish to what media sources from around the world stated was the greatest moment in Premier League history.

City have enjoyed greater success since then but that was a defining moment for the club and in that single minute they repaid the years of tragi-comedy they’d served up to their long suffering fans.