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Mark Brennan was a left-hand sided midfield player who played for
Manchester City between 1990 and 1992. He was born in Rossendale,
Lancashire on October 4th 1965 and was signed by manager Howard Kendall
for £500, 000 from Middlesbrough in the 1990/91 close season, having
started his career with the successful Ipswich Town side of the early
eighties where he earned five England Under-21 caps.
His City
debut came on September 5th in the third game of the season, a 2-1 home
win over Aston Villa, his first goal for his new club arriving two weeks
later after he had come on as a substitute in a 2-1 win over Norwich
City, Niall Quinn going on to score the winner. With the team going on a
ten-game unbeaten run Brennan was finding it difficult to fight his way
into the side, and things were made even worse when manager Kendall
resigned in November to return to his old club Everton, being replaced
by Peter Reid who became player-manager. Although Mark had made an
appearance in a 2-1 FA Cup win at Port Vale it was not until the end of
March that Reid gave him a decent run in the team, scoring in a 3-3 home
draw with Southampton and getting the other goal in a 5-1 away win at
Aston Villa when David White claimed the other four. He went on to make a
disappointing 16 league appearances for the season, scoring 3 goals, as
City finished a creditable fifth place in the Division One table.
After
three games of the 1991/92 season City sat at the top of the table with
maximum points, with victories over Coventry City (1-0) and Liverpool
(2-1) being followed up by a 3-2 home defeat of Crystal Palace in which
Brennan scored twice, including the winner from the penalty spot five
minutes from time. Sadly form worsened during September and Mark lost
his place in the team to Michael Hughes. Despite scoring in a 3-0 defeat
of Chester City in the League Cup and appearing in a 3-1 win at Notts
County in October (the photo above is during the game) he could
not force his way back into the side, once again having to wait until
the end of the following March after the team had taken one point from a
possible twelve.
He returned in a 0-0 draw at Chelsea and the following
week was on the mark in a 4-0 home win over league leaders Leeds
United, but after featuring in a 1-1 derby draw with Manchester United a
2-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday a week later on April 11th would
prove to be his final game for the club. Although it had been a
successful season for City, with a fifth place league finish once again,
Brennan was transferred to neighbours Oldham Athletic for a fee of
£200,000 after making a total of 36 league and cup appearances
(including 4 as substitute), with the decent return of 7 goals.
After
four years with The Latics he decided to try his luck on the other side
of the world with a three-year stint in China and Australia. He
returned to the UK in 2000 to sign for Conference side Dagenham &
Redbridge, before finally hanging up his boots in 2003 after short
spells with Billericay Town and Canvey Island. (David Redshaw).
1983–1988 Ipswich Town 168 (19)
1988–1990 Middlesbrough 65 (6)
1990–1992 Manchester City 29 (6)
1992–1996 Oldham Athletic 90 (7)
1997 Guangdong Hongyuan 20 (3)
1997–1998 Sydney Olympic 22 (0)
1998–1999 St George Saints 11 (2)
2000–2002 Dagenham & Redbridge 38 (3)
2002 Billericay Town 12 (1)
2002–2003 Canvey Island 7 (0)
Total 462 (47 goals)
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