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The defensive half of the twin brothers who both played for City (his
brother Ron was centre-forward), centre-half Paul was a £350,000 record
signing for the Blues when he put pen to paper on June 1st 1978. He
began his career as an apprentice with his hometown club Chester in July
1973, playing 21 times in the first team before a £100,000 move to
Luton the following summer. In four seasons with Luton he played more
than 140 games and won ten England under 21 caps.
It was this record and
pedigree that persuaded manager Tony Book to spend this new record fee,
the idea being for Futcher to replace Mike Doyle who moved to Stoke a
few days later and to gain even more experience by playing alongside the
established Dave Watson and Tommy Booth. Following his debut on the
opening day of the 1978/79 season, Paul played in the first eight League
games, a run that saw defeat in just two and proved very successful for
Ron who'd joined his twin brother on July 1st.
Ron scored four times in
successive games, a hat-trick against Chelsea and a solitary strike
against Tottenham. Paul made 30 appearances in his debut season,
including two games in the UEFA Cup, both legs of the First Round tie
with the Belgian side FC Twente Enschede. It looked as though he'd
become a regular for the 1979/80 season but unfortunately things didn't
work out that way. By then Malcolm Allison had taken over and the 16
year-old Tommy Caton had literally sprang from nowhere to become first
choice centre-half under the new regime.
Futcher was limited to 12/1
League games and two more in the League Cup. On July 1st 1980 he left
Maine Road for a fee of £150,000 and joined Second Division Oldham
Athletic. He played a total of 44/2 games for City but failed to score
once in any of them. Remarkably he finished playing in 1999 as a 43
year-old with non-League Southport. A veteran of more than 800 games in
his entire career he also spent time with Derby, Barnsley and Grimsby. (Ian Penney - author of The Legends of Manchester City).
Paul Futcher died on Thursday November 24th 2016 aged 60 after a short battle with cancer.
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