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When Manchester City escaped the third tier – as United won the treble

I t is late May 1999 and the last match of a long and arduous season. A team from Manchester score two improbable goals to rescue a final that had seemed lost. Having been behind with only a few minutes remaining, the goals spark wild celebrations, elevating the scorers to iconic status among the supporters.

Twenty-four years later this final is still considered a watershed moment in the club’s history. But the match did not take place in Barcelona but at Wembley – and the opponents were not Bayern Munich, but a club from Kent that had never been above the third level of English football. This was the playoff final between Manchester City and Gillingham that would decide which team would be promoted from the third tier.

City were attempting to reclaim their place in the First Division (now Championship), from which they had been ignominiously relegated the season before. They had joined the Football League in 1892 and this was their first experience of the third tier, so there was an understandable sense of desperation about their plight. It was imperative that they secured promotion at the first time of asking.

As the game was entering the final minute, Tony Pulis’ Gillingham were 2-0 up and preparing to celebrate promotion to the second tier for the first time in their 106-year history. Having scored two goals in the previous 10 minutes, the Gills seemed to have timed their winning surge to perfection. Even when Kevin Horlock pulled a goal back for City in the 90th minute, it seemed a mere consolation.

The Gillingham goalkeeper, Vince Bartram, was announced as the man of the match over the stadium PA and that seemed to be the cue for many City fans to head for the exits, resigned to another year in the lower echelons

Read more on theguardian.com