Watch PL Retro: Manchester City v QPR 2012 from 4pm, Sunday on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League
Sunday 5 April 2020 13:48, UK
At a time when football grounds have closed their doors, we've asked Martin Tyler to share some of his favourite facts and memories of the homes of the 20 Premier League clubs.
In part 11 of the series, Sky Sports' Voice of Football takes us on a virtual visit to Manchester City's Etihad Stadium where he talks about his small role in one of the most iconic matches in Premier League history.
You can watch that match in full on Sky Sports from 4pm on Sunday afternoon.
By train from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. It is a fantastic service with trains every 20 minutes and takes just over two hours. I walk from the station to the ground, though there is a tram service.
The commentary area has been increased in size as Manchester City have attracted more and more interest. It is centrally placed in the front of the top tier of the Colin Bell Stand. There is a lift by the media entrance but it is another ground where I test my heart rate by using the stairs.
To get to the actual position you have to pass by rows of seats occupied by City fans and at the start of his career with Sky Sports, Gary Neville, very much from the other side of town, felt understandably anxious. It is a credit to Gary's popular appeal that he has a very safe passage now.
The stadium was originally envisaged as part of a Manchester bid to stage the 2000 Summer Olympics, but the Games were awarded to Sydney. When the city's bid to stage the 2002 Commonwealth Games was successful it became the centrepiece of the event. The running track was removed and the structure remodelled as a football ground. City moved in from their old base at Maine Road for the 2003-04 season.
No prizes for guessing!
You would not have believed the way Manchester City won the Premier League title in May 2012 unless you saw it. Millions of Sky Sports viewers, including a very fortunate commentator, had that privilege. It should have been straightforward for City against relegation-threatened Queens Park Rangers. It was anything but.
Failure would hand yet another title to none other than bitter rivals Manchester United, winners of 12 of the 19 previous Premier League crowns. City had not been champions since 1968 and were in danger of squandering a glorious opportunity. It was a tense first half summed up by a scrappy City goal from Pablo Zabaleta.
Djibril Cisse stunned the home crowd with an equaliser and even though the former City midfielder Joey Barton got himself sent off the 10 Rangers men took the lead through Jamie Mackie.
When the board went up for five minutes of added time, City still needed to score twice to win the game and the title. Eden Dzeko's part in this footballing fable is often overlooked. His header made it 2-2.
United had finished at Sunderland and the players were focused now on our coverage from the Etihad on monitors at the side of the pitch. Those pictures were under the masterly control of Sky's senior match director Tony Mills. He split the screen into the story at both venues. City still playing. United now just watching.
He cut back to full pictures of the match action just as Mario Balotelli rescued possession for City and diverted the ball to Sergio Aguero. When the great Argentine took a touch I knew he would score. I took a deep breath and……………….. well you know the rest!
Mark Hughes managing QPR that day, against one of his old clubs, told me the goal roar was the noisiest moment he had ever heard in a football ground. Tony Mills cut together a magical sequence of pictures to follow this extraordinary story. Look for the shot of Joe Hart which sums up the sense of disbelief. Niall Quinn and I may have found a few appropriate words but it was the vision which fully captured the day.
That was May 2012 and I have been asked about it pretty much every week since then. I will always be grateful to Sky Sports for sending me to the game. But let's never forget it was Sergio's moment. And for me Tony Mills was not far behind.
I can never go the Etihad Stadium without thinking of the above, but one other sense close to the ground is of the considerable regeneration of East Manchester. Manchester City FC have made a big contribution to that.
On Monday: Martin brings us his guide to Manchester United's Old Trafford
