Liam and Noel Gallagher's support for Manchester City is essential to their story and identity as a band, it might just have helped save the club as well
Oasis on stage at the home of their beloved Man City, Maine Road, in April 1996(Image credit: Future)
The image of Noel and Liam Gallagher in the home and away Manchester City kit of the time, with sponsorship by the multinational electronics Japanese firm Brother, should have been the band's first magazine cover in June 1994.
Thirty years on it has become one of the most definitive images of Oasis, growing in stature with each passing year. Taken by photographer Kevin Cummins for the NME, he was keen for it to be on the cover.
"The editor decided he didn't want an association with City because they were 'losers'. He was a Southampton fan", adds Cummins wryly. "I was always keen to get an association with City in the paper whenever I could. I'd taken the image of New Order for the release of World In Motion and brought a blue England away shirt for the shoot. I didn't want a red shirt on the cover. With Oasis it was a gift because the word Brother on the kit made people from other countries think it was deliberate. I remember an American asked me if it was because they were a brotherhood, the answer to that was far more prosaic".
As Oasis entered the mainstream, City struggled, ironically playing with the word 'Brother' on their shirts (Image credit: Getty Images)
Creation Records label boss Alan McGee had selected Cummins to take early pictures that have since become definitive. The snapper would capture Noel and Liam around City's ground and inside Maine Road stadium.
"We set up various conditions and decided which shots worked best. I'm a City fan so it broke barriers, they weren't suspicious of me and my motives. That picture has since become an icon".
While the NME didn't care for Noel and Liam's association with Manchester City the band would amplify their support of the club at any given opportunity and more widely they would make it explicitly known they were football fans at a time when it was deeply unfashionable.
The foundation of the Premier League just two years earlier was an essential rebranding of English football. While grunge was enjoying its moment there also began the roots of a resurgence in British music with hopes firmly pinned to Suede.
When Oasis made their debut on the weekly BBC chart institution Top of the Pops with Shakermaker, Liam Gallagher was loathe to be described as an "indie band". He made sure the presenter knew he was a Manchester City supporter and it was then mentioned when introducing Oasis.
Born City fans (even though Liam and Noel's cousins are all Man United fans) (Image credit: Getty Images)
Paul Slattery soon captured photos of Japanese fans in the City home and away kit with the Brother logo. Even the band were "amazed" at the sheer number of fans wearing their team's jersey.
Brian Cannon's Microdot was the graphic design firm behind the band's now-famous album cover for Definitely Maybe. "Everything in the universe just seemed to click. Brother with Noel and Liam in those tops, that's uncanny how that worked out. Oasis were very football-centric, it was a hangover from the 1980s because no one was wearing football tops and Samba trainers but being the coolest band in town rubbed off on people because City were rubbish at that time.
"It was not fashionable in 1994 for bands to be talking about football. I can't think of anyone else with such a strong vocal link, maybe The Wedding Present and Leeds but very few. I was invited to a meeting with City and it transpired that it was more about me having a word with the brothers with a view to sponsoring the club, that's how unfashionable Manchester City was".
Manchester United were dominant but as Noel explained to me back in 2003: “By rights, we should all be United fans because all my dad’s brothers and our cousins are United fans. It’s only myself, Liam and our brother Paul who are City fans. “My dad moved from Dublin to Manchester and went to Maine Road. I’m glad he took us to City, though."
When speaking to Liam a few years later he added: "When we went to school our teacher Mr Walsh used to get tickets at the end of every month and he’d take some of the class to the match. It was the days of Joe Corrigan and the Kippax Stand. When I was growing up we won f**k all but it’s not all about the winning. It was mega, they were top days. I loved it when things were semi-normal with no worries; all you had to think about was your team winning at the weekend. We didn’t even pay to get in; you’d jump the turnstiles and meet your mates at half-time. I loved standing on the terraces; it would be like a gig when all the swaying started up".
Oasis headline Maine Road in 1996 (Image credit: Getty Images)
Noel hadn't just watched games at Maine Road, he'd been to see Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and Guns N' Roses all play in the stadium where he watched City. By April 1996 Oasis would be playing their first headline outdoor shows there.
"Out of all the gigs those were the ones", adds Brian Cannon. "It was a magical setting because everyone around the band knew they had been coming here since they were kids and now they were headlining. It was a rags to riches story that people bought into".
Kyle Dale runs music memorabilia company Bittersweet Home. He explains "I was the perfect kind of person that was affected by it. I'm from Manchester and a massive Oasis fan, I wasn't much into football even though I'd been a model for the club as a kid. I began to see the tops everywhere at the gigs and got more into City from that. It was like they were building brand awareness".
Tickets for the Maine Road concerts featured an image of Noel, Liam and bass player Paul 'Gugisy' McGuigan in City kits and leisurewear. After the departure of Tony McCarroll in April 1995, the last-gang-in-town image of the band as five second-generation Irish lads from a council estate in Manchester, as Noel Gallagher suggested to me, began to shift allowing the Gallagher brother image to become dominant.
The significance of playing Maine Road was not lost on Liam Gallagher, but he didn't finish the night in a posh hotel. He went home to the modest family house in Burnage, as he had always done when watching City as a kid. He told me back in 2009: "Maine Road was mega, man. I left Manchester the day after that – I was still at me Mam’s. I had been going down to London thinking it was a bit f**king big. You have to move with the times. Maine Road was like going round your auntie’s for a brew. With these big stadiums, it’s a bit weird, you know, but you’re at an event so you just have to go with it".
I met up with Noel shortly after attending his final game at Main Road in 2003 where he suggested mixed feelings. “At first I wasn't sure about it. Oasis performed at Maine Road and the greatest team we ever had played there. When you think about it, though, it’s hardly been a lucky ground for us. The next generation of United fans can go to their shiny new ground at Old Trafford, so it’s only fair that the next generation of City fans get their shiny new stadium with the big pitch and funky scoreboard. I think it will be a bit of a struggle for people of my generation and older, but we need the money – it’s as simple as that.”
Maine Road before it hosts its final league game in May 2003. Man City lost 1-0 to Southampton (Image credit: Getty Images)
There was one player that transcended the Manchester rivalry. A picture of George Best can be spotted on the windowsill on the Definitely Maybe album cover. The image was taken in Man United fan, and Oasis original rhythm guitarist Paul 'Bonehead' Arthur's living room.
Noel once told me: "I was going to Liverpool to watch City play last season and I was standing at Manchester Airport and there was George Best. He threw his arms around me and gave me a big hug. I was with Gem from the band and he said, 'Shouldn't you hate him?' He was the first superstar; he's on the cover of my first album - everybody loves George. The United fans love him because he was such a great player but City fans love him because he lived to have a good time."
There is also an image of City legend Rodney Marsh to address the balance. Oasis bass player Paul McGuigan also co-authored a book, The Greatest Footballer You Never Saw: The Robin Friday Story. Stories of women, drink and drugs as well as trading violent exchanges were emblematic of the cross-over appeal between Oasis and football fans. Friday was a combination of visionary striker and rock star with long hair and thick sideboards who most likely would have loved Oasis had he not died in 1990 at the age of just 38.
The same year the book was released Liam Gallagher even appeared onstage in a Newcastle United shirt in September 1997. When promoting the band's third album Be Here Now he would relay the score to the audience the night Newcastle beat Barcelona 3-2 at St. James' Park in the Champions League.
Noel also explained that being second-generation Irish his loyalties also lay with the Republic of Ireland and Celtic. While Manchester City's future looked uncertain by the late 90s. The club were relegated to England's old third division in 1998.
I asked Noel about his lowest point. "There have been some tough times supporting City over the years. "I’ve seen City get relegated so many times. The worst season was going down from the First to the Second Division. I was sitting watching the game with [Primal Scream singer] Bobby Gillespie: City had to beat Stoke and somebody else had to lose. Afterwards, he turned round and said, ‘You’re in the Second Division,’ and I said, ‘We’re in the Third,’ because that’s what it is really the old Third! I couldn’t believe it. So getting relegated from the Premiership was no big deal to us.”
Man City's 2024-25 fourth kit is inspired by the 30th anniversary of Oasis' debut album Definitely Maybe and features Noel Gallagher's handwriting on the shirt (Image credit: Puma/Man City)
German Oasis fan and Frankfurt supporter Hendrik Elfenthal was 14 when he was held aloft by English Man City fans at a concert in Germany. He would later realise a dream of seeing the band at the Etihad Stadium in 2005.
"These English guys held me aloft right in front of Liam, the whole experience brought me into Oasis and the football was intertwined. Years later I went to Manchester City's stadium for three nights, I flew from Germany to see these three concerts. When I went out in Manchester the English and German people were very similar, it all just fitted so perfectly".
Laurence Carpenter has created a set of limited Oasis trading cards released to celebrate 30 years of Definitely Maybe. He was also a teenager in Dublin when he first heard about the band. "At the time, we only got Channel 4 and Italian football. I hadn't even heard of Manchester City until Oasis, we all knew Manchester United because there was a shop in Dublin but soon everyone knew about Man City because of Oasis".
Speaking with Liam Gallagher in the aftermath of the Oasis split, he was reflective about the changing fortunes of his band and the football club that he supported all his life. "Every time Oasis were doing really well City were doing really shit! That seemed to be the way. Now we’ve split up City are doing really good. I had 18 great years with Oasis so maybe there’s some good times ahead with City and that’ll take the pain of the band splitting off a bit."
Liam would subsequently record a version of City terrace favourite Blue Moon with Beady Eye in 2011 to help launch the 2011/12 kit. More recently he was quoted as saying: "I don't go to the Etihad anymore. It's like going to watch the fucking opera. Last time I seen City I got told to be quiet by some doughnut looking at his menu… he didn't know whether to have the prawns or the caviar."
Both brothers nod to City during their live shows, Noel with a cardboard cut-out of Pep Guardiola always by his side. Kyle Dale adds "You will always see Noel at games. I know a lad that sits two seats to his right, he's not hiding, he's not prawn sandwich, he watches it at that level".
The club's new 2024/25 fourth kit is officially in collaboration with Noel Gallagher who has provided a font for each City player's name and number, and the fourth kit has been designed in the colour palette of Definitely Maybe, with Noel's input.
When Liam Gallagher informed an out-of-touch BBC broadcaster that Oasis "weren't an indie band" and that he and his brother were City fans, he was articulating his most important influence. Manchester City was essential to these working-class brothers from Burnage, they brought the attitude and terrace swagger to rock n' roll and popular culture overnight.
Being a shoe-gazing indie band meant aiming far too low, and it was a mentality they disregarded with a passion. Liam Gallagher wanted to front the biggest rock n' roll band in the world and soon he would. At the time City were a forgotten force, unknown to a wider generation in Britain never mind the rest of the world. It's hard to believe now but they came very close to going out of existence. Both Liam and Noel's support for City was essential to their story and identity as a band, it might just have helped save the club as well.
Richard Purden is a freelance writer based in Scotland contributing to FourFourTwo since 2003 as well as wide variety of newspapers and magazines around Europe. He has written three books on Celtic including We Are Celtic Supporters. Among his favourite interviews are Oasis duo Noel and Liam Gallagher, Rod Stewart and Henrik Larsson.
