David Mooney is the author of a number of popular City books and hosts the popular weekly podcast Blue Moon. He’s also a freelance radio journalist and writer, currently working for BBC Radio 5 Live.
He even got to ride on the open top bus parade after the 2014 Premier League win!
David kindly joined us for a quick interview and tells us more about some of his favourite City moments.
Firstly why did you choose to support City?
I was born into a family that were (at the very least) passive City fans and one of my best friends at school was a Blue too. Then we won tickets at a school fair and City started giving free tickets to our school for games at Maine Road. Before I knew, I was a season ticket holder – that started in 1997-98.
What was your first game?
I think it was a 1-0 defeat to Leicester in 1995 when Mark Robins scored the winner.
Who is you City idol?
Always and forever Nicky Weaver. I play in goal and he was the goalkeeper I grew up with.
What is your favourite City book (other than your own!)
I think it’d have to be Manchester the Greatest City by Gary James. My copy has been signed by a few of the players in it.
What is your most treasured City related gift?
I was given a signed Paul Dickov picture from Wembley 99 for my 21st and one of Nicky Weaver too.
How did you get your break in radio?
Like most people who get asked how they ended up doing what they’re doing, it was kind of by accident and kind of good fortune. I went to University doing a journalism degree, expecting to be working for a newspaper when I finished.
But we did a radio module in the first year and I fell in love with the medium, so when the time came to choose what to specialise in, I went for that. It was through access to the Uni’s radio studio, I started the Blue Moon Podcast. We were picked up by Imagine FM and I started doing some work for the news desk off the back of that.
When, why and how did you start writing about City?
I started submitting articles to King of the Kippax in about 2006 and then started match reports while I was at University for my blog in 2008. It was only through interest in City that I started to do anything about it, but I was starting to get hits and when we won the league in 2012. I had enough opinion columns throughout the season and match reports to produce my first book, Typical City.
It was after my second book, The Man Who Restored Pride which was an analysis of Mancini’s time at City, that I was picked up by ESPN to be one of their regular columnists.
What City things have you done because of your writing/radio work that you wouldn’t have done otherwise?
There’s been a few things – for instance, I was asked onto one of the very first Legends Tours as they were trying it out and working out what needed to be in the day. But the biggest opportunity I had was to be on the staff bus for the victory parade in 2014.
City emailed out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested and I was never going to say no! There was me, Howard Hockin, Danny Pugsley and Adam Carter (@StatCity) and it was one of the best and most surreal evenings of my life!
You interviewed all the players from Wembley 99 for your third book. Which was your favourite interview and why?
That’s like asking a mother to pick her favourite son! I have a few that I really enjoyed – for instance, Nicky Weaver was a brilliant host and was delightfully talkative – and very open about his injury problems – and was obviously one of my childhood heroes.
Kevin Horlock was very funny and we chatted for a long time after the interview about all sorts of football stuff. Gerard Wiekens was also brilliantly accommodating. I flew out to see him in the Netherlands and he met me at the hotel to do the interview, before giving me a tour of the local area and taking me back to his house to see his medals and meet his family.
“Looks like Scunny Next season”, is David’s book where he tracks down every member of the Wembley ‘99 team including manager Joe Royle to get their memories of that historic day. He also finds out how their careers went after that game.
David has also written another book “The Man Who Restored Pride” all about how Mancini took the blues to their first title in nearly four and half decades back in 2012.
Ahsan from the 93:20 Podcast described you as the “Father of all City podcasts”, the Blue Moon Podcast was, I believe, the first City Podcast. How would you describe the podcast? Why and how did you start?
Ha! It’s kind words for something that started as just something for me to do while I was looking for a job. Blue Moon Podcast wasn’t actually the first City podcast ever – the club had an official one, but that finished at the end of the 2008-09 season, as they focused on CityTV instead.
That’s why I always say BMP is the original City ‘fan’ podcast because we started up just as the club’s own finished. I’d like to say it was to fill the gap in the market, but it was genuinely because I’d just finished university with a degree in broadcast journalism and couldn’t get a job making radio.
The irony is, in the end, starting BMP was the thing that got me into working in radio and without it I may have ended up working in some IT job because that’s where the Job Centre were trying to push me at the time (because I was “good at computers”).
The first shows were recorded in my car after matches, they were later recorded in the studio at my old university in Preston, then at the Imagine FM studio, and now we do it remotely.
There’s a full and detailed history up to the beginning of 2019-20 which marked the 10th anniversary here.
What’s your favourite/proudest moments from the podcast?
The work that I’m most proud of is everything I’ve done around the Wembley ’99 match. I didn’t do the interviews with the podcast in mind, but I did record them all in quality so that I could run the interviews as features through the season. Then I decided to cut them up and write a script for a special documentary episode, which I went back to in 2019 for the 20th anniversary – adding in a few other interviews I’d done in the years since.
The updated documentary is our most-listened to show and I think it’s ultimately the best bit of radio work that I’ve ever done. Listen to it here.
I think my absolute favourite moment, though, has to be investigating Pep Guardiola’s complaints that the League Cup ball was too light. At very short notice, we managed to borrow both a League Cup match ball and a Premier League match ball and a set of scales to take into the studio.
You also do a podcast with Sam Lee for the Athletic (called Why Always Us?). Can you describe the difference between the two podcasts for those who haven’t listened yet?
Yeah, Why Always Us? isn’t as rigidly set format-wise as BMP. With BMP, the structure is always pretty much the same – we do the first part reviewing the last week, then have an interview or feature. Then we’ll preview the coming week, have another interview or feature, and then finish with a listener Q&A.
With Why Always Us?, Sam and I will chat about what would make interesting discussions or topics, often based on who Sam has been speaking to for stories or what he’s been writing about. We can chat about the talking points from games and what it means for the season, but if it’s a solid 2-0 win against Burnley or Brighton or Aston Villa, then there’s probably not a lot of value in going over game (and I’ll do that on BMP later in the week, anyway). It’s those weeks where we can talk about how Sam makes transfer stories, what it’s like in a Guardiola press conference, or what interesting thing has been happening behind the scenes at City.
What are you plans for the Blue Moon Podcast the 2021/2022 season?
For the main show, I want to carry on where last season finished. Last season, I managed more ex-player or ex-manager (or ex-staff member) interviews than we’ve managed in a long time, so I’d like to carry that on. We’ve already had John Burridge on the show this season and we’ve got interviews already recorded with Richard Jobson and Terry Phelan, which will be on in the coming weeks. My absolute dream get would be Kevin Keegan, but unfortunately his agent has declined a couple of times!
The biggest new thing is for the Patreon subscribers, though. We’ve recorded a load of the new specials already (and need to do more) – and they’re now out every Monday. We’re doing “The Games That Made Me”, where me and a guest talk through five games they were at that shaped them as a City fan. Then there’s “My City Shirts”, which is a similar concept, but they’re talking about the players they had on the backs of their shirts as a kid.
My favourite, though, is “City Heaven/City Hell” – where me, a City fan and an opposition fan talk about a heaven and hell match (nominated by the guests) each against that opponent.
If anyone would like to back the show and get these bonus podcasts, the details are all here.
You can also follow David on Twitter and listen to his weekly podcast here.
