Christopher Martin Nigel "Chris" Jones was born on November 19th 1945 in Altrincham, nowadays a leafy suburb of South Manchester.

An early claim to fame was playing in the 1964 FA Youth Cup semi final for Manchester City against their local rivals, Manchester United, who featured George Best. Alongside Jones in the City side was Phil Burrows, the pair were to be re-united nearly 10 years later at Bootham Crescent.

Under Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison, Jones made the very fringes of the first team at Maine Road without establishing himself as a regular. He made a couple of first team appearances in the 1976/8 season which saw Manchester City crowned champions of England. He was a prolific scorer for the reserves (top scorer 3 seasons in succession) and other junior sides at Maine Road.

A contemporary of Francis Lee, he was to lose out to Neil Young for the left sided striking role, his cause wasn’t help when Tony Coleman was signed from Doncaster to give them both competition.

He left Maine Road for Swindon and was a member of their Football League Cup winning squad in 1969. He also played for Walsall before joining City the summer of 1973.

In his first season, he was our top scorer, forming a feared strike force alongside Jimmy Seal as we climbed into Division 2 for the only time in our history. He fell out of favour with Wilf McGuinness and re-joined Tom Johnston, who’d signed him for City, at Huddersfield in August 1976.

After leaving City, like so many other players, it was downhill all the way with spells at Doncaster, Darlington and Rochdale before hanging up his boots whilst playing for Rowntree Mackintosh.

He now teaches at Tadcaster Grammar School and has been a leading light in local York soccer for many years. However, he still finds time to act as a summariser on Radio York’s York City coverage.

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