When Georgi Kinkladze arrived at Manchester City in the summer of 1995, the Georgian playmaker was one of Europe’s most promising young attacking talents.
It didn’t take long for the former Dinamo Tbilisi midfielder to become a cult hero at Maine Road, with the signing coming just as the still-young Premier League was beginning to establish itself as a viable destination for some of the continent’s best players.
This was proved evident in the fact that City were able to see off AC Milan, one of that era’s greatest sides, to Kinkladze’s signature.
Kinkladze on snubbing AC Milan for City
“There was interest from Italy, but [City chairman] Francis Lee was very determined,” Kinzladze tells FourFourTwo as he looks back at his 1995 move to England.
“He flew to see me and convinced me that City was a place where I could be the main man. I didn’t know much about Manchester, but I liked the idea of a challenge in England.”
It quickly became clear to the young Kinkladze that English football was very different to anything he had previously experienced.
“When I arrived, the football was very different. It was much faster and more direct. The weather and the food were hard to get used to, but the fans made it easy. From the first day at Maine Road, they treated me like one of their own. That connection was instant.”
Alan Ball was the City manager at the time, having spent the previous season in charge at Southampton, famously building his team around Matt Le Tissier, instructing his side to ‘Just the ball to Le Tissier.’ So was that similar with Kinkladze at City?
“Alan Ball was very important in my development as a player,” he continues. “He loved technical players and wanted the team to play with flair, even if we were struggling in the table.
“The 90s were a different time and sometimes I was targeted by foul play. If you tried to dribble, someone would try to kick you. Vinnie Jones and the Wimbledon Crazy Gang were famous for it.
“But I had played in the streets of Tbilisi so I knew how to jump over a tackle. I always thought that if they couldn’t catch me, they couldn’t hit me.”
Those early Premier League days saw a number of big-name foreign players join the league, with Kinkaldze admitting that it was an exciting time to be involved.
“It was the start of something new,” he adds. “Seeing Gianfranco Zola, Dennis Bergkamp and Juninho arrive in the Premier League was exciting and it felt like the league was opening up to creative players.
“The long ball reputation of English football was changing.”