It didn’t take long for Oasis to nail their colours to the Manchester City mast when the group were breaking through in 1993.
Shortly after the band had been signed to Alan McGee’s iconic Creation Records label, the head honcho instructed photographer Kevin Cummins – a fellow Manchester City fan – to help develop an identity for the band.
Cummins saw this as an opportunity to give City some exposure at the same time, but his first photoshoot with the band was almost derailed, thanks to a group of Chelsea fans.
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Kevin Cummins recount Chelsea fans run-in
“I went to Amsterdam to do the first shoot with them in February 1994,” Cummins tells FourFourTwo. “It was supposed to be their first international gig and they were supporting The Verve. I’d flown over that morning and they were travelling overnight by boat.
“When I arrived, only Noel was there. I asked if the others were still out, and he said, ‘No, they’re all back home in England’. They’d had a fight with Chelsea fans on the ferry – not West Ham fans as has been erroneously reported – and had been locked up, then sent straight back when they arrived in the Netherlands. Noel had gone to bed early and missed it all.”
Cummins was able to get the full band together in London a week later and admits that being a City fan was useful. “The record label thought that helped them to relax,” he explains.
“Some bands are quite abrasive when you first meet them, but Oasis were quite compliant, and we talked football. It was my idea to put Liam and Noel in Manchester City shirts. I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to get City in the NME.”
Cummins was thrown a bone by fate, as City’s sponsor at the time was the Japanese electrical company Brother, a perfect match for a band fronted by two siblings.
“That was an absolute gift,” continues Cummins. “We made that the strength of the shot. It was perfect really.”
Cummins took the band to a back street behind Sly Street Studios, where he had written ‘Blues’ and ‘5-1’ onto some corrugated metal, a callback to City’s derby win over Manchester United in September 1989.
“I did that graffiti with various City references, ready for them to walk into,” he continues. “The City shirts were mine as well – you can’t rely on the band to bring anything you ask them to. It all started off very pleasantly – they were posing and doing the shots. Then as soon as a football was introduced, Liam kicked it up in the air, Noel kicked it back, they had a bit of a scuffle and we all stood back, waiting for that to finish, before carrying on doing more pictures.
“Occasionally a fight would break out, but only in the way that you’d fight with your brother – not a full-on Green Street style fight. They probably won’t like me saying this, but they were quite sensitive lads, really.”
