National League 1988–1996: Early struggles Manchester City Ladies Football Club was formed in November 1988, the brainchild of
Manchester City Community Officer Neil Mather – who would become the side's first manager – plus several others involved in the club's community scheme. Their first match was a friendly against
Oldham on
Boundary Park's
artificial pitch, which City won by a score of 4–1. Only able to play friendlies in their first season due to the late formation of the club, the team joined the
North West Women's Regional Football League the following year. Their first competitive league match took place on Sunday September 3rd 1989, where they played Chorley Ladies FC (now known as Chorley Women FC) at Astley Park and lost 11-0. In the hopes of increasing publicity for women's football, the Manchester City's men's first team defender
Colin Hendry was appointed Club President in March 1990 during a period when it was receiving plaudits for being one of the first league clubs in north-west England to create an affiliated women's side. Manchester City Ladies initially struggled with the strength of the opposition in their first league fixtures, having been immediately placed in the second division of four due to the strength of the club's name alone, but managed to improve results enough to finish mid-table. In their second season, they improved further and consequently achieved their first promotion. Although Manchester City Ladies established itself in the top division of the North West Women's Regional Football League, a lack of financial independence meant that the club's fortunes were tied to the men's side, resulting in a first relegation in 1996–97, the season after the men's team themselves were relegated from the
Premier League. The club's support for their ladies' team was reduced, poor conditions at
Platt Lane caused a series of fixture postponements and a shortage of players resulted in discussions on whether to merge the ladies' team into
Stockport County Ladies.
1997–2013: Growing strength Manchester City's relegation coincided with the reorganisation of the club spearheaded by Derek Heath, a Stockport County Ladies coach who had transferred to the Manchester club owing to Stockport County Ladies' reluctance to affiliate with the male side of the same name. Heath brought in a raft of new players – many directly from Stockport – and created the first-ever junior side when he arranged for Manchester City to adopt the Stockport under-14 team which his former club were no longer in a position to support. Although Heath was to die after a brief battle with cancer barely a year after joining the club, Manchester City went unbeaten in the league throughout the 1997–98 season to win the second division title at the first time of asking – their first official silverware. Promotion in 1998 would start a period of success for Manchester City. After narrowly missing out on a second promotion in 1999, they won the Premier Division in 1999–2000 and beat
Barnsley in the promotion play-off to lift themselves above the North West Regional Football League for the first time. The following season they won the
Northern Combination and joined the
WFA National League (renamed the ''Women's Premier League'' in 1992) Northern Division. The step up to the WPL proved to be a large one, however, and the club narrowly avoided relegation on several occasions, never finishing outside of the bottom half for the first seven seasons. Only the appointment of Leigh Wood to the managerial position in 2007 was able to change the club from relegation battlers to title hopefuls.
Women's Super League 2014–2015: Professionalism and early success The English
women's football pyramid was shaken up again in 2010 when the
FA Women's Super League was created as a new top-tier competition to sit over the top of the Women's Premier League. The FA announced that entry would be based on application rather than promotion and that all members of the WPL National Division plus the top two finishers in the two regional leagues would be eligible to apply. Manchester City would miss out on the opportunity, instead finishing fourth, but would seize their next opportunity to join the WSL some three seasons later when it was expanded into an 18-team, two-tiered league system - by which time the club had won the Northern Division and were contesting the National Division. To some surprise and controversy on 26 April City Ladies were announced to have been given direct entry to the first division of the enlarged competition, at the expense of established team
Doncaster Rovers Belles who were downgraded to the second division and were the only team to lose their top division status. In anticipation of their first WSL season the club began a complete renovation of the playing squad, signing a number of England internationals and promising players, including the likes of
England goalkeeper
Karen Bardsley, 74-times capped midfielder
Jill Scott and new club captain
Steph Houghton, intending to make an impression on the league from the start. On 23 January 2014, the club was relaunched with a minor renaming to Manchester City Women's Football Club, ready for the new season. Nick Cushing was appointed first team manager, with Leigh Wood moving to first team head coach. Their first season of professional football would see Manchester City finish fifth of eight teams, at the same time winning their first-ever major trophy when they defeated
Arsenal in the
2014 FA WSL Cup Final. The following season would start poorly, but City Women returned from the summer break for the
Women's World Cup a different side, with
England's third-place finish seemingly rejuvenating both players and fans. Recording twelve wins in their remaining thirteen league games the club entered a title challenge which they only lost on the final day of the season. Although it brought them no silverware, their runners-up position was enough to secure them
European football for the first time in their history. but twice.
2016–2020: Domestic dominance and Big Three The following seasons would see Manchester City become one of the dominant sides of English women's football, winning the league in 2016 and claiming two
Women's FA Cup and two further WSL Cups by the end of the decade.
2020–2023: Injury crises, exodus and Big Four Nick Cushing left his role as manager to become assistant coach to
Ronny Deila at
MLS side
New York City, with his last match being against
Arsenal on 2 February 2020.
Gareth Taylor took over as manager, having a good start in his first year with the squad. The side saw various injuries to many of its first-team players from 2021 and into the 2021–22 season, struggling at times domestically and particularly in Europe. It has been compared to the 2015 injury crisis that saw City under Cushing spring a late comeback and then dominates in 2016. of its high-profile and established players leave: Bardsley, Scott, and
Ellen White through retirement;
Janine Beckie to
Portland Thorns;
Karima Benameur Taieb to
Marseille;
Lucy Bronze and
Keira Walsh to
Barcelona;
Caroline Weir to
Real Madrid; and
Georgia Stanway to
Bayern Munich. sports journalists questioned if the draw of European football was the only factor in big name departures, as well as debating the resilience of a club with so many new faces arriving at once and the "entire, world class starting midfield three" leaving. After a rough start to the 2022–23 season, Manchester City re-found their footing and took enough wins to end 2022 fourth in the league, unable to defeat any of the other "Big Four" (the Big Three and newly improved rivals
Manchester United) teams but holding strong to retain a position among the title contenders, with the new signings said to have gelled surprisingly quickly. The next season saw a handful of injuries to their first squad, which saw them out of European competition early and unable to land a spot for next year. Bouncing back, during the 2025-26 season they have been back to form. In particular, they defeated Chelsea at home 5-1 in a match where Manchester City was described as "ruthless" on the pitch. The game also featured the first hat-trick against Chelsea in history, by Brazilian forward
Kerolin. ==Stadium==