Cult Heroes and Club Icons: The wizardry of Georgi Kinkladze

Considered the most skilled footballer to call Maine Road home, former Georgian international dribbling guru Georgi Kinkladze was a Manchester City hero during an erratic period for the club that was a generation shy of its now-noble status.

Kinkladze was football's outlier during an era where brawn and brute force were favoured over bewildered artistry and panache.

The foundation of footballing witchcraft

Born in then-Soviet Georgia, Kinkladze joined capital side Dinamo Tbilisi as a six-year-old, courtesy of some ‘gentle’ coaxing from his father. The young playmaker climbed all but one rung to make the reserves, before moving to Mretebi Tbilisi, where the boy with the bus-station bowl cut made his professional debut as a 16-year-old in 1989.

Sold back to Dinamo in 1991 in a move that would eventually bankrupt the penniless Mretebi, Kinkladze's tenure with the former Soviet-League giants hinged on the Georgian Civil War.

He was loaned to Germany’s second tier, before heading back to Dinamo where club president Merab Jordania again decided conditions were too unsettled for Kinkladze. An unsuccessful trial with Atletico Madrid was followed by a spell training with rivals Real Madrid’s reserves before he caught the eye of Boca Juniors, prompting a bizarre, transatlantic, month-long sabbatical in the Argentine capital.

If the name Merab Jordania sounds familiar, he was a former Dinamo player who swapped his boots for the boardroom, later owning Dutch side Vitesse Arnhem following a caretaker takeover in 2010. He's also a close friend of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, hence the bountiful little-sister loan agreement between the Premier League titan and Vitesse, and reportedly an authority in the dark arts of business and shady sponsorship accords.

In a move with such little fanfare that news of it barely resonated half way down the M62 to Liverpool, Manchester City plucked the Georgian international from near obscurity in 1995 for a reported fee of £2 million.

The Magician of Maine Road

Before Sheikh Mansour's millions allured the likes of Sergio Aguero, David Silva, and Yaya Toure, Kinkladze was a symbol excellence among a squad of mediocrity.

With scant notice, the affectionately nicknamed ‘Kinky’ quickly became a Maine Road institution.

In a kit one size too big, elbows buried in the sleeves, Kinkladze’s marauding runs would catch defenders in a torturous battle with their own balance.

Where the dazzling runs of Lionel Messi have now become commonplace by virtue of their frequency, Kinkladze was an outlier in a brawny era of English football - a wizard among louts and pockmarked pitches.

His runs would often start just inside the half, a show pony dragging its toes as it picked up pace, darting runs that lacked the spectacle of stepovers and dummies, but humiliated defenders more so with their simplicity.

Few defenders have momentarily experienced the shame of marking Kinky the way Southampton’s Dave Beasant did 20 years ago this Wednesday, when City hosted the Saints in a relegation six-pointer.

The coincidence of Kinkladze lining up that day across from a fellow purveyor of absurd individual displays Matt Le Tissier was a coming together of two maestros praised for their brilliance, but knocked for their lack of coherence.

Like Le Tissier, Kinky was a mercurial performer. Unplayable on his day, but off the pace and short on endeavour the next, some would say neither would stand a chance with the rigours of the modern game.

As different as two footballers could be in stature - Kinkladze the dwarf to Le Tissier's beanpole - they were symbols of footballing wizards straddling the rifts of a changing game.

The Georgian international’s critics said that Kinkladze was inconsistent, and he was. Barely the size of a schoolboy, Kinky was also a poor tackler, and at times displayed an aversion to tracking back. For all his moments of footballing flair, Kinkladze was far from the perfect player.

For all the paradoxes of Kinkladze’s career, few Premier League goals have had the same lasting influence as the one against Southampton. Rich in candor and ease, Kinky’s sublime dribbling highlights a goal that was the best of 20 during his tenure at the club, with Nos. 2-10 better than any contemporary end-of-season highlight reel.

Both sides would finish the Premier League’s fourth season level on 38 points, with Kinkladze’s lot dropping thanks to a six-goal differential to the worse.

Now a known commodity in football, Kinkladze was exalted by the City faithful for accompanying the club down a tier, in tears as he marched off the pitch.

City would drop another level two years later, as Kinky’s chapter in Manchester mythology reached its term.

Already a legend, he was later beatified by Manchester’s blue half for never matching his displays at the club with those of a subsequent marquee move to Dutch giants Ajax. He was City’s own.

One of the game’s true individuals, Georgi Kinkladze will forever have a place in Manchester City folklore as a vivid genius whose talents were both ahead of its time, and part of a realm of football altogether peculiar.