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.^[1] Their first match was a friendly against Oldham on Boundary Park's artificial pitch, which City won by a score of 4–1.^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[5] In their second season, they improved further and consequently achieved their first promotion.^[6]

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.^[7]

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.^[8] 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.^[9] 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.^[10]

Promotion in 1998 would start a period of success for Manchester City. After narrowly missing out on a second promotion in 1999,^[11] 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.^[12] The following season they won the Northern Combination and joined the WFA National League (renamed the Women's Premier League in 1992) Northern Division.^[13] 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.^[14]

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,^[15] 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^[16] 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.^[17]

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,^[18] 74-times capped midfielder Jill Scott^[19] and new club captain Steph Houghton,^[20] 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.^[21] 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.^[22] 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^[23] the club entered a title challenge which they only lost on the final day of the season.^[24] Although it brought them no silverware, their runners-up position was enough to secure them European football for the first time in their history.^[24] As they embarked on their late-season surge, City also broke the league attendance record not once^[25] but twice.^[26]

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^[27] and claiming two Women's FA Cup^[28] and two further WSL Cups^[29] by the end of the decade.

2020–present: 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.^[30] Gareth Taylor took over as manager,^[31] having a good start in his first year with the squad.^[32]

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.^[33][34] It has been compared to the 2015 injury crisis that saw City under Cushing spring a late comeback and then dominates in 2016.^[32]

Over the summer of 2022, Manchester City saw nine^[35] 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.^[33][34] Described as an exodus from the club,^[36][37] 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.^{[34][38][39][32]} The last to leave was Walsh, for a world-record transfer fee on 7 September; her departure from Manchester City (after the retirements of Bardsley and Scott) meant that Houghton was the last remaining 2014 season player at the club.

Sources close to the club cited by The Athletic felt that reasons for most of the departures were not individually concerning, besides that "last season's results were below what the club expected, and some players were not happy with the feedback received from the backroom staff". Additionally, the high number of departures at once and the club's seeming lack of sufficient recruitment to cover the calibre of these players were seen as potential matters of concern, with fans decrying the management on social media.^[35] The Sportsman also worried that losing so many starting players would make the club's evolution under Taylor less visible and effective.^[40]

After a rough start to the 2022–23 season,^[34] including a first-ever loss to Aston Villa in their first league match,^[41] 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.^[34] Despite the regained form, following Manchester City defeating Leicester City by the usual wide margin in October 2022, ESPN felt that the team had "a certain sparkle lacking from their football, and the unquenchable je ne sais quoi the top teams manage to cultivate through their star-studded teams remained absent", again asking if Taylor would be able to bring the team silverware.^[32]