Yorkshire folk are fond of telling us that “where there’s muck there’s brass”, so where better for Sven-Göran Eriksson, who has had plenty of both thrown at him in recent years, to renew lucrative acquaintance with English football.

The prosperous Swede’s last match in this country was England’s 6-0 demolition of listless Jamaica at Old Trafford in the final preparatory friendly before their ill-starred World Cup. Doncaster Rovers, at Keepmoat stadium, was quite a contrast, pointing up how times have changed for the man who led his masters at the Football Association such a merry dance in five absurdly overpaid years as head coach of the national team.

Eriksson’s long-term plan, after his stint with England, was always to return to club management, with Real Madrid or Barce-lona, Manchester United or Chel-sea, but international football diminished his reputation to such a degree that none of the European elite were interested.

And so it came to pass that he fetched up at Humdrum, aka Manchester City, where managers come and go with the same bewildering regularity as Eriksson’s paramours. It is not without irony that he succeeds Stuart Pearce, who was widely touted to replace him as England coach little more than 12 months ago. Like new managers everywhere, Eriksson has been making the usual noises: “Big challenge, big club, big future”, blah, blah, blah. The fans, however, seem unimpressed, and would have preferred Sam Allardyce or Mark Hughes, to name but two. Even the new regime’s first major signing, Rolando Bianchi, from Italy, was greeted as “Rolando Who?” - a little unfairly after his 18 goals for Reggina in Serie A last season. The £8.8m man, omitted yesterday pending his international clearance, can only be an improvement on Giorgios Samaras and Bernardo Corradi, who managed just nine goals between them last season, when no team in the Premier League scored fewer than City.

Doncaster were expected to provide Eriksson with an undemanding start, and the chance to win a few brownie points with Mancunians of sceptical bent. That said, “Donny” are no mugs.

They had a decent stab at pro-motion from League One before falling away last season, and City would prefer not to dwell on elimination from the Carling Cup at the old Belle Vue two years ago, when Rovers went on to beat David O’Leary’s Aston Villa 3-0 and were unlucky to go out to Arsenal in the quarter-finals. The Keepmoat, built at a cost of £32m, is a smart new ground, exemplifying the progress the club has made since the dark days of the mid-Nine-ties, when the then chairman, Ken Richardson, tried to burn down the main stand at their dilapidated old stadium in an insurance fraud for which he was jailed. City’s new benefactor, Thaksin Shinawatra, who is wanted on corruption charges back home in Thailand, is a paragon by comparison. The former Thai Prime Minister was a notable absentee yesterday [it was unkindly suggested that he was taking a blowtorch to those frozen assets], and is not due to attend his first match until August 4, when City complete their preseason programme at home to Valencia.

Doncaster’s set-up is a far cry from the impoverished early 1970s when, as a young reporter, I summoned the courage to demand of the manager, Billy Bremner, why he continually substituted a highly-promising striker midway through the second half of evening games. The disarming answer was that the player, Brendan O’Callaghan, who went on to play for the Republic of Ireland, had to catch the last train home to Bradford. Rovers’ chairman and driving force these days is John Ryan, a former City shareholder from Cheshire, who amassed his considerable fortune from breast augmentation clinics, giving him something in common with Eriksson, and those artificially elevated shoes.

The man receiving another king’s ransom to act as “midwife” to the latest rebirth of the Blues received a lukewarm welcome from the City fans and cho-russes of “Who Are You?” from the home crowd. Not for the first time, Eriksson resembled a rabbit caught in the headlights when he was faced with a phalanx of photographers on his initial appearance from the tunnel.

Oh, and the match? It was the usual preseason fare, devoid of cohesion or meaning and littered with substitutions that called to mind Eriksson’s dreadful devaluation of England friendlies.

When he sent on Matthew Mills and Danny Mills in the second half, we half expected Mrs Mills to complete the set.

City were the better team and created most of the chances but Rovers led at half-time through Sean McDaid, a former Leeds midfielder, who profited from some disorganised defending. The Premier League team then took charge in the second half, with goals from Corradi, Micah Richards and Emile Mpenza. After a dodgy start, it was a routine win in the end - in Sven-speak a case of second half good, first half not so good.

City’s first real test comes in four weeks’ time, when they are away to West Ham on the Premier League’s opening day. By then Eriksson, who before yesterday’s match signed Gelson Fernandes, a Swiss under21 international midfielder from FC Sion for £2m and appointed fellow Swede and former FC Copenhagen manager Hans Backe as his assistant, hopes to have strengthened his squad significantly by acquiring Anthony Gardner, the Tottenham centre-half, and Bar-celona’s Ludovic Giuly. His intention is to rebuild around the existing nucleus provided by England’s Richards, Michael Ball, Richard Dunne, Darius Vassell, Bianchi, Fernandes and Michael Johnson, their 19-year-old midfield prospect.

Rovers, seeking to get back into the second tier for the first time since 1958, start at home to Millwall. If Paul Heffernan, who scored 21 goals last season, stays fit, they are worth a modest wager.

Doncaster Rovers: Sullivan (Smith ht), Green, Greer (Hardy 83min), Lockwood (Boyce 82min), Roberts (Winters ht), Guy, Wellens (Hird 57min), Woods, McDaid, Hayter (Nelthorpe 63min), Heffernan (Dyer 63min)

Manchester City: Isaksson (Hart ht), Richards (D Mills 69), Ball, Onuoha (M Mills 69min), Dabo (Hamann ht), Dunne, Mpenza (Dickov 69min), Vassell (Corradi ht), Samaras, Miller (Johnson ht), Ireland.

Scorers -

Doncaster Rovers: McDaid 64

Manchester City: Corradi 48, Richards 62, Mpenza 64

Attendance: 6,375