Jim's column 10.9.11

Bill Hall emailed me this week with a couple of interesting questions. Firstly, he remembers back in the late 50's, possibly 1959 or 1960) that Coventry had a key promotion game at Highfield Road and just before the game kicked off the loudspeaker announcer asked if Jack Boxley (a City player at the time) was in the ground. Unfortunately he was not, and, a young player appeared on the left wing for the City. Bill wondered if his memory was playing tricks on him and asks if it is true, then what were the circumstances. The game in question was a Third Division game in February 1960 versus Bury. Jack Boxley's car broke down on the way from his home in Bristol to Highfield Road and third team full-back Brian Shepherd had to play in his place. Shepherd had played 20-odd games for the first team, so it wasn't his debut. City lost 0-1 to the Shakers, a defeat which dented their promotion hopes. Bury went on to win promotion to Division Two. I don’t think manager Billy Frith ever forgave Boxley as he rarely played for the club again that season and was released in the close season.

Bill also wanted to know City’s team in the FA Youth Cup final in 1970. In a classic series of games with Tottenham Hotspur, the Sky Blues’ youngsters, coached by 60s star Ron Farmer, unluckily lost in the second replay after each had won their home leg and the first replay at Highfield Road ended all square.

City’s team for the first of the four games was David Icke: Ivan Crossley, Jimmy Holmes, Dennis Mortimer, Alan Dugdale, Bobby Parker, Trevor Smith, Alan Green, Colin Randell, Mick McGuire and Johnny Stevenson. For the second and subsequent games Les Cartwright played in place of Smith.

Tottenham’s team included several players who had either already appeared in the first team or who went on to have notable careers away from White Hart Lane. Steve Perrryman was already a first team squad member and Graeme Souness went on to greater things at Middlesbrough and Liverpool. The centre-forward was Ray Clarke who had a good career in the lower divisions, helping Mansfield put the Sky Blues out of the League Cup in 1975, and later becoming City’s European scout during Gordon Strachan’s reign. 

Last week’s comment about the fact that it had been 343 days since the club last signed an outfield player (between Marlon King and Cody McDonald) prompted fellow City historian Paul O’Connor to send me an email. Whilst he thought the statistic interesting he thought it was a bit disingenuous as we had bought players (Murphy and Dunn) in the meantime. It did however remind him of the stability of the squad in the John Sillett era when he signed Dougie McGuire on 10 August 1988 for £40,000 followed by Keith Thompson on a free transfer from Oviedo in September 1988 (he wasn’t sure of date), but it was not until 28 June 1989 that he bought Peter Billing from Crewe Alexandra for £120,000. He also pointed out that those were the days of unrestricted signings during the season, until the traditional March transfer deadline. This had been the second consecutive season of little transfer activity as 1987-88 only saw the arrival of  David Speedie and Gary Bannister and followed Sillett’s comments on signing Speedie that ‘from now on Coventry City will be shopping at Harrods not Woolworths’.

The subscribers’ list for my new book ‘Sky Blue Revolution’ has now closed but the book can be ordered at www.desertislandbooks.com . The book will be available in the shops before the end of the month.