City’s run of good home form
continued last Saturday with a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Nottingham
Forest. Since losing to Leicester City on the opening day of the season the Sky
Blues are unbeaten in five home games, with two wins and three draws. The
current run is the best the club have had since the winter of 2009-10 when
Chris Coleman’s team went unbeaten in seven, including six wins. That run,
between December and March helped lift the Sky Blues into the edge of the
play-off places but once the run was ended Coleman’s team’s form collapsed and
they failed to win any of their last six home games.
In the years since relegation
from the Premiership in 2001, numerous City managers have talked about building
Fortress Ricoh but none have really achieved it. The best home run since 2001
was under Micky Adams just after the move to the Ricoh. Between November 2005
and April 2006 City went twelve home games unbeaten, with the help of Dennis
Wise. One interesting statistic is that since Andy Thorn took over as manager
in March only one of 10 home games has been lost.
City’s second win of the season
coincided with another goalkeeping substitution by the Sky Blues. The other
victory, over Derby, also saw the injured Joe Murphy substituted by Chris Dunn.
For Coventry City goalkeeping substitutions are a relatively modern phenomenon.
During Steve Ogrizovic’s long reign as City goalkeeper he hardly ever had to be
substituted. I remember in the days before goalkeeping substitutes were allowed,
in 1996, Oggy was injured at Millwall and David Speedie went in goal. Then
after the subs were increased to five in 1996, Oggy was replaced by John Filan
at Highbury after a blood-curdling challenge by Ian Wright left Oggy out cold
on a stretcher.
Since the club’s relegation in
2002 there were only three goalkeeper substitutions in seven seasons. However
in the last three seasons and a bit there have been eight goalkeeping
substitutions, five of them involving an ‘injury’ to Keiron Westwood and now two
to Joe Murphy, the otehr being last season at Watford when loanee Iain Turner
was injured and replaced by Michael Quirke. One wonders if goalkeepers are
getting soft.
Last week I mentioned that
current QPR boss Neil Warnock had managed Scarborough to victory over the Sky
Blues in 1992 and Dean Nelson reminded me that Warnock’s involvement with
City’s history goes even further back. Warnock
was manager of Burton Albion against Leicester City in an FA Cup match
which had to be replayed behind closed doors at Highfield Road in 1985 after
crowd trouble in the first match. Back in 1972 Warnock was also in the
Hartlepool side beaten in a League Cup tie at Highfield Road.
Talking of Dean - the man who has
a wonderful collection of Coventry City video clips - he has prepared an
excellent DVD of 1960s highlights which will be shown at the G-Casino today at
my Sky Blue Revolution book signing sessions, before and after the match
against Burnley. For the book signing I will be joined by 1960s City legends
Mick Kearns, Dietmar Bruck and Ronnie Farmer.
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