Jim's Column 2.3.2013

It's Legends Day at the Ricoh Arena again today and whilst preparing to write this week’s column I looked back two years to see what I said about Legends Day 2011. Then it coincided with a new board at the football club and I wrote the following:

The faces in the boardroom are mostly new but the owner, SISU, is unchanged and little was said to reassure the long-suffering fans that much will change. SISU have had three years to progress the stadium ownership issue and have achieved little. Before SISU, Paul Fletcher, easily the best Chief Executive in the modern era in my opinion, resigned in frustration at the lack of progress with the owners of the stadium (and too much tinkering from a chairman who thought he knew best). In the three years since SISU saved the club in the last crisis there has been little or no progress on the playing side. On Wednesday the new chairman (Ken Dulieu) got off to a bad start when his assertion that a meeting was planned with the council was exposed as a myth by council leader John Mutton.

One way forward may be for all the parties (including the politicians) to get off their high horses, stop posturing and sit down together and thrash out a solution that benefits the football club’s supporters and the city of Coventry. Until that happens our football club will just stagger from this disaster to the next.

Sadly I could have written virtually the same piece today as the stadium issue (and it's not just about rent) rumbles on unresolved. None of the parties in this whole sordid soap-opera is blameless but having rejected the Manhattan Capital Partners and Paul Fletcher in 2007 and SISU subsequently, I just wonder who Coventry Council and the Higgs Trust would do business with. When one scans the owners of Premiership and Football League sides I struggle to find many who would surely satisfy the council's criteria. In the intervening two years the club's on-field fortunes have slipped and no prospective owner would countenance buying the club without the stadium issue removed as the club is financially unsustainable in its present state. Unless of course a Russian or Arab oligarch is prepared to bank roll the club - but would the council deal with them?

Back to something far more important today - the seventh annual Legends Day, organised by the Former Players Association, with around 50 former players planning to attend. All eras are well represented especially the 1970s with some of the great names from that decade including Colin Stein, Tommy Hutchison, Roy Barry, Willie Carr and Ernie Hunt amongst others. The traditional half-time parade will take place so I urge you to be in your seats to give these great servants of the club a rousing reception that befits their status. After the game the legends will be in The G-Casino to meet the fans and have some fun on stage. It promises to be another great day. I am not too modest to say that in the six years since the inaugural Legends Day the Former Players Association have achieved all that it set out to. That was to bring the former

 players and managers back to the club to meet their old colleagues and ensure their place in the club’s history was properly recognised.  To all my fellow committee members and all the friends who give their time to help us at our events, a massive thank you.

Tuesday night's victory at Bournemouth (the first league win there since 1957) was the 10th away win of the season and equalled the record set by Noel Cantwell's team in 1969-70.  With three away wins in Cup competitions (Dagenham & Redbridge, York & Crewe) City's travelling army have had much more to shout about than last season when only one away win was achieved all season.  My away following records only go back to 2006 but this season’s league average is currently 1,153 which is the best since my records begin. Last season an average of 918 followed the team so that is a 25% increase, in a lower division. One wonders if the home gates would have seen a similar increase if the home form had been as impressive.

Southampton’s central defender Aaron Martin arrived on loan this week and made his debut at Bournemouth. By all accounts it was an impressive debut by the 23-year old. Aaron becomes the tenth loanee used by the Sky Blues this season. This is just one short of the club’s highest number, 11 used in 2002-03. For me that was the worst season I have ever witnessed as a fan and the quality of the loanees was generally poor. For the record the magnificent eleven were:

Steve Walsh, Gary Caldwell, Richie Partridge, Brian Kerr,  Craig Hignett, Jamie McMaster, Dean Holdsworth, Juan Sara, Vicente Engonga, Christian Yulu, Matt Jansen.

My views on loan players was previously tainted by the poor quality of players acquired in the early seasons out of the Premiership but this season the quality has generally been far superior than in previous campaigns and players like Bailey, McGoldrick and Leon Clarke have turned our season around.