Another disappointing
away defeat at Oldham on Tuesday night saw the Sky Blues plunge to
20th place in League One. It was the tenth away league
game without a win, since Steven Pressley's men won 2-1 at Crewe at
the end of March. Of the side who started at Oldham only two appeared
at Crewe that day, Andy Webster & Jordan Willis. The fact there
are so many new faces in the side might be one of the reasons behind
City's form but having said that the side went seven games unbeaten
earlier in the season.
The run has to get a
lot worse to match the woeful away record under Andy Thorn when the
team went 21 away league games without a win between April 2011 &
April 2012, or the club's worst ever run of 28 in the 1920s.
The defeat at Boundary
Park was the worst league defeat since the 1-5 thrashing by Tranmere
at home last season & the worst on the road in the league since
the 0-4 at Walsall in 2013.
City's away following
on Tuesday night, 223, was the lowest of the season and you have to
go back to March 2012 to find the previous lowest when 211 brave
souls travelled to Cardiff for a midweek 2-2 draw. City's average
away following is currently 1,190, one of the best in the division.
Last Saturday league
leaders Bristol City had almost 3,800 fans at the Ricoh to see them
win 3-1. That was the best away following at the Ricoh since
Birmingham City brought 5,700 supporters in March 2012. In a crowd of
over 22,000 City drew 1-1 – Marlon King replying for Blues two
minutes after Gary McSheffrey had put City ahead.
Last week's review of
the George Raynor book attracted a lot of interest from readers.
Graham Smith tells me that there is a feature film coming out in the
next couple of months about the legendary Brazilian Pele and George
Raynor, played by Irish actor Colm Meaney. Raynor was the Swedish
coach in the 1958 World Cup final when a 17-year old Pele introduced
himself to the world, scoring twice & helping Brazil to beat the
Swedes 5-2.
Kevin Ring reminded me
that there is another, much older book, written by Raynor himself -
'Football Ambassador at Large'. There is a whole chapter on Coventry
City and his year long battle with Erle Shanks and the Coventry board
and he talks about the couldn't care less attitude of some City
players. In the new book Ashley Hyne mentions Raynor's autobiography,
which was ghost-written by famous BBC commentator Kenneth
Wolstenholme. It's publication in 1960 by Stanley Paul was
controversial in that Raynor strongly criticised the Football
Association, who took legal action which had the book removed from
book shops but not before several thousand copies had been sold. The
book later had the offending passages removed & was re-printed by
the Soccer Book Club. If Raynor had any chances of a job in the FA
the less than subtle comments in the book scuppered them. Kevin also
tells me that George lived on the Binley Road, on the corner of
Uxbridge Avenue & the property is still standing.
Reader Tom Cope posed
an interesting question- how many corners were there in the 1987 FA
Cup final? The answer is that over the full 120 minutes including
extra time there were 17 corners, 12 to Tottenham & five to the
Sky Blues.
Another reader Keith
Ballantyne asked me who the second Coventry City player to win a full
international cap for England. He knows that Reg Matthews was the
first in 1956 when the Cov kid won five caps in goal and was never on
the losing side. The second came 27 years later when Danny Thomas won
two caps on a summer tour of Australia. Both games, played in Sydney
& Melbourne, ended in draws & Danny (pictured below) started in Sydney but was
only a substitute in Melbourne. The only other Coventry City players
to win full England caps are Cyrille Regis (one cap v Turkey in 1987)
and Dion Dublin (three caps in 1998).