A new season is upon us
today and it just seems like yesterday that I was watching City's
final games, the FA Cup final and the Champions League final. I know
I say it every year but the close season is too short. Mind you 50
years ago last weekend England were winning the World Cup and just
seven days later the Sky Blues played their first pre-season
friendly!
A trip to Swindon is
not one City fans will relish today, especially when you consider the
last four visits. In each of those games City looked set for
victories only to be pegged back. Last season they had two-goal lead
with Reice Charles-Cook breaking Oggy's post-war shutout record and
looking impregnable only to concede twice in the final seven minutes
to turn a victory into a draw. It was a similar story in the 1-1 the
previous season with a late home goal cancelling McQuoid's opener and
in 2013-14 two home goals in the final 14 minutes turned victory into
defeat. Two goals from David McGoldrick in 2012-13 looked to have
sealed a victory with 13 minutes remaining but the Robins pulled two
goals out of the hat to foil the Sky Blues. You have to go back to
December 1960 for City's last league win at the County Ground when
goals from Billy Myerscough and Ray Straw gave City a 2-1 win in a
Division Three game. The picture at home against the Robins is little
better – Swindon have won three of their last four visits to the
Ricoh and the Sky Blues last win was in 1964 – 3-2 with goals from
Machin, Hudson and Hale. So my message to City fans today is, be
patient and don't expect too much.
Moving on to Tuesday
evening and the first home game, a League Cup tie with League Two
Portsmouth. It is the first League Cup tie at the Ricoh for four
years with City having played Cardiff at Sixfields, sandwiched
between away exits from the competition at Leyton Orient and
Rochdale. That last tie was a thrilling 3-2 victory over Championship
side Birmingham City just two days after manager Andy Thorn was
sacked. Richard Shaw was caretaker boss and guided the Sky Blues to a
famous victory with goals from Cody McDonald, Kevin Kilbane and an
extra-time winner from Carl Baker.
Pompey are managed by
former City player Paul Cook, a talented midfielder who was left in
the cold after the arrival of Ron Atkinson in 1995. In his team he is
likely to have former City players Michael Doyle and Carl Baker and
I'm sure they will get good receptions from City fans. The clubs have
met three times in the competition previously with Pompey winning
twice at home in the 1960s and Coventry progressing in 1968 with a
2-0 win at Highfield Road. The first meeting was in the inaugural
season of the competition in 1960-61 when after defeating Barrow 4-2
at home, City lost 0-2 at Fratton Park in front of a miniscule crowd
of 4,533. Two years later Jimmy Hill rested a couple of players and
was undone by Albert McCann, a player he had released a few months
earlier. Big Ron Saunders scored a couple in a 5-1 thrashing.
The Highfield Road game
in 1968 reminds me of the great form the late Ian Gibson was in at
the time. He scored one and set up the other goal for Ernie Hunt in
front of a crowd of 20,946 – what would the club give for a gate
like that on Tuesday night.
Talking of 'Gibbo'
reminds me sadly that two fine former players passed away this
summer. Gibbo died at the age of 73 at the end of May and six weeks
later his former team-mate John O'Rourke passed away, aged 71.
'Gibbo' is best remembered for the massive role he played in the
Second Division Championship season of 1966-67 and some of his
outrageous goals and tricks but he and O'Rourke were key players in
City's most successful top flight season, 1969-70, when Noel
Cantwell's team qualified for Europe by virtue of finishing sixth in
Division One. Gibbo was sold the following summer and never played
for the Sky Blues in Europe but O'Rourke left his mark by snatching a
hat-trick in the club's opening game in the Fairs Cup in a 4-1 away
win against Trakia Plovdiv.
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