Jim's column 8.10.2016

Back-to-back wins in four days this week have lifted spirits amongst Sky Blues' fans. The league run of 10 without a win was finally ended at Port Vale and this was followed by a second victory in the Football League Trophy, Northampton becoming the latest victims.The victory in the Potteries was very welcome and ensures the club record of 19 without a win from the start of the season, set in 1919, stays intact.

Tuesday night's attendance was another pathetically low 2,085, six less than the West Ham game in the same competition, and therefore the lowest since that infamous game v Millwall in 1985. Since writing about that game a few weeks ago I have been doing some more research and discovered from the club's attendance books, that the crowd, reported as 1,086 at the time, was later revised slightly to 1,111. With the Sky Blues now through to round two, one can only hope that crowds will pick up.

It was an exciting start to the match on Tuesday with two goals in the first ninety seconds. Dan Agyei netted with a brilliant solo effort initially-timed at 24 seconds before Marc Richards equalised after 60 seconds. Several City fans have pointed out that Agyei's goal was scored after 20 seconds and having watched the clip on Sky Blue Player I have concluded that it hit the net 19.5 seconds after the kick-off. Many fans were wondering if Agyei's effort was the fastest goal by a City player but sadly this is not the case. It was however the fastest goal at the Ricoh since the move there in 2005 – beating the 27-second goal by Reading's Grzegorz Rasiak in the Royals 3-1 victory in 2009. The previous fastest by a City player at the ground was Clinton Morrison 37-second effort in a 2-2 draw with Ipswich in 2008. It was also the fastest by a Sky Blue man for fourteen years – since Gary McSheffrey netted after 12 seconds against Colchester United in a League Cup tie at Highfield Road.

Goal-times in pre-war games are notoriously dubious and the fastest City goals that I have recorded are:

1954/55	Eddie Brown	Reading	H	12 secs	2-1
2002/03	Gary McSheffrey	Colchester (LC)	H	12 secs	3-0
2001/02	Youssef Chippo	Barnsley	H	13 secs	4-0
1982/83	Mark Hateley	Southampton	A	14 secs	1-1
1962/63	Jimmy Whitehouse	Lincoln (FAC)	A	15 secs	5-1
1977/78	Mick Ferguson	Birmingham	H	25 secs	4-0
1981/82	Gerry Daly	Stoke	H	27 secs	3-0
1989/90	Steve Livingstone	Chelsea	H	28 secs	3-2
1948/49	Peter Murphy	Lincoln	H	30 secs	1-0
1953/54	Gordon Nutt	Walsall	H	30 secs	2-0

My recent piece about the 1967 game at Highfield Road against West Ham for the Winston Churchill Trophy generated a lot of interest and David Whitlock emailed to say he has the programme and was at the game as a 13-year old. Paul Richardson also emailed to point out that he and several of his school friends went to the Friday night game specifically to watch the three West Ham World Cup stars. In those days there were few opportunities to see the real stars of British football – BBC's Match of the Day only featured one game and ITV's Star Soccer focused on Midland clubs – and there was no wall to wall coverage of domestic football. For Coventrians this was one of the first chances to see Messrs Moore, Hurst and Peters (although Peters was ruled out of the game with injury) since the 1966 World Cup final. Paul became a City fan that night and remains one to this day. I've had no responses to my question: 'What happened to the trophy?' although West Ham contacts have confirmed that it isn't in their trophy cabinet. I have to conclude that Coventry City kept the trophy after the West Ham game and it was destroyed in the Main Stand fire twelve months later.