Coventry City's
miserable season hit another low on Sunday as they capitulated to
League Two Cambridge United in their FA Cup clash. For the third
season running the Sky Blues have been knocked out of the competition
by a club from a lower status; Cambridge following Worcester City and
Northampton Town as David's to City's Goliath. Few City fans
travelled with confidence but the size of the defeat, 4-0, was a
shock, being the club's heaviest loss to a lower status club since
they first entered the Cup in 1895. Before Sunday City had lost only
once by more than two goals to a lesser club – in 1922 as a
Division 2 side they were defeated 3-0 at New Brighton from the
Lancashire Combination in the equivalent of the First Round.
Another record set on
Sunday was the four goals by Cambridge's Luke Berry – the first man
to score four against the club in an FA Cup game. Berry has never
been a prolific scorer – in 2014-15 he made 31 appearances for
Barnsley and scored once – but it was a day to remember for him on
Sunday. Berry is only the fourth opposition player to score four in a
game since the war, the others being:-
1946-47 Jackie Gibbons
(Bradford P.A. A) City lost 1-5
1983-84 Ian Rush
(Liverpool A) City lost 0-5
2000-01 Jimmy Floyd
Hasselbaink (Chelsea A) City lost 1-6
Since JFH's four goals
sixteen years ago, City have only had seven hat-tricks scored against
them, and two of them came on successive Saturdays in 2013 when Nahki
Wells (Bradford City) and Ryan Lowe (Tranmere) netted three each. The
last FA Cup hat-trick by an opponent was by Colchester's Rowan Vine
in 2004 in a 3-1 replay defeat at Layer Road.
I always rely on fellow
City historian Geoff Moore when it comes to City's youngest and
oldest teams and he has been in touch recently. City's youngest ever
starting line up was at Manchester City in November 1980 when Gordon
Milne put out a side with an average age of 21 years and 58 days.
That team was: Les
Sealey
(23), Steve Jacobs (19), Brian Roberts (25), Andy Blair (20), Paul
Dyson (20), Gary Gillespie (20), Peter Bodak (19), Garry Thompson
(21), Mark Hateley (19), Danny Thomas (19), Steve Hunt (24). Nine
homegrown players plus Gillespie who was signed as a 17-year old.
Geoff
informs me that the youngest starting team this season was Scunthorpe
(h) with an average age of 22 years 59 days but for the FLT game at
Wycombe last month the average was 21 years 120 days. That line up
was:
Charles-Cook
(22), Dion Kelly-Evans (20), Sterry (21), Finch (20), Turnbull (22),
Harries (19), Lameiras (21), Rose (26), Maycock (18),Thomas (19),
McBean (21).
At
half-time Haynes (21), Jones (19) and Bigirimana (23) were introduced
for Sterry, Rose and Lameiras, bringing the average age down to 20
years 274 days, the youngest Coventry City side on the pitch for a
competitive game.
Robert
Yates enjoyed my piece last week on the two memorable games 50 years
ago. He wrote:
'I
remember that season well, going to all the home games and selected
away games, I was 18 that year, and not having my own car yet, took
the trip to the Wolves game on the Red House coach, probably costing
about 7/6d. I was on the South Bank at Molineux, rather conspicuous
in my blue mac and sky blue 6 foot college scarf, but it was an
incredible game, and with your details from the
game,
it could have happened yesterday, but I remember Gibson's goal at our
end and as you say, a lot of Wolves pressure after that.
After
Wolves had equalized, and were pressing hard, there was an amazing
miss by Ernie Hunt, but some local guys behind me said, "Eh, you
don't support this lot , do you mate?" after that City scored
two more goals and I looked around and my local commentators had
disappeared!
The
Ipswich game was also incredible on the Friday night as they were top
of the league at the time, and I remember the headlines in the
Coventry Telegraph the next day; "Sky Blues G-men (Gould and
Gibson) Grill the Leaders". John Key scored in both games and
was a very under-rated player on the right wing.
Amazing,
that then you had to catch up with the stories mainly in the 'Pink'
and other papers, there was no local radio phone ins!'
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