A week
tomorrow Coventry City are back at Wembley after a break of thirty
years. As I have written previously, only City & Fulham of teams
from the top three divisions have not appeared at the old or new
Wembley in the intervening years. The circumstances however are very
different. In 1987 City were having the club's best league season for
almost ten years. Under the shrewd management of George Curtis and
John Sillett they had been comfortably in the top ten all season,
winning 14 out of 21 home games and since reaching Wembley by beating
Leeds in the semi-final, they had lost just once in eight games.
Confidence was high and although they finished tenth in the league
they were only three points off sixth place.
Thirty years on it is a different story with the
club in one of its worst runs ever with only two wins in 23 league
games and on their fourth manager of the campaign. Relegation to the
fourth tier is virtually certain and the team will struggle to reach
forty points. There have been numerous nightmare games, home and
away, and we can only hope that the team puts on a good performance
at Wembley, win or lose. It would be a sad day if the players didn't
perform on this big day for the club and the supporters who will turn
the great stadium into a sea of sky blue. Have a great day City fans,
you deserve it!
Arthur Warner, a regular reader from Binley wrote
to me recently:
Your article about Christmas matches a few weeks
ago brought back memories of the Liverpool Boxing Day match of 1967.
I was there in the Sky Blue Stand at the Kop end which was the end
that Gerry Baker scored the equaliser in the 1-1 draw. I remember the
sending off of Ian St John for the punch on Brian Lewis, a hard
midfield player who gave no quarter. The that the company I worked
for in the 1980's had a forum at Highfield Road, and after lunch
there was a talk from Ian St John. He talked about his time with
Liverpool and talked about his sending off against the City in 1967.
He told us that the great Bill Shankly, the Liverpool manager at the
time, told him to report the next day at the training ground. On
reporting Shankly told him to strip off and proceeded to black him up
in the lower regions. It appears that it was a Gascoigne/Vinny Jones
moment that caused the sending off. Shankly then invited the press in
to show them what Coventry had done to 'his boy'.
Relating this story to friends in the pub before
the Port Vale game someone suggested that in those days you had to do
something pretty bad to get sent off, normally involving punches and
fighting, and players rarely got sent off for bad fouls. I thought I
would do some research into City's red cards over the years.
The first conclusion is that there were far fewer
dismissals in those days; the chart below analyses City's 144 red
cards since they joined the league in 1919.
|
1920s
|
4
|
|
1930s
|
2
|
|
1940s
|
4
|
|
1950s
|
3
|
|
1960s
|
5
|
|
1970s
|
11
|
|
1980s
|
17
|
|
1990s
|
32
|
|
2000s
|
43
|
|
2010s
|
23
|
|
Total
|
144
|
Before the 1960s
dismissals were very rare indeed and in the six seasons that Jimmy
Hill was manager (1961-67) only one player, George Hudson, got his
marching orders. 'The Hud' was sent off at Huddersfield in 1965 for
flooring John Coddington with a punch. I can only find one dismissal
before the 1970s that was not for fighting or raising hands – Frank
Kletzenbauer was sent off for two bad challenges on QPR's Clive Clark
in an FA Cup match in 1960. Older fans will remember Maurice Setters
and Liverpool's Alun Evans being ordered off at Highfield Road in a
nail-biting 0-0 draw that kept City up in 1969.
In the 1970s
retaliation became popular and Chris Cattlin, Donal Murphy and Jimmy
Holmes all got sent off for that offence with the real culprits
(Bobby Gould, Kenny Burns & Francis Lee) all getting off
scot-free.
In the 1980s it was
still more common for players to be sent off for punches or, in Steve
Hunt's case, a head-butt, and Steve Jacobs, Terry Gibson (twice),
Gary Bannister & David Speedie all saw red for adopting Marquis
of Queensbury rules. The 1990s saw a rapid growth in red cards for
the Sky Blues with the peak being hit in 1996-97 when six red cards
equaled the total of the 20 mid-war years. That was topped in both
2001-02 and 2002-03 when City had seven men sent off in each season.
However there has been a downturn since 2010 with only one dismissal
in 2012-13 and two the following season. The type of offences has
changed too – of the 54 red cards since 2002 only three players
have been sent off for striking an opponent, Michael Doyle, Marlon
King and Reda Johnson, and there are far more dismissals for
persistent fouling, dissent and foul language.
This season City have
picked up five red cards, the highest number since 2002-03, with
young players bearing the brunt. It was more the exuberance of Ben
Stevenson & Dion Kelly-Evans rather than malice that got them
sent off in their first season, and Willis, Turnbull and Page were
probably let down by their relative inexperience.
Finally, we are only
two weeks away from the 10th annual Legends Day organised
by the Former Players Association (CCFPA). Already more than 40 Sky
Blue stars of the past are lined up to attend & it promises to be
another great day on 8th April. A large contingent from
Scotland will be in attendance including Tommy Hutchison, Roy Barry
and Ian Wallace. The 1967 Division Two championship side, celebrating
their 50th anniversary will be well represented and
include Bill Glazier flying in from Spain and John Tudor coming from
the USA. It's also 30 years since the FA Cup victory and the 1987
side will be well represented. The football club are still taking
bookings for the day and fans interested in being in the presence of
our Legends should contact Suzette or Tynan at 024 7699 2330
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