Fellow historian and
collector of Sky Blue photographs and videos Dean Nelson posted an
interesting picture on Twitter last week. It featured the green
shirts that City wore just twice at the start of the 1969-70 season.
The club had ditched the all-red change kit that they had worn since
1962 and had chosen a snazzy green and black striped kit.
Unfortunately the new strip wasn't ready by the time of the first
colour clash at West Brom on 20th August and a novel solution was
found. Instead of digging out the old red kit the kit suppliers came
up with some green shirts and black shorts and City took the field at
the Hawthorns looking very dapper. A Jeff Blockley goal secured the
points for Noel Cantwell's team and three days later, at Ipswich,
with City in the green shirts again, a Willie Carr effort made it two
away wins on the bounce.
The next colour clash
didn't occur until 20th September at Manchester City and by then the
new striped kit had arrived and City duly wore it, only to fall to a
3-1 defeat. The new kit got a second outing at Stamford Bridge in
early November and its third appearance, at Hillsborough in January,
saw City record their first victory in the kit. Its fourth and final
appearance was at Goodison Park in March when City pulled off a brave
and deserved 0-0 draw against the champions-elect.
Several City shirt
collectors had no knowledge of the rare green shirts, which the Sky
Blues were unbeaten in, and are desperate for any information on
them. Does anyone know any more about these lucky shirts?
On Twitter, Heath
Stansfield wanted to know when Cyrille Regis made his debut for City.
Big Cyrille was signed from West Brom by Bobby Gould on 11th October
1984 for a fee of £300,000 and 48 hours later made his debut at home
to Newcastle in a 1-1 draw. City were in the bottom three, despite a
1-0 win at Watford the previous week, and had been embarrassingly
dumped out of the League Cup by Third Division Walsall in the
midweek. Peter Beardsley gave the visitors the lead from the penalty
spot after Kenny Hibbitt was adjudged to have handled the ball.
Hibbitt went from villain to hero fifteen minutes from time when his
swerving free-kick earned a point.
City's line up that day
was: Ogrizovic: Stephens, Adams, Hibbitt, Butterworth, Peake,
Bennett, Gynn, Regis, Gibson, Barnes. The attendance was 14,030 and
the highlights of the game can be found on YouTube, courtesy of Dean
Nelson.
Last week I listed the
eighteen players who have had two spells at Coventry City and have to
admit I omitted two. Thanks to Terje Johansen and Jamie Brown for
pointing out that Les Sealey and Gary Gillespie both had second
spells at the club. Les came through an apprenticeship at the club
and signed as a full professional in 1976, going on to make 178
appearances before leaving to join Luton in 1983. He returned in
1992, on loan from Aston Villa, and made two further appearances
under Don Howe.
Gillespie was signed
from Falkirk by Gordon Milne in 1978 and played 200 games for the Sky
Blues before joining Liverpool in 1983. He rejoined the club in 1994
and played a further four games before leaving the game.
A reminder that my
latest book, Play Up Sky Blues, the story of the memorable 1966-67
season, is due to be published in October and is available for
pre-order on Amazon.
If you have any
questions regarding the club's history please contact me on
clarriebourton@gmail.com
and I will endeavour to answer them. Alternatively you can contact me
on Twitter @clarriebourton
Posts
