Jim's column 27.4.2019

Colin Collindridge (15.11.1920- 14.4.2019)

Former Coventry City winger Colin Collindridge sadly passed away two weeks ago, aged 98. By the time he arrived at Coventry in 1954 he was somewhat of a veteran and played only 35 games for the Bantams. Sadly City's oldest former player and CCFPA's oldest member didn't quite manage the century.

Colin was born into a Barnsley mining family in 1920 and, as with a number of other players of the time, professional football provided a route out of the pits. After being spotted playing for local side Wombwell Athletic and signing briefly for Rotherham United in 1937 Colin made the significant step up to the big time with Sheffield United signing him in January 1939 months before the outbreak of World War Two. Colin couldn't break into the first team in that last season before the hostilities as the Blades won promotion to Division One, pipping Coventry to the post.

A pacey and direct forward (mainly at outside left but sometimes as centre forward) Colin became a Bramall Lane regular in the first two seasons of unofficial wartime football before joining the war effort in the RAF. He had the unenviable and dangerous job of loading ammunitions on Wellington bombers around the country and his forthright and uncompromising views to the top brass he claimed prevented his progression through the ranks! During the war as he moved around the country he was also able to appear as a guest for the likes of Chesterfield, Notts County, Lincoln City and Oldham Athletic. 

In 1945 the Blades took up where they had left off in 1939, winning the Football League North (in an intermediate season before league football recommenced in 1946). Colin, playing centre-forward, notched 12 goals in 19 league games and four FA Cup goals including a hat-trick against Stoke in front of a capacity 50,000 crowd at Bramall Lane.
Colin was a regular in the Blades side over the first four post-war seasons and top scorer in the first three, playing over 150 first team games and scoring 58 goals before being transferred to Nottingham Forest in August 1950. Colin was idolised at Bramall Lane (and that is probably where his footballing heart really lay).

When Colin joined Forest they were in the old Division Three South and in his first season his 16 goals and many assists helped them to promotion to Division Two and made him a favourite at the City Ground. In four seasons he made 156 first team appearances, scoring 47 goals and forged an effective left wing partnership with Tommy Capel as Forest came close to promotion to Division One. 

In June 1954 Coventry manager Jack Fairbrother signed the pair for Coventry City, allegedly for a £20,000 fee despite both being well into their thirties. The pair made their debut in a 1-0 home win over Bournemouth in front of 19,000. Things started well as 'the team that Jack built' won six of their first seven games with the left-wing pair in starring roles but then star centre-forward Eddie Brown was sold to Birmingham and the wheels fell off, Fairbrother resigned, Colin got injured and City slid down the table. He returned from his injury after Christmas and made 24 appearances scoring three goals in a Bantams side that finished ninth in Division Three South.

Jesse Carver took over as manager in the summer of 1955 and the 34-year-old Collindridge struggled to get a place playing 11 games, scoring three goals. His final game for the Bantams was a 3-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace in March 1956 and in July of that year he joined Southern League Bath City. Later he gained management experience with Arnold St Mary’s in Nottingham from 1959 in a successful period for that club.

In retirement Colin lived with his wife in Newark near Nottingham and was visited by CCFPA committee member Mike Young who found him 'sprightly, engaging, sociable and forthright in his advancing years'. Often difficult to ‘get a word in edgeways’ when Colin reminisced about his long life and playing career before memory lapses took a hold he would hold forth on City personalities of his day such as Tommy Capel, Martin McDonnell, Iain Jamieson, Jack Fairbrother, Noel Simpson and Charlie Elliott. Sadly his physical limitations meant he was never able to attend a game at the Ricoh.

Colin Collindridge's debut for Coventry v Bournemouth 21-08-1954 (Colin is far right in front row)

In recent times Colin has been a well loved resident of a Nottinghamshire Care Home where his fragile health was nursed until his death and we include a photo off him earlier this year sent to us by his good friend and former neighbour John Marum who has kept CCFPA in touch with Colin’s progress recently. 

Colin will be deeply missed, a genuine one-off with an ebullient personality from a very different era in football’s history. RIP Colin!

Colin's funeral will take place on Friday 10th May, 2:20pm at Wilford Hill Crematorium, Loughborough Road, Nottingham, NG2 7FE. Many thanks to Mike Young for his assistance in this tribute.

Jim's column 20.4.2019

Saturday’s amazing 5-4 victory at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light was a gift for me in more ways than one. It generated a good number of statistical facts as well as giving me a very warm glow that will last for some weeks. I didn’t go to the North East but did watch the game on ifollow and could barely believe the drama being played out 200 miles away. In my opinion it was one of their finest away performances since they left the Premiership and I'm not going to apologise for concentrating on the game this week.
5-4 is a very rare scoreline and prior to Saturday City had only been on the winning side of this score on five occasions, all at home:
1962-63 v Halifax Town

(George Hudson’s hat-trick debut)

1964-65 v Newcastle United

(City hanging on after leading 5-1)

1977-78 v Norwich City

(Ian Wallace’s overhead kick, Graydon’s late winner before Jim Blyth saved a penalty which would have made it 5-5)

1990-91 v Nottingham Forest

(A League Cup thriller with City 4-0 ahead only to be pegged back to 4-4 before Livingstone’s winner)

2013-14 v Bristol City

(First game at Sixfields. City pegged back after leading 3-0 before Billy Daniels grabbed the winner)

The win was City's first ever 5-4 victory away from home. There have been only 74 occurrences of a 5-4 away win in League history, the last in 2017 when Fulham won 5-4 at Bramall Lane.

It was the first League defeat Sunderland had suffered since before Christmas and their first home defeat of the season. On top of that it was the first time that the club had conceded five in a home game since 1981 when on Bryan Robson’s debut Manchester United had won 5-1 with a young Nick Pickering in the Black Cats team.
The other record was that it was the first time in a Coventry City game where there were nine different scorers, equalling a Football League record. It has been done on forty or so previous occasions but never in a Sky Blues game. Our record was eight which happened in 1950 in a 5-4 defeat at Southampton and in the aforementioned Norwich game in 1977. That day City’s scorers were Barry Powell, Ian Wallace, Ray Golding, Bobby McDonald and Ray Graydon with John Ryan, Kevin Reeves (2) and Martin Peters for the Canaries. The last time five different City players scored in a game was quite recent - in 2016 in the 6-0 over Bury when Stokes, Cargill, Maddison, Fleck and Armstrong (2) were on target.
The crowd at the Stadium of Light was 36,134 and the second highest league crowd that the Sky Blues have played in front of since they were relegated from the Premier League in 2001, topped only by the 39,334 at St James’s Park, Newcastle in 2010 to see the Magpies win 4-1.
The victory was only City’s second at Sunderland in 19 visits, stretching back to an FA Cup tie in 1951. The only other win was in January 1977 when a Donal Murphy goal gave City the points on a treacherous icy pitch. City’s five goal haul was one more than the total they’d scored in those 18 previous encounters.
City have now won nine away games,equalling last season’s total and the the third highest in the club’s history. The record, set in Mark Robins’ previous spell as manager 2012-13, is 11, with the 1969-70 haul of ten under Noel Cantwell a close second. Mark Robins’ away record as City manager is phenomenal- he has 26 wins from 60 matches, 43% win ratio. This is easily the best of any City manager in history and Jimmy Hill’s away win ratio was a measly 27%.

I was sad to hear of the death of 1950s Coventry winger Colin Collindridge, who at 98 was the oldest living former City player. I will write more about him next week.

Jim's column 13.4.2019

I thought I would catch up with some of the outstanding questions I have had from readers in recent months.

First, Andy Webster, a keen collector of Coventry City programmes, wanted to know what type of programme the club issued in 1985-86 season for the Full Members Cup game against Millwall. The game was virtually a dead rubber after the earlier games in the three-team group had seen Stoke City beat the Sky Blues 3-0 and draw 2-2 with Millwall. This meant that City couldn't top the group and Millwall had to win by four clear goals to overhaul Stoke and go through to the Southern semi-finals. A low crowd was expected and the club decided to do what they did for reserve games in those days and produce an A4 photocopied sheet. The game ended 1-1 with Terry Gibson setting a post-war record by scoring in seven consecutive games but Nicky Chatterton equalised five minutes from time. The attendance was 1,086 with policeman outnumbering Millwall fans in the visitor's enclosure.

I wrote a few weeks ago that City's recent record on live television was excellent with no defeats in the last nine games televised following the 1-1 draw at Luton. The last defeat was in December 2016 when a last minute goal by Billy Sharp gave Sheffield United the points at the Ricoh. John Baker recalls City having a long period without an away win on television a few years ago and asked me for the details. City won 1-0 at St Andrews in November 2008, courtesy of a Clinton Morrison goal. Then they failed to win in the next eight televised away games before ending the run with a 2-1 win at Burton in September 2015 with goals from Marcus Tudgay and Roman Vincelot. Almost seven years without an away win 'on the box'.

The games were as follows:

2008-09 Reading lost 1-3

2009-19 Derby lost 1-2

2009-10 Scunthorpe lost 0-1

2009-10 Leicester drew 2-2

2010-11 QPR lost 1-2

2011-12 Ipswich lost 0-3

2011-12 Southampton lost 0-4

2013-14 Bradford C drew 3-3

In the same seven-year period City's home form on television was much better with seven wins and four defeats in eleven appearances.

Several readers have asked me about City's away following this season and how it compares with other years. 1,853 City fans travelled to Barnsley two weeks ago, the fourth highest of the season, bringing the average for the season (league games only) to 1,247. Today's following at Sunderland is expected to be over 2,000 and will take the average over last season's final average of 1,268.

Away followings have only been accurately recorded since 2006 and the best season was in 2013-14 when an average of 1,603 followed City in the season they played home games at Northampton. One of the most interesting aspects of the figures are that in the six seasons spent in the Championship (2006-12), the average was never over 1,000 but since relegation in 2012 the numbers have only once dipped below 1,000 – in the League One relegation campaign in 2016-17. If the followings for the three final league games are over 2,000 (and there is a good chance of that) then the final average for this season will be the second highest since records were kept.

The averages for the last 12 seasons are as follows:

2006-07 935

2007-08 958

2008-09 852

2009-10 805

2010-11 786

2011-12 918

2012-13 1,150

2013-14 1,603

2014-15 1,002

2015-16 1,339

2016-17 806

2017-18 1,268

Anyone who thinks our away followings are somehow special should reflect on the fact that the average away followings of teams visiting the Ricoh is 1,231, just 16 short of City's average. That average includes some pitifully small number of fans by clubs such as Fleetwood (62), Rochdale (302) and Accrington (303). Sunderland brought almost 5,000 fans and three clubs brought over 2,000 (Luton, Oxford and Bristol Rovers).