Jim's column 21.12.2019

Tuesday night's FA Cup second round replay saw Bristol Rovers emerge victorious against Plymouth Argyle and earn a third round home tie against the Sky Blues. Rovers are having an excellent season and look good outside bets for promotion and a return to the second tier of English football where they have not appeared since 1993. The shock departure of manager Graham Coughlin this week may have an effect on the 'Gas' but one of the most vociferous crowds in League One will give them the advantage on 5th January.

The clubs have met only once in the FA Cup previously – a second round tie at Highfield Road in 1963. City were strong favourites having scored 19 goals in four successive victories one of which was a 4-2 win over Rovers in a league game, two weeks previously. City were top of Division Three whilst Rovers were 13th. The form-book however went out of the window with Rovers winning 2-1.

The day's biggest FA Cup attendance, 26,248 saw Rovers score an early goal through former England international winger Geoff Bradford then defend in depth to thwart the goal-crazy Sky Blues. Harold Jarman scored a second goal just before half-time and although City had 22 shots at goal to Bristol's eight, the home side couldn't break through the strong Rovers' rearguard. Ken Hale scored a goal in the 87th minute and a minute later Ron Rees looked to have been fouled inside the penalty area but the referee waved play on. It would have been a travesty for Rovers who deserved their victory and went on to defeat Second Division Norwich in round three before losing 4-1 at Old Trafford in the fourth round.

Many City fans felt City didn't try in the Cup game and were saving their energies for the promotion push but manager Jimmy Hill denied these accusations saying that clubs of their size needed the income that FA Cup runs bring to help keep themselves solvent. Whatever the truth, the Sky Blues, despite a rocky springtime eventually won their promotion to the Second Division.

Coventry City have reached Christmas with only three league defeats, which, in terms of defeats, is the second best first half of the season in the 100 years of the club's Football  League history. It's only bettered by 1937-38 when on Christmas morning they had only suffered one defeat. A defeat at Bramall Lane in front of over 40,000 made it two and knocked City off the top of the table. Sadly, the second half of that season was somewhat of a disappointment and the team missed promotion to Division One by two points.

More news from Bob Dobbing in Australia and it's positive. His operation to remove his prostate was successful and he is keeping his fingers crossed that the cancer has been caught in time. He sent me a nice email after receiving his 1960s City shirt from the Former Players Association.

First of all Jim I would like to offer my sincere thanks for the manner in which you put all this together, I’m really very flattered and feel very privileged to be in such company with the players from Coventry City Football Club from that period.

I think this may have been initially driven by a Catherine Loftus my niece who is a “mad football/Sunderland fan” which is really nice for me as she is just so special, I had no idea she was doing this.

Yes it’s been a bit of a rough time the last few weeks but I’m pleased to say “so far so good” we’ll just see how things go.

Dobbing with his 1960s City shirt

My time at Coventry was an unreal experience for a 15/16 year old shy “Geordie boy” I just loved being there, a great club, a great bunch of guys from ground staff lads through to the first team players, incredible. The best education of my life, I was staying with friends of my Dad’s family in Grangemouth Road, Radford, living right opposite Dietmar Bruck. Dietmar was very good to me while on trial, taking me to the ground every day and getting me home when he could, something I was always very grateful for.

It was a very sad time for me to leave Coventry but I guess not making the first team it had to be. I spent a season in the Fourth Division at Hartlepool United, that was like going from a very progressive, professional club to the other end of the scale (chocolates to boiled lollies!) Playing in most first team games for the season missing only a handful through injury, I decided to investigate the offers I had from the USA, South Africa and Australia, so Australia it was. Another ex-City man Robin Hayward was in Melbourne and Don Peachey was in Sydney.

Life in Melbourne was really good, I was married to the lovely Pauline before we moved to Melbourne, Pauline was a “Sky Blue Girl” working in the pools office with Arthur Pepper in the 1960s, she actually featured in a Sky Blue Programme August 12^th 1969. We sadly lost Pauline to cancer in 2003 after 33 years married life – a very sad time for us all.

I had a contract with the Melbourne Soccer Club playing in the State League which was the major league in Melbourne Victoria (State) at the time. The standard was quite good , playing many club games, being selected for the State Team playing against other State Teams and visiting European clubs notably Moscow Dynamo and an English FA side described as an England “B” team in which Dennis Mortimer played. It was nice to catch up with Dennis after all that time. I managed to be selected in a Preliminary Australian Squad as a build up to the 1974 World Cup in Munich, But sadly missed out due to breaking my right “Tib and Fib” in a club game some three weeks after the squad was announced. I managed to get myself fit after 10 months hard work only to break the same leg again in a comeback game. Six months after the second break I had to have a bone graft which really put me back with my playing days by about two and a half years. It was very tough to take but after recovery I played back in the same league with a degree of success along with some coaching success too.

Melbourne has been a great place to live, I am walking distance to a lovely beach. I had a great interest in sailing both off the beach and ocean sailing too.

All being well I’m hoping to pay a visit next year to the UK and would just love to say hello Jim and personally thank you for your interest.

Merry Christmas to all my readers and let's hope 2020 will be a year of promotion for the Sky Blues.

Jim's column 14.12.2019

What a tremendous result for the Sky Blues at Ipswich on Tuesday night. Few City fans gave their team a chance in the Second Round replay at Portman Road but Mark Robins's side put on a super display to seal a place in the Third Round. City's record in away FA Cup replays has traditionally been awful and this was only the fifth time in the club's history in the competition that they have won an away replay and the first since 1997 when Gordon Strachan's side narrowly scraped home in a Third Round replay at non-league Woking.

Since that close shave in 1997 City have lost replays on three occasions after being held on their own ground, at Middlesbrough (0-1) in 2006, at Colchester (1-3) in 2004 and at Bramall Lane in 1998 when they lost on penalties after a late Blades' equaliser.

Over the years City have been notoriously vulnerable in FA Cup replays. In the 1990s they lost at Southampton (1991), Cambridge (1992), Norwich (1995), Manchester City (1996) as well as the Sheffield United game in 1998. In the 1970s there were defeats after home draws at Liverpool (1970), QPR (1974), Arsenal (1975), Newcastle (1976) and West Brom (1979). Perhaps the most embarrassing defeats were at non-league Scunthorpe (2-4) in the 1936 promotion season and at Tranmere (0-2) in 1968. In total City have been involved in 31 FA Cup away replays and won only five.

The only times that City have won replays on opponents grounds are:

1974 Derby County 1-0 after 0-0 draw

1991 Wigan Athletic 1-0 after 1-1 draw

1995 West Brom 2-1 after 1-1 draw

1997 Woking 2-1 after 1-1 draw

2019 Ipswich 2-1 after 1-1 draw.

Following my piece about former City full-back Bob Dobbing a few weeks ago I heard from Kevin Ring who remembered Bob from the 1960s:

You wrote about Bob Dobbing and how he is unwell. I remember him well. As a
teenager I would go to reserve games and stand behind the goal at the West
End, often with girlfriends (they had a thing for young footballers).
Bob was a regular in the reserves. I found a picture
of him in my old childhood scrapbooks (from The Pink), lining up with other young hopefuls.
My memory tells me (Left to Right) it's Martin Clamp, Malcolm Keley, Mick Coop, Tom
Sinclair (who I used to deliver morning papers to in Lodge Road),
Paul Bloodworth, Don Peachey, Bob Dobbing, Roy Linnie, Dave Matthews, Mick
Cartwright, Pat Morrissey, John Chambers, John Docker, Willie Carr.

Jim's column 7.12.2019

Footballers' biographies generally leave me cold generally being ghost-written, formulaic and revealing little about the subject. One biography that bucks that trend this year however is Six Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, the story of the late Jim Holton, the former Manchester United, Coventry City and Scotland defender. Sadly, Jim died of a heart attack in 1993 at the tragically early age of 42, but author Colin Leslie has researched Big Jim's life with the zeal of a forensic scientist to produce an excellent book.

Released as a teenager by West Brom, Jim joined Shrewsbury Town and within two years had earned a big money move to Manchester United, managed at the time by the legendary Tommy Docherty. Within months he was a fixture at centre-half in the Scottish team, starring in his country's 1974 World Cup final campaign and earning a reputation as one of the hardest defenders in the country.

Disaster however was looming for Jim and two broken legs ended his Old Trafford career. By 1977 he was at Highfield Road, via Sunderland, and Gordon Milne got a bargain when he paid £40,000 for the popular hard man. Many thought his best days were over but Jim became one of the key players of the 1977-78 team, arguably one of the best City sides of the last fifty years. He went on to play 100 games for the Sky Blues (more than any other club), assisting in the development of young defenders such as Gary Gillespie and Paul Dyson. After hanging up his boots he stayed in Coventry and went into the licensed trade, running the Town Wall Tavern and later the Rising Sun and the Stag.

Colin has tracked down many of Jim's former team-mates from all his clubs and his international days including Tommy Hutchison, Ian Wallace and Andy Blair, to produce an excellent story of Jim's life.

For younger readers the title of the book comes from a famous terrace chant of the 1970s originating from United's Stretford End and picked up by City's West End. Ironically his eyes were brown!

Six foot two, eyes of blue. Big Jim Holton's after you.

Congratulations this week to Sky Blues' fan Margaret Allen who celebrates her 90th birthday on Monday. She is still a regular at home games after over 50 years following the club from her Coventry home. As a young woman her passion was speedway and she was often found at Brandon watching the Bees but only came to football when Jimmy Hill was the manager and her young sons, David and Colin, like most Cov kids of that era, followed the bearded wonder like a modern day Pied Piper.

Margaret, who travels to home games at St Andrews, has had many favourite City players over the years including Ian Gibson, Danny Thomas, Richard Shaw, Big Mo and Greg Downs, whilst these days loves Callum O'Hare, Amadou Bakayoko and Jodi Jones. She meets up with David and his wife Ann at home games and provides much-welcomed hot coffee at half-time to the Woodfield family.

She was at Wembley in 1987 but her favourite games were the semi-final against Leeds at Hillsborough that year and ta famous 4-0 victory over Liverpool in 1983. She remembers queuing all night outside Highfield Road to buy tickets for the League Cup semi-final second leg against West Ham in 1981 and the despair when City's young stars' Wembley hopes were dashed by Paul Goddard's late, controversial goal at Upton Park.

Margaret was back at Wembley to see the Checkatrade Trophy lifted in 2017 and the following year for the Play-off final victory over Exeter City. She is still hoping to see her beloved Sky Blues back in the Premiership in her lifetime. Happy 90th Birthday Margaret.