Jim's column 4.1.2020

Coventry City fans have been discussing their favourite game of the last decade on social media over the last week or so and the game most mentioned was the thrilling 4-1 win at Notts County to secure a playoff final place in 2018. Coincidentally the Sky Blues ended the decade with another 4-1 victory, at League One leaders Wycombe last Sunday. They then followed it up with another 4-1 win, at Tranmere on New Year’s Day, in the first game of the new decade. After failing to win an away league game since Sunderland in April they were two remarkable results. Several fans wanted to know when the team had last won successive away games by a three goal margin. The answer was, in 2018, the 6-1 win at Cheltenham followed by the famous victory at Meadow Lane.

The results were remarkable enough but not the most remarkable statistic from the games. That honour goes to the hat trick king Matty Godden who scored hat tricks in both games. He’s the first City player to score successive three-goal hauls since Darren Huckerby who achieved the feat in January 1999 against Nottingham Forest in the league and Macclesfield in the FA Cup. You have to go back to November 1952 to find that Don Dorman scored successive hat tricks in league games (Crystal Palace and Torquay). Dorman, a veteran of the Battle of Arnhem, was actually a midfield player only playing in attack because of injuries to other players. 

In 1963 the legendary George Hudson netted three in successive away games, at Trowbridge in the FA Cup and in a league game at QPR. Other players to score consecutive hat tricks are George Lowrie in 1948, Clarrie Bourton in 1932 and Billy Smith in 1908 but the most prolific short-term scorer was Arthur ‘Rasher’ Bacon who, at Christmas 1933, standing in for the injured Bourton, netted five in a 7-3 win at Gillingham and four in a 5-1 home victory over Crystal Palace seven days later.

I believe Godden is in exalted company with his ‘double’ hat trick, the last player to achieve that fact in English football was Tottenham’s Harry Kane in December 2017 who scored threes against Burnley & Southampton.

The Wycombe victory was notable for defeating the league leaders on their own patch and was also the eighth consecutive victory over the Chairboys in all competitions. They must be fed up with the Sky Blues! The Tranmere result was notable for breaking the hoodoo that Rovers have had over City who had only ever won once at Prenton Park, back in a Second Division game in April 1939. In seven subsequent visits City had lost six and drawn once. Two of those defeats came in Cup games when City were a top flight side. In 1968 Third Division Rovers pulled off a FA cup giant killing by drawing at Highfield Road and winning the replay 2-0, then, in 1999 City suffered an embarrassing 5-1 League Cup defeat at Prenton when Italian goalkeeper Rafaele Nuzzo made his one and only first team appearance. This time out City mastered the notorious ‘dodgy’ pitch and ran out deserved winners.

City enter the New Year with only three defeats in the league which is something they have only managed twice before on their history. In 1937-38 they were second in Division Two on New Years Day with only two defeats - they ended up finishing fourth and missing promotion by two points. Then in 1963-64 they were seven points clear at the top of Division Three on New Years Day with just three losses - they won promotion on goal average after a bad stutter in the spring when they failed to win in 11 games.