Jim's column 25.4.2020

I had lots of complimentary comments about my tributes to Ron Wylie and Peter Bonetti and then heard the sad news Norman Hunter, like Bonetti a member of the 1966 World Cup winning squad, had passed away, a victim of Covid-19. Leeds United legend Hunter played over 700 games for the Yorkshire club and was indisputably one of the finest defenders in the British post-war era. Along with Billy Bremner and Jack Charlton, Norman 'Bite Your Legs', formed the most famous half-back line in British football in the 1960s and 70s as Leeds, under manager Don Revie, rose from the backwaters of the Second Division to win two league titles and many other trophies in a glorious decade. Norman had an impressive record against the Sky Blues – he was only on the losing side to City on three occasions in 23 games between 1967 and 1977, the majority with Leeds but also a handful with Bristol City where he moved to in 1975. One of those defeats was a famous game at Highfield Road in 1971 when City recorded their first top flight victory over Leeds in nine meetings. City winger Quintin Young had the game of his life against the England full-back Terry Cooper and Willie Carr outshone his fellow Scot Bremner as goals from Chris Chilton, Ian St John and Ernie Hunt gave City a 3-1 win. Another famous game, against Bristol City in 1977, saw Norman come face to face with his old Elland Road mate, Terry Yorath, as the two sides battled it out to avoid a relegation spot. In front of almost 37,000 Hunter inspired Bristol to draw level from 2-0 down before the news of Sunderland's defeat at Goodison Park came through. With both sides realising that the draw was enough to keep both sides up, the experienced Hunter and Yorath instructed their players to stop playing and the Bristol back four passed the ball amongst themselves. Norman won 28 England caps and but for Bobby Moore would have won 100 plus caps. In October 1973 Norman was finally preferred to Moore for the vital World Cup qualifier against Poland at Wembley. For a man who rarely made a defensive mistake it was ironic that his error that led to Poland's goal that night and although the game ended 1-1 England were denied a place at the 1974 World Cup finals.

Steve Pittam has been a City fan for over 60 years and was one of the 'famous 50' fans who travelled to Plovdiv for the Sky Blues' European debut in 1970. He has lived in Dubai for many years but still gets to watch a handful of City games each season. In the light of the current situation Steve was thinking about 1939 when war broke out and disrupted the football season. He was interested to know the background to that season and what happened.

Talk of war had been on everyone's lips since the spring of 1939 as Hitler's power and ambitions grew. City had finished fourth in Division Two in 1938-39 missing out on promotion by just four points and they were one of the pre-season favourites to go up. George Lowrie, a young but promising centre-forward had been signed from Preston in the close season and manager Harry Storer expected him to make a big impact.

The season started on 12 August with the traditional public trial match and 4,058 watched the Stripes beat the Reds 6-5 with the 19-year old Lowrie scoring a hat-trick for the first team. This game saw the appearance for the first time at the ground of numbers on players’ shirts. A week later Lowrie scored the winning goal as City beat Birmingham 3-2 in the Football League Jubilee Fund friendly match in front of 7,979.

On 26 August, with Hitler’s Panzer divisions on the verge of invading Poland, City opened the league campaign with a 1-1 draw at Burnley. On Monday 28 August 1939 only 18,500 turned up for the first home game of the season, a derby against West Brom. Tommy Green scored twice in a thrilling game in which the Bantams threw away a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3. Many supporters already believed war was inevitable and that football, as a result, was insignificant, and stayed away. On Friday 1 September the evacuation of children from London commenced but it was announced that the fixtures for the following day would go ahead as planned and City defeated Barnsley 4-2 at home with Lowrie marking his league debut with a goal in front of only 11,611- people’s minds were elsewhere and gates all over the country were low. The next day war was declared on Hitler’s Germany and all competitive league football was immediately suspended. It would be six years before it would restart at Highfield Road.

The Coventry board did not waste time in reacting to the outbreak of hostilities. Two days after Neville Chamberlain’s fateful radio broadcast all playing contracts were cancelled and the players and the majority of the staff were paid a week’s money. Only three people were retained: manager Harry Storer, secretary Bernard Hitchiner and groundsman Austin – all three accepted a 50% cut in wages. Amongst the staff paid off were Chief Scout Dick Bayliss and trainers Dick Hill, Leslie Bruton and Arthur Fitton.

The outbreak of hostilities could have not come at a worse time for the club. Despite a healthy bank balance in the spring of 1939 summer wages of around £3000 had been paid out in addition to £1750 for the signing of Lowrie and £1300 on ground improvements. There was a tax bill of around £1000 due in early 1940 and normally the takings from three home games would cover that sum. The pitifully low crowds for the first two home games put a spoke in those wheels and the club were in dire trouble. They owed Sir John Siddeley almost £20,000, having bought the freehold of the ground from him two years earlier. He agreed to a two-year suspension of capital payments but with no income and some fixed costs the club were in serious financial difficulty and had to inform the Football League that it could not meet its commitments.

By mid-September the FA announced that regional friendly matches could be played but no player could be paid, as all contracts had been cancelled and any receipts from these games had to be donated to charity. City played six friendlies on successive Saturdays but attendances were restricted by the Home Office to just 8,000 and City's two home friendlies against Leicester and Wolves were watched by less than this. In October a regional competition was commenced with players being paid 30 shillings (£1.50) per game. Season ticket holders were given the choice of using their tickets for the wartime competition or returning them to the club with a guarantee that when normal football resumed they would get a free ticket.

City’s first game in the new competition on October 21 was a 1-1 draw at Northampton and in the first home game the following Saturday they trounced West Brom 6-3. Several of the players who had appeared in pre-war games had gone off to war but City were able to put out a strong side in the subsequent competition. The club normally issued team sheets for their home games with a typical print run of 1000.

Between October 1939 & the final game on June 8 1940 the Bantams played 28 league games, finishing third in their section, and five Cup games. The public’s reaction to these quasi-friendly games was fairly apathetic with City’s home gates ranging from 1,212 versus Leicester on a foggy Saturday before Christmas, to 8,713 who watched a 5-2 win over the mighty Wolves in May. The winter was a severe one which did nothing to encourage venturing out to watch the game. For six weeks there was little or no football in the whole country with January 27 seeing temperatures the coldest recorded since 1894. The highlight of that first wartime campaign however was a 10-2 win over Luton Town on Easter Monday. Tom Crawley scored eight goals, a club record, including three in three minutes just before half-time. The final four games were played in front of crowds of less than 1,500 and the low gates are not surprising considering that the British Army was in the process of being evacuated from Dunkirk as Hitler’s army forced them to retreat to the French coast.

Finally, Steve asked me to mention the passing of City fan John Howard. Two years ago John had to miss the away game at Cheltenham as he was in the George Eliott hospital having surgery for bowel cancer. This was the first City game home or away that he had missed in over 20 years, including all cup ties. Over the last 2 years he had still managed to get to all City games despite his cancer treatment, including the FA Cup replay at Ipswich, only missing the last 3-4 away games. Three weeks ago he sadly passed away at Myton Hospice. Although based in Coventry, he worked near Weston-super-Mare during the week, travelling to all midweek games from there; Steve remembers meeting him at Scunthorpe the night that Reda Johnson got sent off when we were winning 1-0 - a bit of a journey but such dedication. RIP John.

Jim's column 18.4.2020

Two football personalities from the 1960s, Ron Wylie and Peter Bonetti, sadly passed away this week after long illnesses and both deserve a mention here.

Ron Wylie, City's assistant manager to Gordon Milne in the 1970s, is better known for his playing exploits in Birmingham with both Villa and the Blues, but he was a major influence in arguably the Sky Blues' most attractive side in their 34 years in the top flight.

Born in Glasgow in 1933, Ron moved south to join Notts County in 1949 after being spotted playing for Clydesdale Juniors where he won Scottish schoolboy caps. Initially an inside forward but later switched to wing-half, he made his debut in County's Second Division side in 1951 and played almost 250 games for the club before an £8,000 move to Villa in 1958. County were on the way to a second successive relegation when he left and Villa were also on their way down to Division Two that season. Ron's cultured play mixed with a strong determination was vital in Villa's promotion the following season and they defeated two First Division sides on the way to an FA Cup semi final under Joe Mercer. In 1961 he was a member of the Villa team that won the newly inaugurated League Cup and won a runners-up medal in the same competition two years later. He was a regular in Villa's team until 1965 when he dropped down a division with a move across the city to Blues. Many thought his best days were behind him but he captained Birmingham for four seasons and reached two further Cup semi finals before hanging his boots up at the age of 37.

He returned to Villa Park as a coach before Gordon Milne invited him to join him at Highfield Road as first team coach in 1975. In his six seasons with Gordon, the club, regular relegation battlers before then, were only once in danger of going down – in the infamous Bristol game in 1977 – and the pair produced a stunning response to the knockers the following season. Adopting a brave 4-2-4 formation the team scored 75 goals with the Wallace/Ferguson partnership causing havoc in the process. Ron was instrumental in bringing through some outstanding homegrown players such as Garry Thompson, Danny Thomas, Steve Whitton and Mark Hateley as the club's financial situation precluded big money signings. In his final season at City the young team reached the League Cup semi final, losing to West Ham over two legs.

                                                                 Ron Wylie                                 

After leaving City following Dave Sexton's arrival, Ron coached in Cyprus and Hong Kong before landing the manager's job at West Brom in 1982. He inherited Cyrille Regis and soon returned to Highfield Road to sign Garry Thompson from the cash-strapped Sky Blues. A year later, with Albion in danger of relegation, Ron was sacked but was only out of work for a short time before re-joining Villa as reserve team coach. In 1987 he left Villa Park again and continued scouting for various clubs but was tempted back to Villa again 1990 to work as Football in the Community officer.

Former City striker David Cross who played under Ron told me a funny story, 'We played a charity game with the Tiswas lads once. Ron was under the impression that it was a serious game (every game was serious to him) and had never seen Tiswas on television and just didn’t get the humour on the day. The final straw for him was The Phantom Flan Flinger throwing a pie at one of the players as he was about to score. Ron walked off the pitch !' David also said: 'Ron was old school. He drove us hard and settled for nothing less than 100% and demanded the best. He suffered no fools but always had a twinkle in his eye when you got the inevitable bollocking.'

Garry Thompson tweeted: 'Ron bullied me (in nicest way possible) to be better, to improve daily, I owe him, he coached me from 17 then took me to Albion, and was assistant manager when I signed for Villa. To say I owe him massively is an understatement, loved the old feller.'

City fan Ian Greaves who followed the Sky Blues home and away in the 1970s and 80s contacted me to say: 'I have fond memories of Ron when he was assistant manager in the 1970s. He was always very aware of the time and effort the regular fans put in and on many occasions he rewarded us with complimentary tickets at away games. I encountered him when visiting a relative in Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield a few years ago. He was already showing signs of dementia then but we still managed to have a good chat about his days at City. Like many sufferers he seemed to have a better long term than short term memory.'

Growing up in the 1960s we had little football on the television and relied on magazines like Charles Buchan's Football Monthly and Soccer Star to discover football stars. Bonetti always struck me as one of the modern breed of goalkeepers, as did City's Bill Glazier. More agile than the older breed with peaked baseball-type caps instead of the traditional cloth cap and Peter had a continental style kit. He was also a member of two fine Chelsea sides – 1965 team that went close to winning the treble and might have won the league but for manager Tommy Docherty's over-the top reaction to a late night drinking session, and the 1970 FA Cup winning side, full of skill but hard enough to counter the nefarious Leeds United. He was unfairly blamed for England's loss to West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final and never added to his six England caps but in an era without the likes of Gordon Banks and Peter Shilton he would have won more caps as would Bill Glazier.

Peter played against the Sky Blues on numerous occasions but one game sticks in my memory. A wet night in September 1968 with the rain lashing down turning the Highfield Road pitch into a paddy field. Osgood gave Chelsea an early lead when Maurice Setters' backpass stuck in the mud but for the rest of the game City bombarded Bonetti's goal. 'The Cat' as he was known, pulled off save after save to keep his sheet clean and earn the Londoners a 1-0 victory. Derek Henderson in the Coventry Telegraph, whilst acknowledging Bonetti as 'the best 'keeper in the UK at the moment', described the game as 'the greatest travesty of footballing justice I have witnessed in 20 years of sports journalism'.

RIP Ron and Peter.

Jim's column 11.4.2020

More questions from readers this week. Please keep them coming, answering them is keeping me sane! Send your questions to clarriebourton@gmail.com or via Twitter @clarriebourton :

Lifelong City fan Mike Jones asked me for information on the game he thinks was his first visit to Highfield Road around 1958 to watch City play Grimsby. He thought it was a draw and that the visitors played in their traditional black and white striped shirts but with red or pink shorts: The game in question sounds like the game played on Saturday 12th September 1960, a 0-0 draw. According to the Historical Soccer Kits website (www.historicalkits.co.uk) that season Grimsby's colours were white shirts with black trim and red shorts. I suspect there would have been a colour clash with Coventry's white shirts with blue trim so Grimsby probably wore their change shirts of black and white striped shirts with the red shorts. It is hard to confirm that however. City's team in the 0-0 draw was as follows: Lightening: Kletzenbauer, Austin: Nicholas, Curtis, Kearns: Stiffle, Straw, Myerscough, Farmer, B Hill. Myerscough and Scott of Grimsby were sent off near the end after punches were thrown. The attendance was 13,906.

Gary Donely queried my assertion that George Hudson is the only City player to score a hat-trick on his debut recently. He is convinced that George Kirby did the feat a year after Hudson and remembers attending a cousin's wedding that day in Manchester and hearing the news during the evening reception: George Kirby was one of two transfer deadline signings made by Jimmy Hill in March 1964 (John Smith was the other) when the Sky Blues looked in danger of blowing their promotion hopes having failed to win in seven games. Kirby, a rugged centre-forward who was deadly in the air, signed from Southampton and went straight into the team at Bournemouth with Hudson moving to inside forward. City lost 2-1 to a late Bumstead goal, a defeat that left them four points behind leaders Crystal Palace with only eight games to play. The following Saturday Kirby scored three on his home debut as City got back to winning ways with a 4-1 victory over Oldham. He only scored two further goals in the final seven games but the team lost only once more and the Oldham game was seen as a crucial moment in the promotion campaign. In Division Two the following season George played just nine games (scoring five goals) as Hudson came back to form and he was sold to Swansea Town at the end of September.

The Derby County Collection, a charity that maintains Derby's archive collection wanted to know if I had a programme/brochure for the Anchor Cup, played for in the Far East in 1974 between City, Derby and Everton: I do have a large collection of City programmes with virtually every competitive programme since World War Two but I don't have this one. The triangular friendly competition involving City, Derby and Everton took place in Singapore in May 1974 and City flew out their 16-man full squad with the exception of Tommy Hutchison who was in the Scotland squad preparing for the World Cup in June. The Anchor Cup was sponsored by Malaysian Breweries who invested $450,000 in the competition. Six years before Coventry carried off the Anchor Cup Guinness had merged with Malayan Breweries forming a new company called Guinness Anchor. Prior to the tournament starting City lost 3-2 to Derby in Kuantan, Malaysia in an exhibition game with Brian Alderson netting both City goals. Three days later City moved to Singapore and beat Everton 2-1 (Willie Carr and David Cross on target). In the next game Derby and Everton played out a 2-2 draw meaning that a draw in the final game against Derby would mean City lifted the trophy. Roger Davies put the Rams ahead on 57 minutes but John Craven equalised, following up when his penalty was saved by Colin Boulton. City director Tom Sargeant was awarded the interesting trophy. The Derby County collection have a trophy from the competition, apparently given to all three clubs but, to date, I have failed to find that trophy in City's archives. Does anyone out there have a copy of the brochure for the tournament?

Geoff Wilkinson wondered if I knew where City goalscoring legend Clarrie Bourton lived when he played for the club in the 1930s: I have a photocopy of one of Clarrie's contracts from 1934 and his address is given as 34 Dane Road, Wyken. The club owned a number of houses in that part of the city and were utilised by players' families right up until the 1960s. Incidentally Clarrie's wages were £7 per week in the winter, with a £1 win bonus, and £6 in the summer.

Jim's column 4.4.2020

My request for questions from readers generated loads of questions and it will take me several weeks to answer all of them. So here we go:

David Whitlock: 'Is it true that Coventry City played against the great Brazilian, Pele, in the 1970s.

The Sky Blues toured South East Asia in the close season of 1972. They played two games in South Korea against national select Xis, winning 2-0 and 3-2, before moving to Japan where they played three games in seven days. Again they played select elevens, winning two games and losing one. The tour ended in Bangkok where a friendly was organised with legendary Brazilian club side Santos. The game was played in heavy rain and the teams played out a 2-2 draw in front of 32,000. Alan Green and Quintin Young scored for City with Edu and a Pele penalty netting for Santos. I don't have the line-ups for that game but from pictures I know that Roy Barry, Willie Carr, Ernie Hunt and Chris Chilton also played that day. The picture shows City players Alan Dugdale and Hunt holding up Pele's number 10 shirt. 'Duggy', who had yet to make his senior debut at the time, was voted man of the match and asked the great man for his shirt. It was kept at his parent's home in Kirby on Merseyside for some years and, according to Alan's brother Dave, local fans flocked to the house to have a picture taken with it. At some point, Alan collected it and eventually took it to Hong Kong where it is believed he donated it to the Bulova club where he was playing at the time.

                                   

                                                Alan Dugdale (left) and Ernie Hunt with Pele's shirt

Deejay2000: I’ve always been interested in Oggy's long unbroken stint in goal for City. Any interesting facts about that. It would be interesting to know how many keepers have kept goal for City since he last played for us.

After signing from Shrewsbury Town in 1984 and making his debut at Villa Park, Oggy played 246 consecutive games (209 league, 29 Cup, 8 others) before getting injured at Millwall in Sept 1989. Another legendary City goalkeeper, Alf Wood, always pointed out he had made 260 consecutive games between 1945-51. However the 1945-46 season is not counted as an official first class season and his total is actually 218.

During Oggy's time as a player (1984-2000) ten other keepers played in first team: Keith Waugh (2), Clive Baker (1), Steve Sutton (1), Paul Heald (2), Les Sealey (2), Jonathan Gould (26), John Filan (17), Magnus Hedman (87), Rafaele Nuzzo (1), Chris Kirkland (1). Since Oggy retired in 2000, a further 32 goalkeepers have played first class games including two who made only one appearance, Michael Quirke & Danny Ireland.

David Collins: When and where did Dion Dublin score his last goal for Coventry City?

Dion's last goal for the club came in his final game for the Sky Blues at Southampton on 24 October 1998 in a 2-1 defeat. Matt Le Tissier and Egil Ostenstad gave Saints a 2-0 half-time lead and Dion reduced the arrears on 61 minutes. City's line-up was very strong: Hedman: Nilsson (sub Edworthy), Burrows (sub Telfer), Boateng (sub Soltvedt), Breen, Shaw, Whelan, McAllister, Dublin, Huckerby, Froggatt. The attendance was 15,152. Three days later City went to Luton for a League Cup tie and Dion, with a transfer to Villa on the cards, allegedly refused to play. He had to wait over a week for his Villa debut, a 3-2 win over Tottenham, but proved an instant hit by scoring two first half goals as Villa retained top spot in the Premier League.

Mark from Birmingham: Have Coventry ever been top of a division longer than the current run?

Mark has his tongue in his cheek with this one. The club record for number of days at the top of any division is 158 days set in 1963-64 when the Sky Blues were champions of Division Three. City went top on 8th October 1963 with a 2-1 home win over Bristol City and stayed in pole position until Saturday 14th March when Crystal Palace overhauled them the day after City had lost 5-2 at home to Southend United. On 3rd January they had a nine-point lead at the top which was slowly whittled away during an 11-game run without a victory. The Sky Blues regained top spot briefly on 11th April before slipping behind Palace again but on the final day they returned to top spot with a 1-0 home win over Colchester as Palace slipped up by losing at home to Oldham.