50th Anniversary of the Donkey-kick goal

 Today marks the 50th anniversary of the most memorable goal in the history of Coventry City. Regular reader Ian Greaves was in touch last week and reminded me that it was 50 years ago exactly that Ernie Hunt scored the famous donkey kick goal at Highfield Road against league champions Everton. Every City fan must know what happened – City were awarded a free-kick just outside the Everton penalty area at the West End. Everton formed a wall of players, the red-headed Scot Willie Carr stood over the ball then flicked it up between his feet, and as the ball came down Ernie superbly timed his dipping volley to send the ball over the wall of defenders into the corner beyond the grasping dive of Andy Rankin in goal.

BBC Match of the Day cameras were at the game and recorded the events with the goal winning their Goal of the Month and Goal of the Season awards. The two footed flick was pettily outlawed by FIFA the following summer. On YouTube there are several video clips of the goal and one of them has almost 1 million views!

1970 was a memorable year for Coventry City. After two seasons of relegation battles and close shaves, the club had finished sixth in Division One and qualified for a European competition. The new season had not started that brightly with only one win in four home league games but the previous season's impressive away form had continued with wins at Ipswich and Derby, the latter a 4-3 thriller which saw City come back from 0-2. An impressive 6-1 aggregate win over Trakia Plovdiv of Bulgaria had kicked off the Fairs Cup and a plum tie with Bayern Munich loomed later in the month.

Crowd favourite Ian Gibson had left for Cardiff in the summer and two signings had been made, Geoff Strong, an experienced defender from Liverpool for £35,000, and Wilf Smith, the England under 23 full-back from Sheffield Wednesday. The fee for Smith, £100,000, was a British record for a full-back, and evidence that City were aiming for higher things. Dietmar Bruck was in the side for the injured Chris Cattlin and young Scottish winger Brian Alderson had forced his way into the team.

Everton had suffered a reaction to winning the title the previous season, failing to win any of their first six league games but had recovered to win six games on the bounce to get up to eighth in the table going into the game. Centre-half and captain Brian Labone was injured so Roger Kenyon played at centre-half otherwise it was the title-winning line up including the famous midfield of Kendall, Ball and Harvey.

Neil Martin put City ahead on 18 minutes but John Hurst headed an equaliser six minutes later. 1-1 at the break. Alderson was giving the Everton defence a roasting and after 58 minutes his run and shot rebounded to Ernie Hunt who scored from close range. With ten minutes remaining John Hurst was deemed to have climbed over John O'Rourke and the referee awarded the famous free-kick and Hunt and Carr went into conference. Goalkeeper Rankin was astounded and the Everton players were mesmerised by Ernie's cheek. Referee Tommy Dawes, momentarily unsure whether it contravened the laws in any way, decided not. Everton boss Harry Catterick was quoted afterwards as saying he had seen it only once before – in a circus – and the City fans decided the whole thing was out of this world!

                      Ernie tries it again v Tottenham

The 'donkey-kick' as the goal came to be called had been the idea of City coach Bill Asprey and was developed and practised on the Ryton training ground that summer. The trick had been tried in a pre-season friendly at Blackpool an attempt Ernie Hunt later described as pathetic, 'I almost hit the clock on the stand'.

A few weeks later I was present at a Youth Cup tie against Shrewsbury and Alan Green and Johnny Stevenson repeated the trick and scored in a 6-0 victory and later that season Willie and Ernie had other attempts, at Stoke and again in a home game with Tottenham. In the latter game Pat Jennings was left flat-footed by Ernie's volley but the ball hit the angle of bar and post and bounced to safety.

Poor Ernie sadly passed away in 2018 and Willie has thankfully recovered from his health issues and I hope he can raise a glass tonight to the most memorable Coventry City goal of all time.