Stephen Coyne sent me an interesting piece of Coventry City memorabilia last week – a ticket for City's game at Queens Park Rangers in 1963. The game was played at the White City Stadium, originally built for the 1908 Olympic Games, which was QPR's home ground in the 1962-63 season. The club had had a two-year spell at the 90,000 capacity stadium in the 1930s but returned to Loftus Road until 1962. The second experiment was a disaster with lower crowds and poor results by the team and plans were already afoot for a move back to Loftus Road for the 1963-64 campaign when the Sky Blues played what would be the final domestic football game at the stadium on 22nd May 1963.
The football season had been seriously impacted by the 'Big Freeze' with little football played between Christmas and the beginning of March because of snow, ice and frozen pitches. Before the freeze started both City and QPR were handily placed for promotion from Division Three but the massive backlog of games and City's remarkable FA Cup run to the quarter final had seen the promotion hopes slip away for both teams. QPR had already lost seven home games and Jimmy Hill's team made it eight with a 3-1 victory on a pleasant May evening two days before the FA Cup final. A measly crowd of 3,261 (easily the lowest of the season) watched the game come to life in the final twenty minutes. Ronnie Rees netted after 71 minutes and John Sillett made it two with a rare goal three minutes later. QPR's John Collins pulled a goal back on 77 minutes but a Ken Hale penalty completed the scoring seven minutes from time. City's win was their first in seven games and ensured they finished fourth in the table with QPR in 13th place.
White City continued hosting greyhound racing, athletics and speedway until it was demolished in 1984 but only one further football match took place there. In 1966 Wembley Stadium, expected to be the venue for all of the group one games, refused to cancel a greyhound event and the White City stepped in to host the Uruguay v France game which attracted over 45,000 to the old stadium.
John Sillett has many claims to fame but he was the last man to score an outfield goal at White City in a domestic game.
From the same era, a question from Michael Todd this week. Michael wanted to know the details of City's League Cup game at Rotherham on 4th November 1963. This was the Sky Blues Third Division promotion season and they were setting a hot pace at the top of table in early November. Rotherham were a Second Division outfit with some outstanding youngsters who would go on to greater things including Barry Lyons (later of Nottingham Forest) and Albert Bennett (later of Newcastle).
The Coventry line-up was: Wesson: Sillett, Kletzenbauer: Bruck, Curtis, Farmer: Humphries, Hale, Hudson, Whitehouse, Rees.
It was Bennett who gave the Millers a 14th minute lead as the home side looked set to give City a hammering but Willie Humphries equalised direct from a corner (32 mins) and 20 seconds into the second half George Hudson put the Sky Blues ahead. Houghton equalised on 54 minutes and it was 2-2 until nine minutes from time. City, down to ten men with Frank Kletzenbauer having to limp off injured, finally capitulated and Houghton (81 mins) and Bennett (85 mins) gave Rotherham a flattering 4-2 victory and sent them through to the Fourth Round. The attendance was 7,826
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