Jim's Column 20.3.2021

 Coventry City's defeat at Luton on Tuesday evening saw the Sky Blues punished yet again for indiscipline. Whilst many believe that Kyle McFadzean didn't handle the ball on the goal-line three minutes before half-time, the referee sent off the defender and awarded the home side a penalty from which they duly scored.

Kyle became the 150th City player to be sent off since World War Two and joined an elite group of players to receive a red card three times. He received his marching orders at Rotherham last season and earlier this season for two yellow cards at Reading.

The previous members of the 'Three Red Cards' club are:

Dion Dublin, Paul Williams, David Thompson, Youssef Safri, Michael Doyle and Carl Baker.

'Fadz's' red card was the sixth for a Coventry player this campaign (five in the league, 1 in the League Cup) and we are now one card shy of the club record of seven in a season. The current record was set in the first two seasons after relegation from the Premiership (2001-02 and 2002-03) both saw seven red cards (all in the league).

The culprits back then were:

2001-02: Lee Hughes (2), Youssef Safri (2), David Thompson, Marc Edworthy and Jay Bothroyd.

2002-03: Calum Davenport, Safri, Craig Hignett, Dean Gordon, Gary Caldwell, Gary McSheffrey and Youssef Chippo.

Penalties conceded-wise we are heading for a new club record. Tuesday night's penalty was the eleventh conceded (10 League, 1 League Cup) and all 11 have been successfully converted by the opposition. The record for spot-kicks conceded in a season is 12 in 2013-14 season in League One and Joe Murphy set a record himself by saving five of them.

One record equalled on Tuesday night was the most penalties converted by the opposition in a season. The 11th, scored by Luton's Elijah Adebayo, matches the 1979-80 season when the Sky Blues conceded 11 and all were successfully converted.

I looked at the effect of those penalties on the final score of the relevant games. In 1979-80 only three results would have changed, a loss at Tottenham would have been a victory and defeats v Man United and Aston Villa would have been draws. The extra four points (there were only two points for a win in those days) would have lifted the team from 15th to 10th in the final table.

This season four league results would have been different if the penalties had not been awarded: two defeats (Watford and Forest) would have been draws, and two draws (Norwich and Birmingham) would have been victories. Theoretically, the penalties conceded made the difference of six points, and without them the team would now be in relative mid-table safety with 44 points. They also wouldn't have been eliminated from the League Cup at Gillingham!

Nigel Vines was in touch this week. His first game was a 1-1 draw with Sheffield Wednesday at Highfield Road. He remembers it was the game in which City's Roy Barry broke his leg. He asked if I could tell him the year. It was March 1970 and happened early in the game when Roy made a somewhat reckless challenge with Wednesday's Tommy Craig and came off worst. Many fans heard the crack of the bone and knew immediately it was serious. Referee Clive Thomas booked Roy as he was being put on a stretcher to leave the pitch. Roy had only joined the Sky Blues from Dunfermline in the previous October and had had a massive effect on City's form – they lost only three league games that he started before his tragic injury. After the Wednesday game City's route to European qualification wasn't affected and they achieved the club's highest ever finish, sixth. Roy's recovery was long and hard and he didn't play first team football again until the final game of the following season missing the European campaign that he had helped achieve.

             Roy Barry stretchered off in March 1970 after breaking his leg

Nigel also pointed out that in my piece last week about City games where they finished with nine or ten men I didn't mention the 3-3 draw with Portsmouth last year at Fratton Park after being reduced to 9 men. Apologies for that omission.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Jim's Column 13.3.2021

 Another member of the Sky Blue Family passed away this week. Leamington-born Gordon Simms died aged 84 after a short illness. Gordon was a great supporter of the Former Players Association and a regular at home games for many years. Cranston & Plummers

Gordon grew up in Leamington attending Clapham Terrace primary school and Campion High School. He spent four years at Highfield Road in the 1950s but was unable to command a regular first team place. He was spotted playing for Leamington works team Flavels in 1955 by City coach Ted Roberts. In a game against Aston Villa’s 'A' team he gave the veteran Amos Moss such a roasting that Villa wanted him to go for a trial but when no one met him at the pre-arranged time outside Leamington Town Hall, Roberts stepped in and fixed a trial with City. In the trial, at Leek Wootton, Gordon scored the only goal and was signed on amateur forms. He was an apprentice plumber, one of three on City’s books at the time, and later taught plumbing at Mid Warwickshire College for over twenty years. A winger who could play on the right or left, Gordon scored lots of goals for the 'A' team and made a number of reserve team appearance before his sole first team game against Colchester in October 1957 (City won 1-0).

                                Gordon in his playing days

In 1958 he went into the army for his mandatory two years National Service and played regularly for a strong Army representative side which included Everton and England star Derek Temple. He was a Physical Education instructor in the Army and played some football for Notts County without appearing for the first team. After leaving City he played briefly for Nuneaton Borough and Lockheed Leamington before a knee injury caused him to hang his boots up. However it was only temporary – he visited the now celebrated Coventry-born acupuncturist, J R Worsley, and recovered so much that he managed a long career at Warwick Town in the Warwickshire Combination. For the last 25 years he had lived in Cubbington and a few years ago successfully fought off leukaemia.

Gordon was a regular in the Legends Lounge at the Ricoh and will be missed by his old playing colleagues such as Brian Nicholas, Bill Tedds, Ian Goodwin, Graham Walker, Ronnie Farmer and Ken Brown.

                    Gordon in 2015 with James Maddison & Ryan Haynes

He leaves a widow Enid, two children, son Chris (another Ricoh regular) and daughter Karen as well as five grandchildren and a great grandchild born in November who sadly he never saw.

RIP Gordon

After City's game at Blackburn two weeks ago, a game that saw Leo Ostigard sent off for two yellow cards, several people asked me what City's record was like when finishing matches with ten men. I did some research and discovered that unsurprisingly the Sky Blues rarely win when reduced to ten men with a red card.

City have had 149 players sent off in competitive games since the war and there have been five instances of two men sent off in the same game. Out of those 144 games the team has won 28 but all but five saw City leading at the time of the dismissal. Of those five, three wins came with 10 men overturning a losing position to win, all three in the 1990s:

1994-95 West Brom (a) FA Cup 2-1 (10 men City score two late goals to beat 10-man West Brom. (Paul Cook and Albion's Raven dismissed)

1995-96 Plymouth Argyle (a) FA Cup 3-1 (10 men City win after Dave Busst sees red at 0-0 and Argyle take lead)

1998-99 Charlton Athletic (h) League 2-1 (Charlton leading 1-0 when John Aloisi sent off but City score two late goals)

Two victories with 10-men came after the scores were level at the time of the red card:

2003-04 Cardiff (a) League 1-0 (Peter Clarke is sent off after 24 seconds. McSheffrey scores late winner)

2020-21 MK Dons (a) League Cup 1-0 (Declan Drysdale dismissed after 30 minutes, Walker scores 82nd minute winner)

There has been only two occasions when City have drawn a game from a losing position after players were sent off and both games saw City finish with nine men. In 1995-96 City were losing 3-2 at home to Wimbledon when Richard Shaw became the second City player to be shown a red card (Paul Williams got one in the first half) in the 81st minute. Two minutes later David Rennie equalised to make it 3-3 and earn a draw. Then last season at Portsmouth City were trailing 3-1 when Fankaty Dabo saw red. With fifteen minutes remaining Matt Godden scored a penalty but three minutes later substitute Gervaine Kastaneer was also sent off. In a hectic finale Michael Rose levelled the scores four minutes from time and the team held out for a 3-3 draw.

If you have a question about Coventry City's history please drop me an email at clarriebourton@gmail.com and follow me on Twitter @clarriebourton

Thanks to Mike Young for photographs

Jim's column 6.3.2021

Ian St John the former Liverpool and Coventry City player sadly passed away this week, aged 82. Many tributes have been paid to him in national newspapers and the media in general and his illustrious career with Liverpool, as a Scottish international player and his almost unique television career alongside Jimmy Greaves has been well covered. I thought it would be of interest to focus more on his Coventry City connection.

Liverpool paid Motherwell a club record fee of £37,500 to bring St John from Motherwell to Anfield in 1961, arriving at the same time as another Scot, centre-half Ron Yeats. They were the last pieces in the Bill Shankly jigsaw and kick-started the Reds' ascendancy to the top of English football. Promotion to Division One was achieved in the first season and over the next nine years St John, nicknamed The Saint and beloved by the Kop, was at the heart of a team that won two league titles (1964 and 1966), the FA Cup (1965), as well as reaching the final of the European Cup Winners Cup (1966). Ian made over 400 appearances for Liverpool and won 21 Scottish caps in an era when there were far less international games and the Scottish talent pool was overflowing.

Eased out by Shankly in 1971 he spent some time that summer in South Africa playing for Hellenic of Capetown before, in September 1971, aged 33, Noel Cantwell persuaded him to come to Highfield Road in a player-coach role with the early emphasis on a playing role.

                      St John with wife Betty & City boss Cantwell

Prior to his arrival his memories of Highfield Road weren't good. In 1967, days after City had clinched promotion to Division One, St John was in a Liverpool side that came down to play in George Curtis and Mick Kearns' testimonial game. He was on the end of a strong challenge from big George in the first half and had to leave the game. As he limped from the pitch he allegedly gave a mouthful of abuse to Curtis along the lines of 'we come down here for your testimonial and that's how you treat us'.

       The walk of shame after being sent off at Highfield Road on Boxing Day 1967

Five months later, on Boxing Day, the Reds returned for their first ever league game with the Sky Blues. City's Brian Lewis, always an abrasive character, was given the role of marking St John and their niggly exchanges exploded on the half hour. St John was lucky not to be booked for a blatant challenge on the halfway line. As the free-kick was taken St John reacted – either to a remark or as some say, Lewis grabbing the Scot in Vinnie Jones fashion – and felled Lewis with a right-hook. It was fully a minute before St John would walk and he received what Derek Henderson in the Coventry Telegraph described as ' the worst verbal roasting I have heard a Highfield Road crowd give a visiting player' as he made the slow journey to the tunnel.

Both Curtis and Lewis had departed Highfield Road when St John arrived in 1971 and he made his debut in a 1-0 home win over Tottenham and a week later returned to Merseyside and had the audacity to score City's winner in a 2-1 win at Goodison Park. The good form continued as the Sky Blues beat Leeds for the first time in the top flight with St John scoring the second goal in a 3-1 victory. City's form fell away after the three successive wins and they won only once in the next 13 games with St John a virtual ever-present in midfield. Cantwell came under pressure in the bad run and after Second Division Hull City won at Highfield Road in the FA Cup the genial Irishman was sacked.

In a shake-up in December Tony Waiters had been appointed Director of Coaching with St John elevated to Assistant Manager but it did little to improve matters on the pitch. In the aftermath of Cantwell's sacking Waiters walked out and St John told chairman Derrick Robins that he didn't want to stay in the circumstances and played the last of his 22 games for the club against West Brom on 17th March 1972, Bob Dennison's first game as caretaker manager.

The Saint played a few games for Tranmere Rovers the following season before suffering a broken leg and went into management. He was briefly a success at his old club Motherwell before three unremarkable seasons as manager of Portsmouth. Later he moved into the media where he carved out a new career as part of arguably the finest double act in football punditry, Saint and Greavsie. Jimmy Greaves cracked the jokes while Saint tried to keep a straight face and the chemistry proved a hit. During the 1987 FA Cup run Jimmy consistently tipped City to lose whilst, I am sure, secretly willing his old Chelsea team-mate John Sillett to be a success.

RIP Saint